Recently there has been a surge in the number of companies offering you cashback for your old mobiles.
However this still leaves a large amount of old electronic items in the household which end up being wasted at council depots etc. This is a huge amount of waste which we produce, allow me to explain
in 2007 we purchased 89,221.638 tonnes of small electrical items, in the same year we sent 6,977.42 tonnes to a council or recycling depot. You would expect the 2nd figure to be much higher based on the amount of new equipment that was purchased. (source www.letsrecycle.com)
Is this because we tend to keep the smaller electrical items.
I had a look at the smaller items and this is a list that I managed to come up with
Computers (PC, laptops etc) , Mini stack Stereos, Camcorders, , Keyboards, Printers, CD players, MP3 players, Game consoles, Telephones - static, mobile, PDA, VCR's, DVD players, radio's, cables, wiring, calculators, ST boxes.
Then I went through my house, looking in long lost cupboards and of course the short trip up the ladder into the loft. The items that I found amazed me especially as many have been covered in dust for a long time.
3x old desktop PC's
3x calculators
1x hairdryer
2x old MP3 players
1x Old non digital camcorder
1x DVD Recorder (broken kept in case it started working again)
6 x Mobiles of little value on any of the websites
1x PS2 (not used since the purchase of the PS3)
2 x old routers
3 reels of old telephony cable
1x reel of Cable (not used and was taken out since I went wireless)
2 x Gameboy advances (replaced with DS')
2x old stereo's
What amazes me further is that we are are pretty pro active house when it comes to recycling - I often visit the tip with many an item, In fact i was there last week with a car full, but with none of the above stuff!
Now here are the questions
1) Do we tend to keep the electrical items because of the original cost, or do we think there is still a value
2) do you think you have as many items as me, or more or less
