Why Recycle Old IT Equipment?
WEEE Compliant Recycling Facility
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) can be defined as any electrical or electronic waste running on batteries or has a plug, whether whole or broken, that is destined for disposal. WEEE is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the UK and is the second highest in the world with an estimated 2 million tonnes of WEEE items discarded by householders and companies in the UK.
What does WEEE regulations mean for businesses in UK?
The Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2013 (“the Regulations”) became law in the UK on the 1st of January 2014 and replaced the 2006 Regulations.
WEEE Regulations require UK businesses to responsibly recycle their e-waste by their own or through authorised company like us, Level3Recycling, aiming to reduce the environmental impacts caused by end-of life electronic and electrical items.
In the face of ever tighter data protection and environmental regulations, along with the proliferation of IT equipment and devices, it has become imperative that business owners and managers know how and where to ethically, responsibly and compliantly dispose of their obsolete electronics and destroy all traces of stored data.
No-one is more aware of this than we are at Level 3 Recycling, we have worked in the IT business for 20 years, buying, selling and replacing equipment. Time and again clients have asked what they could do about their e-waste and we help solve the problem by providing a successful business to effectively and efficiently deal with the growing mound of e-waste across the UK.
The whole world is aiming for a zero landfill policy when it comes to waste, and end of life IT equipment is definitely up there with the top non-biodegradables that we don’t want to pollute the ground. IT equipment usually contains mercury, lead, chromium and other toxic materials that can end up contaminating groundwater or soil around landfill sites.
That’s why, if reuse isn’t an option, obsolete IT equipment and electronic waste should be recycled in accordance with prevailing legislation and standards, after first being robustly cleaned of any data.
At approved recycling facilities like ours in West Yorkshire, e-waste components are broken down to their base materials which can then be used in the manufacture of other items.
Things like computers and printers are made up of many components containing sometimes rare and precious materials, as well as useful, things like plastic and glass which can be recovered and repurposed.
Some of the metals – like lead – contained in IT equipment are toxic so it is damaging to the environment to just throw these items away into landfill.
At our recycling facility we dismantle, shred and dispose of old IT equipment following WEEE Directive procedures and using energy-efficient methods, recovering every resource that is contained in the hardware to be reused in the manufacture of new products.
Recovering rare earth metals and valuable materials like copper, silver and even gold also means that these limited resources are conserved and don’t have to be mined using energy-intensive practices.
IT equipment recycling is a positive win-win situation for people and the planet – an industry we are proud to be involved in.
As more and more new electronic devices hit the market, so too rises the volume of e-waste being generated, which it has been reported is likely to reach 120 million tonnes by 2050.
WEEE regulations require all businesses and organisations to act responsibly when upgrading their IT equipment, replacing old equipment or discarding equipment when closing down. Not only is dumping e-waste in landfill harmful, but if it hasn’t been professionally wiped of data it is also a security risk to yourself and your clients/customers.
It costs very little to have us pick up your old IT equipment for recycling – and very often we are able to pay you if the equipment you discard turns out to be reusable.