Have you recycled your electricals?

[Bryn]

Apparently in the UK, people were told to dig out unwanted electricals to tackle copper shortage, and have them recycled to address that issue. That makes me wonder if other countries around the world had advocated for the same thing... or do people just do it off their own backs.

For me, I have, but it was months ago regarding random stuff that were of no use anymore (and even those that were bricked, such as an old tablet) and I should have some more lying around... but I know I have a Sky+ HD box disused ever since we switched away from Sky themselves five years ago.

So, what about you?

[ebastler]

Apparently in the UK, people were told to dig out unwanted electricals to tackle copper shortage

I take it that you read the article and realize that "people were told" so not by a government agency, but by a not-for-profit organization which is funded by the manufacturers of electrical equipment? And the mission of that not-for-profit is to increase the recycling quota for electrical equipment -- because if that quota is too low, said manufacturers get to pay penalty fees.

Which does not mean that recycling is a bad thing. But the appetite for it is not triggered by a national copper crisis, but rather by commercial-company fee-paying pains...

[factory]

Why would I want to give my broken stuff? I'm quite happy to take it apart myself, salvage any parts I want to keep and sell the metals/cables to the scrapyard. The plastics go in landfill so that they can't be turned into CO2 & pollution (by the clown-cils sending them for burning), the recycling centre gets the PCBs.

David

[themadhippy]

please stop ,the only thing that it will achieve is reducing the price of scrap copper,and our scrap copper bin is our yearly bonus.

[factory]

The scrap copper bin will be empty, once everything has copper coated steel or aluminium wiring. 

David

[Stray Electron]

Apparently in the UK, people were told to dig out unwanted electricals to tackle copper shortage, and have them recycled to address that issue. That makes me wonder if other countries around the world had advocated for the same thing... or do people just do it off their own backs.

For me, I have, but it was months ago regarding random stuff that were of no use anymore (and even those that were bricked, such as an old tablet) and I should have some more lying around... but I know I have a Sky+ HD box disused ever since we switched away from Sky themselves five years ago.

So, what about you?

   I haven't heard anything about a copper shortage here in the US since the early 1970s when all of the greenies claimed that the WORLD was running out of copper and that by 1985 ALL of the world's copper ore would be mined and that no more would be available.  Hmm. I must have missed that. And products containing copper (such as electronics) continue to be available.

  But back to your original statement; copper scrap is worth GOOD money so it's no surprise that some organizations are wanting you to give it to them.

  A couple of friends of mine in Florida own a some electronics recycling businesses so what little electronics that I do scrap (and all of my metal scrap), all goes to them which makes a bit of money for them and also keeps it the stuff out of a landfill.  It pays to stay on the good side of these folks, I've got all of them watching for old (very OLD) computers and other stuff that I'm interested in (Did I mention that I found THREE Apple Lisas at one of these places some years ago? :-)  My advice to find a local company that actually scraps electronics and that recycles ALL of the material and give (not sell) your old stuff to them. You watch out for them and they'll watch out for you!

   And FYI, none of them take shitt such as CRTs anymore, there's no market for them and it all goes to a special landfill and the LF owners charge them good money to dump them.  Other than CRTs, the recyclers will take pretty much anything. 

[themadhippy]

, none of them take shitt such as CRTs anymore, there's no market for them and it all goes to a special landfill and the LF owners charge them good money to dump them

surely the glass could be melted down and reused

[coppice]

, none of them take shitt such as CRTs anymore, there's no market for them and it all goes to a special landfill and the LF owners charge them good money to dump them

surely the glass could be melted down and reused

TV CRTs use lead glass. They won't recycle that through the normal glass recycling channels.

[Kim Christensen]

Here in BC Canada, the recyclers don't really want glass. They begrudgingly take it because it's part of their contract with the municipality.
We have a small fee on all electronics that we buy which pays for free disposal and recycling at local depots.

[ebastler]

   I haven't heard anything about a copper shortage here in the US since the early 1970s when all of the greenies claimed that the WORLD was running out of copper and that by 1985 ALL of the world's copper ore would be mined and that no more would be available.  Hmm. I must have missed that. And products containing copper (such as electronics) continue to be available.

I can only repeat what I wrote in my first reply above: There is no copper shortage in the UK either. This is just a spin which that industry lobbying group has put on their "please recycle more, so the companies which fund us don't have to pay penalties" initiative.

[coppice]

   I haven't heard anything about a copper shortage here in the US since the early 1970s when all of the greenies claimed that the WORLD was running out of copper and that by 1985 ALL of the world's copper ore would be mined and that no more would be available.  Hmm. I must have missed that. And products containing copper (such as electronics) continue to be available.

I can only repeat what I wrote in my first reply above: There is no copper shortage in the UK either. This is just a spin which that industry lobbying group has put on their "please recycle more, so the companies which fund us don't have to pay penalties" initiative.

Whilst there is no current shortage of copper, the price rose a lot in 2019 and 2020 and stayed there. You might expect a steady price rise as more things go electric, but I am not clear why there was a jump at that particular time. It doesn't feel like the products in big demand in the COVID era would be big copper users.

 

[thm_w]

Sure there is no shortage but its always going to be better to recycle old copper instead of throwing it out and mining new. Both in terms of cost and environmental effect.

[SiliconWizard]

Items such as cables and old tech could contain £266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study finds

 

[Stray Electron]

Items such as cables and old tech could contain £266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study finds

 

   But the real question is what would it cost to recover those metals?  I know that in the scrap metal market coaxial cables are worth nothing because of how little metal they contain and the great amount of plastic and the difficulty in separating the two. 

[5U4GB]

Apparently in the UK, people were told to dig out unwanted electricals to tackle copper shortage, and have them recycled to address that issue. That makes me wonder if other countries around the world had advocated for the same thing... or do people just do it off their own backs.

It's done on a massive scale in South Africa, typically while the wires are still in use.  You can drive for miles down country roads with nothing but empty telephone/power poles along the side of the road.

[pcprogrammer]

Apparently in the UK, people were told to dig out unwanted electricals to tackle copper shortage, and have them recycled to address that issue. That makes me wonder if other countries around the world had advocated for the same thing... or do people just do it off their own backs.

It's done on a massive scale in South Africa, typically while the wires are still in use.  You can drive for miles down country roads with nothing but empty telephone/power poles along the side of the road.

But here in rural France the telephone cables are hardly used with the service now running over fiber cables, but I don't expect them to be removed soon. Next year the phone companies will stop servicing them in case of failure and you are forced to switch to fiber in such a case. Probably lots of copper to be harvested there.

In the Netherlands there have been problems with cables being ripped out along the railways. The thieves don't give shit what it causes, as long as they earn some money of of it.

[Zero999]

The plastics go in landfill so that they can't be turned into CO2 & pollution (by the clown-cils sending them for burning), the recycling centre gets the PCBs.

Great, so extract more oil, rather than burning the waste plastic we already have.

Items such as cables and old tech could contain £266m worth of metal vital for decarbonisation drive, study finds

 

   But the real question is what would it cost to recover those metals?  I know that in the scrap metal market coaxial cables are worth nothing because of how little metal they contain and the great amount of plastic and the difficulty in separating the two. 

It's easy to separate the plastic from metal. The plastic can be burned to generate electricity, reducing the need to extract more oil and gas, then the metal is left.

[Bryn]

I take it that you read the article and realize that "people were told" so not by a government agency, but by a not-for-profit organization which is funded by the manufacturers of electrical equipment?

Yes, I knew that already when I read it...

[themadhippy]

The plastics go in landfill so that they can't be turned into CO2 & pollution (by the clown-cils sending them for burning

Typical uk,cant burn our own waste without making a mess and upsetting the locals,and yet our neighbors over in sweden not only manage it fairly successfully,they even take in our waste (for a fee ) and turn it into electricity.

[factory]

The plastics go in landfill so that they can't be turned into CO2 & pollution (by the clown-cils sending them for burning), the recycling centre gets the PCBs.

Great, so extract more oil, rather than burning the waste plastic we already have.

We need to reduce & stop both. And reduce the need for this copper (mentioned in the article) by reducing car use.
There has been several news articles recently about these waste burning power stations, nothing good about them & more polluting than burning coal.

David

[Zero999]

The plastics go in landfill so that they can't be turned into CO2 & pollution (by the clown-cils sending them for burning), the recycling centre gets the PCBs.

Great, so extract more oil, rather than burning the waste plastic we already have.

We need to reduce & stop both. And reduce the need for this copper (mentioned in the article) by reducing car use.
There has been several news articles recently about these waste burning power stations, nothing good about them & more polluting than burning coal.

David

No, we don't need to stop anything, because it won't make any difference on a global scale, as the likes of China and India will keep opening new coal mines and power stations. All we do is cripple ourselves even more than we're already doing. A lot of those emissions that we've supposedly reduced have simply been offshored.

There are many nonsensical articles, especially by the likes of the Guardian, which I consider to be a comic, more than a serious newspaper. It's not just the burning. Coal has to be mined and transported, as well as oil, along with other costs to the environment. For example, we burn wood chip, but it emits more than coal, when the fact it's shipped across the Atlantic is taken into account. It makes far more sense to burn the waste, as close to the source as possible.

, none of them take shitt such as CRTs anymore, there's no market for them and it all goes to a special landfill and the LF owners charge them good money to dump them

surely the glass could be melted down and reused

TV CRTs use lead glass. They won't recycle that through the normal glass recycling channels.

I wonder if it could be used for nuclear waste disposal? I suppose there isn't enough demand for that to cope with the large number of discarded CRTs.

[factory]

When I said 'we' I didn't just mean here, replace 'we' with 'everyone'. Everyone needs to gradually stop burning stuff. And they are burning waste that would have gone to landfill, along with the recycling waste (that they can't be bothered to actually recycle).

And like newspapers, this thread is a bit of a waste of my time, I'm done.

David