Scale of WEEE from businesses revealed

Some 234,000 tonnes of business electricals are being thrown away in the UK each year, according to research by Material Focus.

The not-for-profit campaigns around waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling and reuse. Previous work from Material Focus found UK households were throwing away 155,000 tonnes of electricals each year.

But this latest piece of work, carried out by Eunomia Research & Consulting, discovered up to 484,000 tonnes of electricals were bought by businesses and other organisations in 2019, including phones, IT and appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines.

If all the business waste electricals sold in 2019 were eventually recycled, 663,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions could be saved, the 'Business Electrical Waste: Challenges and Opportunities' report found.

Material Focus executive director Scott Butler said: "This research highlights the huge benefits if more businesses were to recycle or reuse all of their unwanted electricals."

He added: "We are losing forever precious and critical raw materials that the UK economy is reliant upon. Instead these electricals should be reused, donated to those in need or the materials they are made from recycled and used in new products."

Eunomia head of sustainable business Mark Hilton said: "Business waste electricals have long since been the Cinderella of the waste electricals sector, which has been focused on meeting household collection targets.

"This report highlights that the amount of electricals sold to businesses is far greater than previously thought, and that there is a need to better track where the products go during their lifecycle, and to ensure that all business waste electricals are separately collected, and recycled by AATFs.

"This could offer very significant benefits in terms of meeting UK recycling targets, whilst also offering large carbon and wider environmental benefits."