Monday, January 11, 2010
THE countless people that got new laptops, PCs, battery-operated toys, home appliances and any number of other electrical goods for Christmas have an issue – how to get rid of the old items that have been replaced.
Rather than putting such items, including batteries, in the garage, or, worse, leaving them out with the household rubbish for collection, there are easy ways to send these materials for recycling.
While our record in some waste areas is far from praiseworthy, electrical recycling is something Irish people do well. More than 30,000 tonnes of this equipment was collected in 2008, which put us at the top of a six nation’s recycling table, ahead of England, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy.
As a nation, our electronic recycling rate per person is more than double the EU average, according to Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), the Irish agency responsible for collecting the waste and having it recycled. The statistics are staggering. In 2008, 725,000 large household appliances, including fridges and freezers, 300,000 TV sets and computer monitors, and 4.5m smaller items, such as kettles, toasters and radios, were collected.
Our appetite for these goods and gadgets seems insatiable. Major companies, like the computer multinational, Dell, are committed to recycling options and ensuring that used goods are disposed of in an environmentally acceptable way. A spokesperson for Dell says December and January are traditionally times when people think about getting new computer equipment, with the question of getting rid of the old equipment arising. "It is very important to us that recycling options are made as simple and easy to access as possible, not just for Dell customers but for all IT customers," she says.
Urging people to consider the impact that not recycling this technology has on the environment, she says the amount of electrical waste in Ireland is enormous. Levels of e-waste grow higher at Christmas, and, with some of this ending up in landfill, it raises concerns about the risk of toxic waste. People can give old technology to charity, or donate it to websites such as www.recyclefree.ie. They can also involve local organisations or councils, and set up community electronics recycling days, or arrange e-waste collections in their areas.
Many everyday consumer items contain electrical parts. Any appliance that runs on electricity has the potential to cause damage to the environment if it is not disposed of in a responsible way.
Dealing with the waste this sector produces is becoming increasingly difficult, because the life span of electronic goods is becoming shorter and the amount of broken or obsolete equipment that is being thrown away is increasing.
If electrical and electronic products are disposed of in landfill sites, millions of tonnes of materials that could be recovered, and reused for new products, are being lost. Recovery of these materials would reduce the need to extract more raw materials for the manufacture of new products.
Another benefit of recycling is the saving of energy achieved, if raw materials could be recycled instead of mined. For example, aluminium mining uses 20 times the amount of energy it takes to recycle the same amount.
Some electronic equipment and components contain substances that are considered dangerous to the environment and human health, if they are disposed of carelessly.
Although these dangerous substances are usually only contained in small amounts, they have great potential for causing serious environmental damage. Some of the substances could include mercury, cadmium, arsenic, asbestos and lead.
Since being set up in 2005, WEEE Ireland has collected and recycled about 21m consumer electronic goods and has diverted 100,000 tonnes of electronic waste away from landfill for recycling.
In 2008, there was a 30% increase in such waste collected at special events, including collection days, held in co-operation with local councils in areas not well serviced by recycling centres.
Also, 15,000 ‘lite boxes’ were given to the lighting industry for the collection of waste fluorescent lamps. This resulted in the collection of two million fluorescent tubes and energy-saving, CFL bulbs.
Also, the distribution of 60,000 battery recycling boxes to battery retailers was successful in helping people recycle old batteries.
Ireland is now, arguably, one of the best countries in the world for electrical recycling and this trend is likely to continue. Good practices have been established in recent years and the collection system appears to be improving all the time, giving producers, retailers, and the general public ever more opportunities to dispose of old goods in an environmentally friendly manner.
All of which proves, yet again, that if people know facilities are available they will use them.
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