Published on:
13
May 2011
The Council is reminding householders to recycle unwanted and broken electrical items using their blue box, rather than sending them to landfill.
The large waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling service has operated at Forthbank Recycling Centre in Alloa and through the Council's bulky uplift service since 2008. Electronic waste is separated and sent to specialist reprocessors for re-use, dismantling and recycling at no additional cost to the Council.
Electronic waste can be damaging to the environment, but thanks to the Council's work with industry specialists over 600 tonnes of local electrical waste is saved from landfill every year.
The Council has contracted Valpak to remove electrical waste from Forthbank. Every year they take away:
They also collect a smaller quantity of household batteries, fluorescent lights and energy saving bulbs as well as bulbs from Council buildings and old street lamps.
The Council has a duty of care to ensure that waste electrical and electronic equipment is disposed of responsibly and Valpak provides us with an audit trail of how waste from Clackmannanshire is reprocessed for re-use, dismantled and recycled.
For example, cookers and washing machines go into the scrap metal processing industry to facilities licensed by SEPA; fridges go to Viridor's industry-leading facility at Perth who ensure that the hazardous CFC gases don't escape and damage the ozone layer; and TV and computer monitors go to the Restructa recycling plant in Irvine which removes and cleans the cathode ray tubes for re-use.
Councillor Eddie Carrick, Sustainability Portfolio Holder, said: "Clackmannanshire was the first Council to introduce regular kerbside collection of small electrical equipment and we always want to collect more. I urge residents to use their blue box and never put electrical equipment or batteries in the green bin. Recycling electronic equipment is a big step towards preventing pollution, much of this waste is hazardous and has the potential to be damaging to the environment. Regulations mean that Councils no longer have to pay for the disposal of electrical equipment, it is the producers who pick up the cost which they pass onto the products we buy. Therefore the more we recycle the less we will pay in disposal cost should the electrical items be mixed in the general waste."
Visit www.clacksweb.org.uk/environment/blueboxes/ for more information about the Council's recycling services.