NEWS
British Metals Recycling Association News New rules urgently needed to help safely deal with mountain of unwanted electrical waste
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EW rules are “urgently required” to prevent households throwing unwanted electrical equipment out with the general waste over Christmas, a leading recycling association has said. The call comes as experts say waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) can now be linked to three times more fires inside bin lorries and at household waste recycling centres than initially thought. WEEE generally covers products that have a plug or need a battery, such as fridges, vacuum cleaners, cookers, mobile phones and computer equipment. Discarded items may contain batteries which can cause fires if they are damaged, and they need to be treated differently to general
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Future Waste
household waste. And with councils set to collect two million unwanted WEEE items, the British Metal Recycling Association (BMRA) say local authorities should carry out kerbside collections. James Kelly, the CEO of the BMRA, said: “Councils need to introduce kerbside collections for discarded WEEE items. That is because we are seeing increased fires happening in bin lorries and at household waste recycling centres as well as metal recycling sites like those of our members where these items can end up in the incorrect waste stream. People’s lives are at risk.” The BMRA says the fires are often caused by damaged lithium and lithium-ion batteries inside the discarded electrical items. There have long been fears that they cause fires, but research by the Recycle Your Electricals campaign led by Material Focus say they can now be linked to 700 fires in the past 12 months. And Mr. Kelly, whose trade association represents the £7 billion UK metal recycling sector, said the
January 2023