Many charities in the UK have supplied freepost envelopes in order for people to donate old mobile phones with very little effort. If people now have to wrap and take old phones to the post office then its very likely that far less will be sent in to be recycled.

Another effect of the new regulation will be that as well as less phones being sent in for recycling charities will have to increase their postage costs which will affect how much money they make. One charity reported that as many as 120,000 old handsets were sent in last year due to the simplicity of their freepost envelope.

The new rule states that ‘equipment containing mobile phones or lithium batteries must be packaged in strong packaging and must be secured against movement. They must be packaged in order to prevent accidental activation”

The new rule was created in January by Royal Mail as lithium batteries have been known to catch fire or be potentially dangerous when stored in the holds in Planes.

One of the UK’s biggest recyclers is currently talking with Royal Mail to try and come up with a better solution to the problem.

Steps to Follow When Sending Unwanted Mobiles to Online Recyclers

Popular mobile recycler Money4urMobile suggests the following 4 simple steps to follow when sending in old mobile handsets:

1. Switch your phone off, leave the battery inside the phone and do not charge it before sending it in.
2. Package your unwanted mobile using either your own envelope or one provided by the recycler. Put your handset in either the original box it was bought in or secure it with bubble wrap so it can’t move in transit. You should not put more than 2 items in the same envelope.
3. Make sure the package is securely sealed and stick the label on the front if necessary.
4. Take your pack to the Post Office and send it using the freepost address provided or for higher value phones use Special Delivery.

You can learn more about the new lithium battery postage regulations at Money4urMobile here

What To Do With Your Old Tree

First remove all the decorations and lights and put them away for next year. Remove it from its pot or stand and then find out whether a special collection will be made in your local area. Special collections will usually be advertised in your local newspaper or a sticker will be on your green bin. If there are no adverts about you could ring your local council to see whether they offering a collection. On the day of the collection simply leave your old tree in the designated area or next to your green bin to picked up.

In London all 33 boroughs are offering Xmas tree recycling services with 26 of these doing a collection from home service and the other 17 offering special drop off points. More details of these can be found at Recycle for London. Most local authorities around the country are offering similar services.

If you miss the collection in your local area you could alternatively take your unwanted tree to your local waste recycling centre or a drop off point at your local park. Always best to check with them first before making the trip.

Any old xmas trees that are collected will be shredded and the chips used for decoration in parks or other wooded areas.

Other Options

Another option would be to chop it up yourself and put the pieces straight into your green bin to be composted.

If you know anyone that works at a zoo you could even drop your tree off there as baby elephants love eating them!

What Can Be Done With Artificial Trees

Although real trees can be recycled artificial trees cannot. Due to the materials they are made out of they can only unfortunately be disposed of at the rubbish tip. However if you don’t want to save your artificial tree till the following year, you could always pass it onto friends or put in on eBay so someone else can make use of it.

Other Xmas Items That Be Recycled or Reused

On top of the millions of Christmas trees that are bought every year there are also a billion Christmas cards and 83 square km of wrapping paper that need disposing of. One good idea for Christmas Cards is to keep them until next year and then cut squares out of them to make them into gift tags. If you don’t want them using up space then you can either put them straight into your blue bin or drop them in at high street retailers who will donate them to Charities such as the Woodland Trust.

Any used wrapping paper can go straight in your blue bin just try to remove any sellotape that may be stuck to it first.

2012 has once again seen a huge growth in the amount of new recycling websites that will recycle your old and even broken gadgets in return for cash or high street vouchers, the best of the bunch are as follows:

Money4urMobile - Money4urMobile are part of Redeem Plc who are one of the oldest and most popular recycling companies in the industry. They are definitely worth checking out as they offer some of the highest prices for mobile phones, iPods, iPhones, iPads and other tablet computers which no doubt a lot of people will receive in their Christmas stocking. As well as the electronic devices above, as of this year Money4urMobile will now also buy MP3 players, digital cameras, handheld games consoles and SAT NAVs. Payment is sent via cheque or bank transfer quickly and easily on the same day that they receive your items.

O2 Recycle - O2 Recycle will pay you cash by cheque or BACS for recycling your old digital cameras, mobile phones, MP3 players, games consoles and SAT NAVS. You do not have to be an O2 customer to use this site. One of the great things about O2 recycle is they don’t keep any of the profits, all the money they make is donated to their Think Big charity which helps to change the lives of young people who need help and support in the UK. By using O2 Recycle not only will you get some extra money in your pocket for your unwanted electronics but you will be doing your bit for the environment and the Think Big Charity.

Other than gadgets and mobile phones many people may have received items such as CDs, DVDs, video games and new jewellery for Christmas. Any old items that you have knocking about can be recycled for cash at the following places:

Post Gold for Cash – Gold is currently at an all time high so now would be a great time to dig out any unwanted jewellery and send it in to be recycled and re-sold. For doing this you can earn a whole heap of cash. Not only can you sell jewellery but pretty much anything that is made of gold, silver or other precious metal including cuff links, charms, watches, coins, collectibles, silver flatware, decorative pieces and even gold teeth.

Post Gold for Cash provide you with a free £500 insured envelope to send your unwanted jewellery in. Once it’s received it will be checked over, weighed and valued and your money will be sent out via cheque, BACs or cash within 48 hours.

Music Magpie - This was the first website in the UK that allows you to turn your old CDs, DVDs and video games into cash. Since the site launched they have already paid out millions of pounds to their users. By entering the barcode of each CD, Game or DVD on their site they will provide you with an instant valuation. As of October 2012 they will now buy electronic gadgets and other tech. The great thing about selling on Music Magpie is that you can package up and send everything in the same box. Once it’s all received your items will be checked and payment sent via cheque, bank transfer or e-vouchers (M&S) within 2 days.

Trade Your Games - If you get any new console games for Christmas and want to get rid of the old ones then Trade Your Games is a great site to check out. They are a bit like the trade in shops on the high street where they will accept your unwanted games in return for cash or credit. If you decide you want cash then you can request it by cheque, BACS or Paypal. Alternatively you can use the credit to buy 2nd hand games directly from their site.

One thing everyone gets over the Xmas period is Christmas cards. In fact over 1 billion are sent and received in the UK alone. Rather than just putting them in your recycle bin once the festive season is over you can take them to your nearest M&S store in January to be recycled. For every 1000 cards that M&S receive the Woodland Trust will plant one tree, last year over 8.5 million cards were donated allowing them to plant almost 8500 trees, they are hoping to get more this year. You can find more details on the M&S card recycling scheme here.

The problem is that the mobile technology of phones, tablets and laptops is constantly being worked on to be smaller so companies can offer something slightly better in their hardware every year. Each of the big laptop and mobile phone manufacturers are competing with each other to be the lightest, thinnest, and whateverest. In order to do this all the components in a gadget are made so tiny that they are very difficult if not impossible to replace without damaging the rest of the device.

If the hardware of a modern laptop, not the software that runs on it, needs repairing it can be expensive for an expert to open it up and locate the issue. Some modern laptops and most mobiles are so compact and thin that their cases don’t even have screws and are sealed shut. While they are not impossible to open, doing so may break the casing. In modern laptops more of the parts are more stuck together so nothing is easily replaceable any more.

Modern laptops like this can be broken up and recycled into their component parts, but what a waste that is if all that needed replacing was a circuit board inside. What if there was a way to avoid recycling by improving upon the overall design of gadgets?

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is a non-profit that began in 2005. They wanted to make a computer that was portable and as cheap as possible so school children in developing countries could all be provided with one. Over years of development they have come up with a rugged laptop with a screen that is as readable in direct sunlight as paper is, the hardware inside has been specially selected and programmed to use an extremely small amount of power, and it can be recharged by a solar panel.

One of the key ideas in the design of these laptops was to make them easy to fix, maintain, and upgrade by just about any person provided they have instructions. The modular design means that the screen, touchpad, antennas and keyboard are detachable and can be replaced, by the children themselves. How good would that be, to let the kids fix their own computers?

What can commercial laptop producers learn from OLPC? A lot really. And it’s not just the laptop producers, but you too, if you own a laptop or some kind of mobile device, you are the one who chooses where to put your money whenever you buy a new one. So if there was a commercially available laptop that was slightly bulkier than an expensive 2012 laptop, but meant you could easily fix and upgrade more cheaply and sooner, would you buy it?

A lot of people don’t want the hassle, in these debt-ridden western countries, we’d just use money we probably don’t have to buy convenient and sexy things we shouldn’t really buy because of the damage contribution to the planet. We don’t need them as flashy as they are but many of us are led by the brainwashing television adverts and seductive posters all around the towns saying it will improve our lives and bring us happiness by spending money on an unnecessary, extra thin, shiny thing that you can talk to for the first few months of owning it.

Do we ever consider our long-term happiness, one that is ultimately fulfilled by keeping this planet alive, looking after our fellow humans and the ecosystem surrounding us? I for one want to be happy, I like it. You can do whatever you want, just don’t go complaining on the Internet when basic western living becomes so expensive that fixing your broken laptop means selling your dog (or cat or kidney). How about something more sustainable, something modular, like a modular laptop, phone where you can just replace the parts?

Laptop manufacturers can take note here. Their challenge is to make a system like OLPC is developing, with sustainability in mind, where parts can be replaced easily without having to be a computer expert. They can do it, shame on them if they don’t, but we the consumers need to put our money into the products and companies that take great care of the ecosystem we live in that many of us have become so detached from.

Plastic is found in pretty much every household product that you could possibly think of. The biggest problem with plastic apart from the fact that so much is manufactured every year is that not all of it can be recycled. Some will be ‘downcycled’ into other products but much of it will end up at landfill sites where its estimated it will take up to a 1000 years to fully break down.

So exactly how big is the problem? In the UK over 5 million tonnes of plastic is used every year but only 24% of that is currently being recovered and recycled. The rest is ending up in the world’s oceans, rivers and landfill sites. Recent research has found that there is now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square km in the worlds oceans, that’s a mass as big as the size of France. This waste plastic is killing as many as a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals every year.

What Changes Can I Make to Help?

Every single one of us could be doing more than we are currently doing to try and reduce waste plastic. The following are 20 ideas of where you can make a start today:

1) Bring your own bags when you go shopping. Probably the oldest tip in the book but definately worth remembering. Over 8 billion plastic bags are given out by supermarkets every year and the vast majority of these go straight in the bin.

Another option is to buy your own shopping trolley!

2) Don’t buy plastic drinks bottles. Every year over 13 billion bottles of water are sold in the UK alone, only around 25% of these are recycled. A good solution to the problem would be for you only to buy glass bottles or drinks in cartons. You could also carry your own ceramic or steel reusable bottle around with you everywhere. Another option would be to refill one plastic bottle that you have bought with drinks from home, not only will this help to reduce waste but it will also work out a lot cheaper.

3) Don’t buy products in squeezy bottles. Products such as mustard, ketchup and salad dressing that comes in squeezy bottles cannot be recycled at all, instead buy glass containers.

4) Make your own bread. Buy a bread maker and make your own, not only does it taste much nicer but you won’t be putting all that packaging in the bin every day. You could also buy bread from the bakery or other specialised shops where 9 times out of 10 you will find that it is wrapped in paper.

5) Say no to a straw. Always tell your waiter or waitress that you don’t want a straw, if you really need one then buy a stainless steel one off the internet and carry it around with you.

6) Buy your laundry detergent in a box instead of a bottle. Cardboard and paper can be recycled a lot better than plastic bottles.

7) Take your own reusable containers to the takeaway. When you place your order and are picking up a takeaway (doesn’t apply to drop-offs) tell the restaurant you’ll be bringing your own containers, most of them will be fine with this.

Food from Chinese or Indian takeaways can also be washed out and used to store frozen or other food in.

8) Use matches instead of throwaway lighters. If you need a lighter to light cigarettes, candles or anything else then use matches instead of a throwaway lighter. Plastic lighters are sold in the millions every year and take thousands of years to fully degrade at landfill. If you don’t like matches then buy a refillable metal lighter and use that instead.

9) Buy music online. Buy your music online rather than in CD format in order eliminate the packaging.

10) Keep fruit and vegetables loose in the supermarket. Have you ever stopped to think how much waste must be produced by those little plastic bags that your fruit and vegetables go in at the supermarket. Why not just keep them loose or put them straight into your shopping bag that you’ve brought with you, don’t forget to scan them at the checkout though! You could also buy them loose at your local farmers market or farm shop.

11) Have the milkman deliver your milk. Not only will you be supporting the local economy by having your milk delivered but it also comes in glass bottles. Glass bottles can be washed out at the diary and reused.

12) Grow your own fruit, vegetables and herbs. Rather than buying fruit, veg and herbs in un-recyclable plastic punnets why not grow your own.

13) Do not buy air fresheners. Air fresheners tend to be wrapped up in loads of packaging and are made out of plastic. Instead use a scented candle or just open the window.

14) Don’t use cling film. Instead of using cling film to put over your leftovers, cover them with another plate or put it in your old takeaway containers.

15) Buy soap instead of shower gel / body wash. Buy soap that is packaged in a cardboard box.

16) Don’t use plastic cutlery. If you are going on a picnic, getting a takeaway or eating at work also take your own stainless steel cutlery. If plastic cutlery is easier for you to carry around then you could consider buying environmentally friendly biodegradable and recyclable cutlery from The Bong Tree.

17) Use rechargeable batteries. By using rechargeable batteries you will not have to buy any which come wrapped in plastic packaging.

18) Recycle mobile phones and other gadgets. There’s loads of plastic on mobile phones and other electronic gadgets, so what happens when these devices are sent in to mobile recycling companies to be recycled? If phones cannot be reused then the plastics are melted down and made into sheeting or traffic cones.

19) Stop buying chewing gum. Chewing gum was originally made from natural rubber but now is made from polyvinyl acetate which is a type of plastic.

20) Leave plastic packaging at the Supermarket. You are well within your rights to leave any excess packaging at the tills in the Supermarket. Next time you’re shopping why not make a statement and leave your packaging for the Supermarket to dispose of.

If you can think of any more ways to reduce plastic waste then add them in the comments below.

Wine Bottle Corks

Every year 13 billion wine corks make their way to landfill sites around the world, this is a complete waste as cork is a heavily used resource as well as being renewable, sustainable and 100% natural. Rather than putting your wine corks in the bin why not collect them up and sell them on eBay. There are many designers, craft makers and other businesses that will buy odd things like this on eBay, you won’t make much but a box of several hundred might make you enough to buy yourself a bottle of wine.

Human Hair

Selling your hair may seem like a strange thing to ‘recycle’ but it is actually a perfectly legal and legitimate form of trade. If you really need some extra money and have fast growing hair then there’s no reason why you can’t cut it off and sell it online for a very healthy $100 – $1000. In order to sell your hair it must be unbleached and natural also being a non-smoker will probably help. One website that will help you sell your hair is buyandsellhair.com, you could even put it on eBay.

Gold

Most people know that unwanted or broken jewellery can be sold for cash but was you aware that you can even sell gold teeth, coins, tableware and ornaments if you have any of these knocking about. (Not advisable to pull your teeth out just for the money) There are many gold selling websites online but the one that really stands out is Post Gold for Cash. According to an independent research company, Post Gold for Cash pays more better than their competing sites.

Food Packaging

Rather than putting your empty food packaging in the bin why not check it first to see if it has any kind of loyalty scheme on it. People on eBay and other auction sites will pay cash for your old food wrappers in order to get gifts and other merchandise from the rewards programs. If you don’t want to take part in the loyalty program yourself then save up all the labels, barcodes, bottle tops, ring pulls or whatever else and sell them on to someone that is collecting them.

Rubbish

Now you can even sell your rubbish at the world’s fastest growing green company, TerraCycle. They already have over 20 million people from all around the world collecting and sending in their waste, which is being recycled and made into a wide variety of products and materials. Any money you accumulate by sending in your waste can be either donated to charity or used to feed and clothe people in third world countries.

This Week the 18th – 24th June 2012 is the ninth Recycle Week in the UK and this year the focus is on boosting the amount of plastic bottles that are sent in to be recycled.

With the London Olympics 2012, the Paralympics and Wimbledon approaching fast many drinks will be drunk and many plastic bottles will end up in the bin. It’s not just drink bottles that are ending up in the bin but also toiletry bottles, margarine tubs, yoghurt pots, egg boxes, fruit punnets and anything else made of plastic that can be found in the house are ending up at Britain’s landfill sites. In fact in the UK less than 50% of plastic items are currently going in our recycling bins out of a staggering 15 million that are being used every day.

By recycling all our plastic bottles whilst at home, at work or while we are out and about we can all easily improve the current collection rates. If every person in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle this week it would save enough energy to power 71,000 plasma TV’s for a whole year.

This Year’s Recycle Week is sponsored by the Waste and Resources Action Programme. (WRAP) WRAP says that after the success of recycling plant, Closed Loop Recycling and the launch of a new plastic recycling facility in Lincolnshire means that Britain can easily support an increase in the amount of plastic being sent to be recycled.

To fit in with Recycling Week, Closed Loop Recycling, in Dagenham, Essex have launched a new ‘We need your bottles’ campaign with a specially designed logo. The company is urging the British Public to remember that bottles can be put in recycling bins whether they are at home or out and about. Any bottles that are collected by the company will be sent to the plant to be made into new food and drink packaging.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London also backs the new campaign, he said “Taking the time to put your empty plastic bottles into recycling bins is not only good for the environment but great for our wallets too. Recycling not only saves us all money but also has the added bonus of creating extra jobs in London and around the country.”

To get involved in Recycle Week you can find out what events are happening near you or pick up the resources to set up your own activity by visiting Recycle Now.

Over 10,000 items of clothing are thrown in the bin every 5 minutes which amounts to over a billion items a year. Over 500,000 tonnes of these items will end up at landfill where they will take many years to fully break down causing further damage to the environment.

The new scheme will allow people to drop off their unwanted clothing in a box at any M&S store. The store has called the new scheme ‘Shwopping’ which means taking an old item when you go shopping to put in one of their ‘Shwop Boxes.’ Around 1200 new ‘Shwop Boxes’ have been put in their UK shops at the till points, this works out at around 2 per store.

Any old clothes that are collected in the boxes will be passed to Charity, Oxfam who will either sell good quality goods in in their shops or recycle any that are of bad quality. The charity already gives people a £5 voucher if they bring any unwanted M&S clothes into their shops, this scheme has already boosted donations by 10 million items.

Actress, Joanna Lumley who has been fronting the new campaign and advert for the store, said “Everyone used to throw plastic bottles in the bin with a second thought, now most are recycled correctly, the same has to be done for items of clothing.”

The retailer has set a target on the amount of goods they want to collect each year to match the number of clothing items they sell which is 350 million a year. They hope that this new initiative will change the way we all shop forever.

The Shwopping campaign is part of Marks and Spencer’s Plan A Sustainability programme which aims to meet 180 green commitments by 2018.

You can find out more about the ‘Shwopping’ revolution and join their Facebook group here.

Other Places to Recycle Clothes

If you don’t want to donate your old items to charity there are a few places that you can sell clothes and maybe even make a couple of quid for yourself. If you have designer goods that you have barely worn you could put them on eBay or try a local car boot sale.

Any other clothes, footwear or accessories you want to get rid of you could send to Clothes for Cash. This looks like a great site, they offer 60 per KG which could work out at up to £18 per sack, free courier collection and fast Paypal payments.

The new scheme which is similar to those offered at other online mobile recycling sites, is as close to a new for old trade in service as you can get as you will be trading in your old mobile phones or tablet computer for vouchers that can be used to buy a new mobile or other electronic goods.

The site promises to monitor and update prices on a regular basis in order to be as competitive as possible. At this time the maximum they are offering for any unwanted electronic item is £250 in gift cards.

How it Works

1. Visit the Curry’s / PC World trade in website.
2. Find the device you want to sell by using the search bar or search by manufacturer facility
3. Select the device you want to sell and you will be quoted a working and non-working price.
4. If you are happy with the price then register your details and proceed through the checkout.
5. Once you have checked out you will be sent a return freepost envelope which you can send your goods in. You must send the handset, battery and battery cover, you can send any accessories you have with the phone to be recycled but it will not increase the price of the trade in. At any time you will be able to login to your account to check the progress of your order.
6. Upon receipt of your unwanted mobile phone it will be checked to make sure it matches the condition you specified and your gift card will be sent out within 4 working days. Your gift card can be used at any PC World or Curry’s store in the UK or via their website.

What Happens to My Old Phone Once it Has Been Received?

Curry’s and PC World state that 100% of the handsets that they receive through the site will be recycled in line with current EU laws. 85% of the handsets that they get will be refurbished by their engineers so they can be resold in the UK and developing countries that rely on mobile phones as their main way of communication.

As of September 2012 this recycling site is offering a special promotion where any users will get an extra 15% for their old handset by accepting a Curry’s / PC World gift voucher. The other option is to accept cash via BACS which will be sent within 4 days.

Sell your unwanted items for PC World / Curry’s vouchers here

The figures that were published showed that through 2011, 31,331 tonnes of small household WEEE were collected. This works out at 8.3kg of WEEE per person, the target states that 4kg must be recycled per head, based on a population of around 62 million. In percentages 34.3% of all electronic equipment that was sold in 2011 was recycled correctly, this compares to 31.5% in 2010, but these amounts are still some way short of the 45% target set by the EU for 2016.

A spokesperson working for the government department responsible for UK WEEE said “The United Kingdom is currently collecting record levels of WEEE and for the first time we have achieved a separate collection rate of household WEEE in excess of 8kg per head.” They added “There is still much work to be done in order to meet the higher target of 45% of WEEE placed on the market by 2016, we are currently working very closely with our partners in order to hit this target.”

Despite the targets being hit on small household WEEE the targets for business and non household WEEE still remains a big problem. There was no improvements on the collection and recycling rates between 2010 – 2011.

Small household WEEE includes the following equipment:

• Kitchen appliances such toasters, kettles, irons, bread makers, drink blenders, coffee machines, vacuum cleaners, electric heaters, fryers and sandwich makers.
• Mobile phones and smartphones
• MP3 players and iPods
• DIY equipment including drills and other small power tools.
• Electronic garden equipment including hedge trimmers, lawnmowers and strimmers.
• Personal care devices including hair dryers, electric toothbrushes, clippers and curlers.
• Games consoles and hand-helds
• Any other battery powered devices including watches and clocks, radios, CD players, Christmas tree lights, printers, calculators, DVD players, video recorders, cameras, telephones, torches, SAT Navs, Tablet computers, sewing machines, battery powered toys and anything else that you can think of…

Most local council recycling / waste disposal sites will accept all of the items above and will recycle them correctly. Any items that cannot be recycled will be disposed of in the correct manner. A full list of all government recycling sites that accept WEEE can be found at Recycle Now.

If you want to earn some money for your unwanted electronic devices you can visit O2 Recycle or Gadgets 4 Everyone.