Recycling Guide Blog

Phone recycling companies to check for stolen handsets

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:26:46 BST

Recycling your mobile phone when you want to get your hands on the latest model is a great idea. However, it’s now become so easy to benefit financially from the practice that mobile-phone recycling firms have had to admit to the problem of mobile-phone thieves taking advantage of the service.

About 100,000 stolen handsets are sent to recycling firms every year according to estimates, worth a combined value of £4 million.

The problem is that even if mobile handsets are blocked from UK networks after they have been reported as stolen, they can still be used overseas where many of the recycled handsets end up.

It seems the ability to get easy money with no questions asked has proved too easy for thieves: until now, that is.

Mobile-phone recycling companies have just signed up to a new code of conduct to reduce the number of stolen mobile phones being recycled.

From now on companies will check the phones they receive against the National Mobile Phone Register. If they find any stolen phones they will report them to police. The register is formed of three separate databases which should provide a good level of protection.

Over 15 firms have signed up to the code of conduct at the time of writing, making up 90% of the industry.

Charlo Carabott, the managing director of Mazuma Mobile, is quoted by the BBC, admitting that the high prices it was offering for old mobiles “could encourage people to go out and steal handsets,” and although the company had taken its own precautions from the beginning, this was an important milestone as the first “industry-wide standard”.

Plastic recycling expansion

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:36:42 BST

The North East of England’s largest independent waste management firm, Premier Waste, has announced a new hard plastics recycling service designed to combat the amount of plastic waste being sent to landfill sites in the UK.

With many summer products destined for landfill sites, Premier Waste’s timing should ensure that plastic recycling rates increase, with drop off points installed at nine of their Household Waste Recycling Centres in County Durham. The decision to offer local residents the opportunity to recycle all non-electrical hard plastic products is part of a wider initiative to increase recycling rates in County Durham and the UK.

The plastic collected will be used by manufacturers to make everyday items such as carrier bags, drain pipes, garden furniture, fleece jackets and sleeping bags, helping to reduce the estimated 3 million tonnes of plastic waste generated annually in the UK.

With plastic production currently using 8% of the world’s oil, it is clear that current practice is unsustainable, since oil is a non-renewable energy source that is rapidly being depleted. An increase in plastic recycling will make it easier for the UK to continue to enjoy many of its summer products made from plastic, with new items being manufactured from unwanted goods, and will also help the UK government to reach its current recycling targets.

If the scheme is successful at boosting recycling figures across County Durham, it is envisaged that the service will be expanded to include other parts of the North East of England as the UK continues its drive to increase recycling levels nationwide.

South Oxfordshire top of the league for recycling

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:37:13 BST

South Oxfordshire district council has claimed that last year it recycled or composted 73% of the household waste collected. This announcement comes a year after the introduction of an expanded collection scheme that has led to the inclusion of food waste composting. If confirmed by the UK government, this figure would put the district top of the league for recycling rates in England.

Between June 2009 and early June 2010, South Oxfordshire District Council’s municipal services contractor, Verdant, was able to collect a total of 18,531 tonnes of dry recycling, 6,115 tonnes of food waste, and 7,434 tonnes of garden waste. When added to the collections from the district’s recycling banks, this brought the area’s overall recycling and composting to 32,621 tonnes, compared to only 11,739 tonnes of waste sent to landfill sites in that same period.

This stunning achievement is reported to have saved around £350,000 of taxpayers’ money annually, whilst also generating up to £850,000 in recycling credits. This has been achieved despite an expansion of services provided by the council, demonstrating that expanding recycling services can help councils to cut costs as they look to reduce their expenditure and seek new revenue sources.

Despite the success of the scheme, the scenario could have looked very different. When the recycling service was changed last year, 1,000 homes were left without bins as the collections started. Shockingly, these teething problems were attributed to the fact that many of the individuals hired by contractors to issue the bins were unable to read addresses or use maps.

New recycling network for London announced

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:42:11 BST

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced that a new network is being launched to improve the recycling of household items in the nation’s capital. The aim of the new network is to drastically reduce the amount of useable items that are being thrown away and ending up in landfill sites.

The campaign was jointly launched with actress Joanna Lumley, and will receive £8 million from the London Waste and Recycling Board. The London Community Resource Network, which comprises 35 separate organisations, has been commissioned to run the programme, which will be called the London Reuse Network.

The London Assembly claims that about 65,000 tonnes of household waste are thrown away in London each year. The new network will aim to divert as much of this as possible into being reused. This will include items such as books, fridges, furniture and other reusable household items.

Boris Johnson said that it is “common sense” to encourage people to hand in items that they no longer need but which can still be used by others. He hopes that they will be able to “slash the mountain of waste” that is currently sent to landfill.

Matthew Thomson, the chief executive of the London Community Resource Network, said that most of its members in London were small and so could only operate on a local level. The new network will allow them to combine their forces to achieve more.

Residents will all have one single number to phone, and wherever they live one of the social enterprises will be able to turn up and collect the items. There will also be a web portal for the whole city. The aim is that by 2015 the network will divert over a million items from being sent to landfill every year. Hundreds of jobs are also expected to be created.

WRAP urges councils to work together to sell recyclables

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:46:27 BST

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) have urged local councils to work together to ensure they are getting value from the material they collect.

WRAP has also begun to investigate how to increase recycling rates for aluminium can and foil by working with the Beverage Can Makers Europe to analyse waste composition. This will include analysing what is stopping people from deciding to recycle as well as investigating the social demographics of those who choose to, and choose not to recycle these items, with the eventual aim of providing councils with more opportunities to increase the revenue they are able to raise through recycling.

As well as attempting to increase recycling rates to help councils generate extra revenue, WRAP’s director for local government services, Phillip Ward, has branded councils as ‘useless’ at getting value from the material they currently collect. To improve this, he has suggested that councils, which are looking for ways to increase their income, should look at working collectively to sell their recyclables, as many currently do when buying services. Ward’s suggestion is based on the example of 10 Hertfordshire councils who have already successfully generated extra revenue by joining together to send newspaper to Shropshire-based Newport Paper.

The increase in profits generated through this partnership has encouraged the councils to deepen their relationship by signing two year contracts with two UK companies, with the aim of sending all their plastic, cans, glass and Tetra Pak cartons to the two recycling firms, with the expectation of raising £560,000 a year in extra income.

Should the Hertfordshire experiment continue to produce success it appears likely that councils across the UK may adopt their methods.

iPhone 3G most-recycled phone

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:34:50 BST

As with all things Apple, the iPhone 4, the latest version of the all-conquering smartphone, was released to a fanfare of hype and expectation last month. Desirable it may be, but priced at anywhere up to £600, it certainly doesn’t come cheap.

That leaves many fans desperate to get their hands on the new phone facing a conundrum: how to afford the latest must-have gadget?

The answer seems to be through recycling their old iPhones.

Sell My Mobile, the comparison site for recycling phones, has announced that the iPhone 3G was the most-recycled phone on the market during June 2010. This points to the fact that many fans of the iPhone are so desperate to get their hands on the latest incarnation of the model that they are ditching their old versions to raise a bit of extra cash to pay for it.

And it’s not an insignificant amount: the average amount that can be raised from trading in an old iPhone is £77.75, with highs of up to £170 reported. Sell My Mobile confirmed that the price will fluctuate depending on the buyer, so it is always best to look around for a good deal.

This is a great advertisement for the recycling of phones. Mobile phones consist of materials that mean they should not be thrown away to end up in landfill sites. The more people that start to recycle their mobile phones, the better it will be for the environment. And at the same time, as this proves, there are some real financial incentives for doing so.