Donal Hickey: It's time to be a WEEE bit smarter

Irish homes contain an average of 15 to 20 broken, or unused, electrical goods

Each person is responsible for an average of 5kg of hoarded electrical waste.

There probably isn’t a house in Ireland these days without a discarded mobile phone in some corner. We’re among the biggest users of these devices, with 3.68m of us owning one at this stage, and growing.

Indeed, our use of anything with a battery, or a plug, is rising annually. A visit to the waste electrics section of a recycling centre offers evidence of that. The other day I was surprised to see more of these goods than ever in a centre, ranging from small items like kettles and toasters to bulkier goods such as fridges and barbeques.