| General > General Technical Chat |
| What's the situation with E-Waste in your country? Can you 'pick up for repair'? |
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| AVGresponding:
--- Quote from: retiredfeline on December 21, 2023, 11:19:59 pm ---I'm pretty sure waste collection centres here don't allow hobbyists to go pick what they like because it would be disruptive to their operations, would only cover a tiny fraction of their waste stream, and there are OH&S and liability issues letting random people onto their premises. From a recycling point of view it would be better to encourage people to take stuff to community repair centres in the first place, but these only exist in certain cities. If you are after stuff, just cruise the streets on the night before collection. Even that is frowned on by councils because some collectors make a mess extracting what they want so you have to do this stealthily. For a long time I used to see CRTs on televisions and monitors smashed to detach the yoke which contains a lot of copper. --- End quote --- Partly this ^, and also because the waste collection site will (or at least should) have a contract/contracts with organisation/s that process whole items for reuse. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment-weee-collection-code-of-practice/collection-of-waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment-weee-from-designated-collection-facilities-dcfs-code-of-practice#contents |
| mendip_discovery:
Our local recycling centres to me used to keep stuff to the side for people they knew. Oddly most of the staff were from a known community where living near the edge of the law is the norm. The issue I had was that the stuff would often appear at the next carboot sale, I got caught out a few times myself. There have been a few shows on TV that have used stuff from the recycling centres but with strong wording they got permission first. They restore it and sell it for a profit. They always end up making profit even though it was lucky they got some random material that would normally cost a silly amount. These days there are plenty of CCTV around to prevent the staff taking bribes etc. But I haven't seen much that has tempted me for years, as most of the scrap ends up on ebay. |
| CJay:
What you're looking for, I think, is a 'licence to extract', your local authority should be able to at least acknowledge the existence of such a thing but it's entirely possible that they won't issue one as the local refuse facility is run by a private company and/or they already have contracts in place. The operators of the site are not likely to be happy to allow you to rummage through as well because elfin safety (not unreasonable at my local one, they have great big open topped contaners and falling into one of those or having a pile of crap fall onto you would not be good for your health). It does hurt though, seeing all the 'stuff' thrown away, so much of it either easily repairable or not even faulty, just replaced because fashion or 'too old'. |
| cburgess:
Another option might be freecycle.org I've sometimes seen people post "wanted" for this kind of stuff. It's a win-win - effectively intercepting items before they get to the tip. Years ago I got hold of a decent guitar amp that the owner was throwing out because it needed a couple of scratchy pots replacing. A useful way of keeping things out of landfill. |
| johansen:
I found a friend 's. Brother's. and his moms laptop at the dump. They have never really looked at me the same since i asked them for the password so i could use the windows operating system. My guess is most places wont let you take stuff for fear of identity theft. |
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