Greater Manchester based REPIC and EMERGE Recycling have teamed up to provide reuse and recycling for the new Recycle Your Electricals initiative, and welcome the campaign’s giant toaster (6.8ft by 12.8ft) for the first time to the North of England.

Recycle Your Electricals^[1] launched its Love Your Old Toaster campaign at the weekend (4th-6th November) at Manchester’s Trafford Centre to encourage visitors to show their unwanted electricals more love and to donate or recycle their old or broken toasters and other small electricals.

New research commissioned by Material Focus, the not for profit leading the Recycle Your Electricals campaign, found that Manchester throws away over half a million toasters each year^[2] despite 45% of Mancunians loving their toast and regularly consuming it at least several times a week. The giant toaster was located inside the Trafford Centre for the duration of the weekend as an additional pop-up e-waste collection point and also to encourage a greater number of small electricals to be kept in circulation longer or the materials they contain to be recovered through responsible reuse and recycling.

Keen to inspire change and help offer more practical assistance with the collection of small electricals off the back of their recent success of two new pop-up collection sites in Greater Manchester for International E-Waste Day. EMERGE Recycling, managed the collection and sorting of the electricals for local reuse of working products, with REPIC arranging for the recycling of broken and unusable products.

REPIC representatives joined Material Focus in engaging with the general public on the benefits of recycling their unwanted, old or broken electricals for reuse or recycling. They provided guidance to those interested in learning more on how and where best to dispose of the once-loved small electricals they currently have stored in their North West homes.

REPIC, who manages and finances the recycling of end of life electricals on behalf of many of the major UK electrical and electronics brands, also invited keen local recycling enthusiast, councillor, Stephen Adshead, Executive Member for Environmental Services at Trafford Council, one of the first visitors to see the giant toaster, and helping to kick start the recycling efforts for the area.

Councillor, Stephen Adshead, commented: “The giant toaster, with its eye-catching design, offered a great way for visitors to the Trafford Centre to take notice and inspire change in their own household.”

REPIC’s Chief Executive, Louise Grantham, added: “We were really pleased to be out in our local community supporting Material Focus to encourage the North West to give their unwanted and broken electricals more love.   We talked to visitors about the value in metals in their old, unwanted and broken electricals that can be recovered and reused in new products. The message seemed to resonate with people and hopefully lots more people now feel confident about reuse and recycling and how to go about it.

“If everyone who we had a chat with over the weekend, went home and cleared out their hoarded electricals, batteries and cables and responsibly recycled them at one of the 5,000 electrical and battery recycling points across the UK we’d be well on our way to making a big collective difference.”

EMERGE Recycling’s Managing Director, Gareth Jones, said “As early pioneers in recycling, through our 24-year history, we’ve been at the forefront of a range of reuse projects locally and regionally.  We’re thrilled to be joining REPIC and Material Focus in this initiative to re-home unwanted electrical goods, and help people across Greater Manchester and beyond to reduce their impact on the environment and move towards a more sustainable future.”

The stand-out colourful pop up ‘toaster’ collection point was designed by young artist, Eloisa Henderson-Figueroa. The eye-catching design attracted a great deal of interest from visitors to the Trafford Centre, who kindly lent their support and space to the campaign for the entire weekend.

For more information or to find your nearest locations for recycling or reusing your old electricals and batteries, simply put your postcode into the locator on the Recycle Your Electricals website.

^[1] Recycle Your Electricals campaign is a UK-wide awareness campaign for e-waste. The campaign, operated by not for profit organisation, Material Focus and funded by producers of electrical equipment, aims to stop the nation throwing away or hoarding unwanted small electricals. Its goal is to make it easier for everyone to recycle and reuse the small electricals we no longer need through funding more recycling points and providing practical information on how households can recycle.

^[2] Based on 0.2 toasters each thrown away and a population of 2,770,000