Together making the world greener
Together making the world greener
Imagine spending years saving up enough cash to purchase a surprise present for your loved one only to accidentally recycle the electronic heater used as the safe storage place for that cash!
This is what happened to Mr Aziz Moulai who went on holiday and while on holiday the cash containing heater was recycled by his wife! A panicked call was made to Greenwich Reuse and Recycling Centre, Nathan Way London SE28 0AF. The quick actions from Veolia’s supervisor allowed the lorry load of waste electronics to be tracked and quarantined by SWEEEP Kuusakoski.
SWEEEP Kuusakoski are a large-scale waste electronics recycler in Kent processing about 150 tonnes a day of broken electronic gadgets. The cash containing delivery from Greenwich had around 3,600 items of electronic waste and finding the one item was a classic needle in haystack situation. SWEEEP’s diligent staff started sorting through the electronics late in the afternoon and then had to finish next morning when daylight returned.
The significant and life changing sum of money was found distributed through the load, but all was collected together and handed back to Aziz today (12th Feb 2020) who said “Really, I can’t find words to thank you guys…thank you so very very much”
June 29 2019, 12.01am
Only a third of small electrical items are collected for recycling, official waste industry data reveals. It means households are wasting precious metals and other valuable materials they contain because people find it too difficult or cannot be bothered to recycle laptops, toasters, kettles, electric toys and other items which are broken or no longer wanted.
Recycling saves on the energy and land needed to mine new material and also reduces the risk of toxic chemicals, such as persistent organic pollutants in plastic, leaching out of landfill sites.
The number of electronic devices in homes has boomed in recent years and many are not built to last, creating what the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee calls a “tsunami of electronic waste”.
The UK produces 24.9kg of e-waste per person per year, higher than the EU average of 17.7kg.
Brian Jones is employed to break open black bags brought to a council tip in Earlswood, Surrey, and pick out recyclable items. He removes about 30-40 electrical items a day.
“People can’t be bothered to separate their stuff for recycling — they just want to get rid of it and chuck it in the bin,” Mr Jones said.
He says he extracts as much as possible but cannot check every bag when the tip is busy.
He works for SUEZ, a waste company which removed 290 tonnes of electrical items from black bags at 11 tips in Surrey last year. Few other tips check black bags in this way as operators claim it is not cost effective any may be unsafe.
Producers of electronic products are required to pay into the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Fund (WEEE Fund) which is used to increase recycling rates.
But the amount they pay is tiny — £3.5million in 2018 — compared to the billions of pounds spent on their products.
The UK missed its target, set under the EU’s waste electrical equipment directive, of collecting 45 per cent of e-waste in 2018. A total of 493,000 tonnes was collected, 44,000 tonnes short of the target.
Next month the industry will launch a major education campaign to try to persuade people to recycle their e-waste. Money from the WEEE Fund will be used to test a free bookable collection service from households. Scott Butler, the fund director, describes this as a “reverse parcel service”.
Only one in 10 homes has a regular doorstep collection of e-waste and Mr Butler said it needed to be made easier for people to recycle these items. From next year all major retailers of electronic products will be required to take back e-waste from customers.
But Mr Butler acknowledged that people might need an incentive to do the right thing and so the industry is planning reward schemes for schools and community groups that run e-waste collections.
“Currently we don’t recognise the value hidden in our old electricals, so we tend to just chuck them away,” Mr Butler said.
“We want to raise awareness of the fact that anything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled.”
The problem would be much easier to solve if households did not produce so much e-waste in the first place.
Barry Walker, chief executive of SWEEEP, an e-waste recycling company in Sittingbourne, Kent, says the products he receives are getting younger.
“We see so many toasters and kettles that have lasted until the end of their warranty but not much longer,” he says.
“The focus of engineering and design has been to make things cheaper but that results in a much shorter life. There is also a trend in electronics for lightweighting — items are getting smaller and weaker.”
Mr Walker says his plant, which smashes up 150 tonnes of e-waste a day and extracts 30 different materials for recycling, also receives many products that are still working or have minor faults that could be repaired.
He tried working with Kent County Council on a scheme to collect and refurbish Dyson vacuum cleaners which were being thrown away because of a simple fault with the cable.
But he said the scheme was abandoned because the collection, repair and testing cost more than the £30 charged for a second-hand Dyson.
His plant dismantles 50,000 TVs and other screens a month, many of which were discarded though still in perfect working order because their owners were upgrading.
“People want the best ones and some are switching to OLED [TVs],” he said. “We are seeing a massive number of LED screens already coming in.”
Wrap, the waste reduction charity, estimated in 2017 that 38 per cent of the nine million new televisions sold annually replaced functional products.
SUEZ rescues and resells some working TVs for £20-50 at three “re-use shops” at its tips at Earlswood, Shepperton and Witley in Surrey.
It has sold 864 sets since 2017 but this is only a fraction of the TVs brought to its tips. It only has space in the small shops to display a few and says new TVs are so cheap anyway that there is limited demand for second-hand ones.
Sarah Ottaway, sustainability and social value lead at SUEZ, said the solution could lie in companies leasing products rather than selling them, with customers paying a fine if they fail to return them when broken or no longer wanted.
BT plans to save up to 1m wifi routers and set-top boxes a year from incinerators and landfill by introducing new contracts under which it retains ownership of equipment. Customers will have to pay up to £50 if they do not return it. Sky is also planning to expand its non-return charges.
Richard Kirkman, chief technology and innovation officer at Veolia, says the e-waste mountain is partly due to products becoming harder to repair.
Products are often glued together and can break when taken apart. Special tools are often needed to undo screws.
“One of the biggest game changers would be providing a code on the product so you can go to a website and get instructions on how to repair it,” he said.
“That’s difficult for manufacturers to accept because it means you are not going to keep buying new products.”
Manufacturers of electrical goods will be required to make repair manuals and spares available to professional repairers under new EU rules coming into force in April next year. However, people who want to carry out their own repairs may struggle to get the parts and information they need.
Back at the SWEEEP plant, Mr Walker is preparing for the annual surge in dumped garden electrical equipment, which occurs each spring when people get it out of the shed, find that it is not working and discard it without attempting repair.
“We are a society now that throws things away and buys another one,” he says.
Mr Walker thinks manufacturers should offer much longer warranties to force them to redesign products to last at least ten years.
“They do so much product testing they know exactly when it’s going to fail,” he said.
Case study
A scheme that began in Britain to curb electronic waste has spread to 12 countries and saved more than 7,000 items from landfill (Rosa Ellis writes).
People are taking their broken laptops and iPhones to workshops and learning how to fix them as part of a project that started in London and takes place across the world from Tunisia and Canada to Italy and Iceland. Volunteers at the Restart Project have fixed more than 1,000 laptops, 600 mobile phones, 500 lamps and 200 tablets since it was established in 2012.
Janet Gunter, a co-founder, said: “We knew that people were frustrated with electronics but we didn’t know how many people wanted to help and share their skills. There are fixers everywhere, in every neighbourhood, in every street.”
Kettles appear to be the hardest to maintain, with 47 per cent deemed unfixable at the workshops. Laptops are among the easiest to fix, followed by musical instruments and lamps.
The UK fixers have their work cut out if they are to make a dent in the country’s mountain of e-waste. The UK generates 24.9kg of e-waste per person. The EU average is 17.7kg. The UK recycles 45 per cent of its e-waste.
SWEEEP Kuusakoski 2019 pool competition is completed again for another year!
More entries than ever before with just under 40 players. To add spice to proceedings any player on the winner’s trophy wall gave away 3 shots to someone not on the wall. This helps make things interesting and sees new first-time winners for 2019.
Congratulations go to:
• 1st Place: Dumitru Radu and Robert Knowski
• 2nd Place: Peter Newing and Robert Watts
• 3rd Place: Charlotte Adams and Justin Greenaway
See you all on the baize again next year.
Merry Christmas
SWEEEP Kuusakoski
Very pleased to have had Herfordshire council at SWEEEP Kuusakoski for some filming recently..... With Christmas just around the corner, now is the ideal time to remember that you can recycle old and broken electrical items such as Christmas lights, shavers, hair dryers and straighteners, just by taking them to your local Household Waste Recycling Centre. In fact, we’ll accept any household item with a plug or a battery!
Watch our short video to find out how these items are recycled:
The WEEE Christmas Treee
Margate based Zo Defferary created the WEEE Christmas Tree for Future Foundry’s Waste Free event at Turner Contemporary to highlight that over 250K (61%) tonnes of small electronic waste per year in the UK is potentially not being recycled correctly. Small electricals like phones, toys, kettles, lights, tools, HiFi and DVD players - never get into the correct recycling systems but are instead mainly lost to landfill or incineration.
As we all get excited for all our shiny new Christmas gadgets, the scary thing to ask is where does this waste go - and it’s not a good answer.
The magpie attracting WEEE waste has been loaned to the project by Sittingbourne based recycling company SWEEEP Kuusakoski, one of the UK’s leading waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) collection and recycling specialist who recycle 25% of the UK’s electronics waste.
SWEEEP are desperate to encourage more of us to recycle our electronics, to salvage the precious resources, that are running out - and much easier to get from recycling than mining. It is a simple message of ‘put waste in the right place’ but that simple action allows rare earth metals and over 30 commodities to go back round again to be made into new products. We are only recycling 39% of what we could and 61% is not being recycled…….it is down to resident of planet earth to do better!
Zo Defferary creates art from waste. Inspired by calligraphy and a love for glyphic forms and markings, she draws with inanimate objects and materials referencing patterns, symbols and ornamental decorative imagery. Zo has her own ongoing salvage practice which has contributed to the tree.
Dover based https://futurefoundry.org.uk work with artists, designers and makers to enable them to use waste and salvage as a base material for their creative work. The company supply training programmes, studio facilities and their own creative salvage programme which collects waste materials and equipment for re-distribution.
Kuusakoski proudly exhibited at the inaugural E-Waste World Conference & Expo – Nov 2019. Kuusakoski has a global recycling solution and staff from Sweden, Finland, Russia, UK and USA were all on hand to answer questions from guests attending the conference.
E-Waste World Conference & Expo was a two-day international conference and exhibition dedicated to discussing the latest recycling technology, materials recovery solutions, green electronics, sustainable materials, non-toxic substitutes, and end-of-life strategies, as well as regulatory and business models to help reduce the environmental impact of all forms of consumer and industrial E-Waste.
The event brought together globally renowned experts from consumer and industrial electronics manufacturers and suppliers, E-Waste recyclers and waste management companies, recycling technology manufacturers, materials recovery experts, sustainable material and chemical suppliers, science and academia, policy-makers, NGOs, research institutions and consultants.
We are pleased to announce a further 8 staff have completed 10 years’ service with the Company and have been presented with a certificate to mark their length of service.
Since the 10 year service awards were introduced in 2017, 21 staff have been rewarded.
Staff receive a payment from the Company, a certificate and a breakfast with Barry Walker – CEO, Michael Freeman – Operations Manager and Anita Grist – HR Manager.
Left to right in main photo is:
Vanessa Hewitt
Janina Batog
Kamila Walzcak
Michael Freeman – Operations Manager
Urszula Wisniewska
Blazej Kuchnik
Daniel Korzen
Robert Knowski
Remigijus Maciulis
Barry Walker – CEO
More photos via facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/sweeepkuusakoski
We are gaining a better understanding of the hazardous in waste all the time. Gov.UK sum things up well with regards to POPs: Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are poisonous chemical substances that break down slowly and get into food chains as a result. In the past POPs were used in various products including pesticides and industrial chemicals, and released during chemical and agricultural processes. The manufacture, sale and use of products containing POPs is now banned. The concept of Producer Responsibility is often criticised but without producers funding the environmentally sound recycling of e-waste then the cost would land with local authorities. This would ultimately then be funded by tax payers. Much better for Producers to be funding which in turn is then passed on to consumers of new goods as commercials re-balance. MRW have covered some of the challenges around the impact of POPs in this article: https://www.mrw.co.uk/latest/huge-cost-increases-in-weee-recycling-due-to-regs-shake-up/10043616.article
SWEEEP Charity Dragon Boat Saturday 7th September 2019 - staff apply now to be a SWEEEP Paddle Power Team Member.
Great fun last year and very excited to be back in the boat again with an aim for SWEEEP to raise £2000 for Charity.
SWEEEP Kuusakoski have always powered our recycling facility using renewable energy. This year however we have taken another step with the help of https://info.openener.gy/cool-earth Our purchase of renewable energy has helped to safe guard 5 acres of endangered rainforest. 5 acres is about 1200 tress capable of locking in 1300 tonnes of CO2.
Open Energy Market is working with Cool Earth to protect endangered rainforest in Northern Peru. Every square foot of operational space at SWEEEP Kuusakoski (5 Acres) is mirrored by an equivalent area of protected rainforest
The main driver of deforestation is not global demand for palm oil, soy and timber, it’s poverty. Which is why Cool Earth focuses on addressing the drivers of degradation at the community level. By improving livelihood development, education and healthcare, Cool Earth has now placed more rainforest under the 24/7 protection of indigenous groups than any other NGO or government.
Cool Earth's 118 village partners are in control of over 900,000 acres of forest that would otherwise have been cleared. Millions of acres of further forest are now inaccessible to loggers. Add to this the 170 million tonnes of CO2 emissions prevented, the protection of 80 endangered species, and with recently winning the Charity of the Year award, I think we can safely say that Cool Earth has become a success story.
Every acre of rainforest locks in 260 tonnes of CO2
Rainforests generate a fifth of the world’s fresh water and oxygen
Half of all plant and animal species on Earth live in the rainforest
36 new species have been discovered in and around our protected areas
One in ten people on Earth depend on the rainforest for their livelihood
“The idea behind Cool Earth is that if we can help pay to conserve an acre then we can make a real difference. Perhaps the biggest difference we will make in our whole lives.” Sir David Attenborough”
After 11 ½ years of good service our old main granulator is being retired to light duties.
Today we took delivery of our new Andrirtz MeWa UG1600H https://www.andritz.com/products-en/recycling/recycling/granulator-ug
which is being installed over the next week. The granulator is virtually the last step in our plant once the Small WEEE de-pollution has happened via labour intensive hand sorting and MeWa QZ disassembly process.
Keeping any recycling facility operating reliably demands continuous investment in both quality plant and top engineering staff to maintain smooth running. This in turn allows us to give a reliable and cost-effective recycling service with best environmental outcome for our customers.
Thanks to everyone for a busy 2018.
Our 3rd TOMRA arrived today!
Continued technology advances in the gadgets we love means smaller and smarter devices become common place in our busy lives. Smaller and smarter means more complicated recycling. The good news is that TOMRA’s latest sorting equipment technology has also got smarter and embraces these new challenges.
Today SWEEEP Kuusakoski have taken delivery of our 3rd TOMRA sorter which will work in tandem with our existing metal finder at a combined sorting rate of 6 tonnes per hour. TOMRA’s intelligent object recognition controls 960 air jets all primed to sort circuit board away from plastic. End result being an exceptional level of sorting resolution, making it possible to identify even the finest particles with great precision.
You can see the technology here: https://www.tomra.com/en/sorting/recycling/products/finder
Our investment is only justifiable because of the continued support and commitment from our customers.
This is never taken for granted and always greatly appreciated.
To all SWEEEP Staff:
Charity Dragon Boat Festival 8th Sept 2018, SWEEEP Paddle Power team members apply now!
The 8th September 2018 will see the 21st annual Charity Dragon Boat Festival at Bewl Water and this is your chance to be part of our dragon boat team.
Crews of 16 paddlers (plus a drummer) race in Chinese-style Dragon Boats over a 250-metre course. Crews do not need to be super fit or skilled to be successful - all that's required is teamwork and a good sense of fun!
Your invitation will be with your next wage slip or print off from: https://www.facebook.com/sweeepkuusakoski/
See you on the water!
AATF Forum Press release – 09 March 2018
The AATF Forum represents the interests of the WEEE AATF sector and currently has 18 members representing over 80% of WEEE treatment. It’s membership is open to any AATF operator with meetings held every two months that have been recently attended by the environmental agencies, Defra, the WEEE Scheme Forum and BMRA.
The aims of the Forum are to create a sustainable WEEE processing industry by better understanding the impact of UK WEEE on the global environment and ensuring its members always follow best practice and circular economy ethos in the recycling and the reuse of WEEE.
It has been working on a number of issues that affect the effective working of the WEEE regulations and the ability for the UK to meet future targets for treatment and recycling and has formulated a response to Defra’s proposed 2018 collection targets.
In summary, the Forum believes that by simply tracking the previous year’s collection performance, Defra is failing to meet both the spirit and the environmental requirements of the WEEE Directive, namely ‘The purpose of this Directive is to contribute to sustainable production and consumption… by the re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery of such wastes so as to reduce the disposal of waste and to contribute to the efficient use of resources and the retrieval of valuable secondary raw materials.’ The proposed targets lack ambition and make assumptions that the WEEE is simply not available. The Forum asserts that there is significant leakage in the system and the lack of incentive to collect WEEE provided by the Compliance Fee has led to potentially obligated WEEE being processed through informal – and often environmentally damaging – disposal routes such as illegal exports and non-accredited ATFs. Without a robust system of WEEE management, the UK’s treatment infrastructure is at risk of lacking the investment needed for sustainable growth to ensure that high environmental standards are properly applied and maintained.
The Forum further believes that the reliance on ‘substantiated estimates’ by Defra undermines the UK’s aspiration to be an environmental leader as it effectively supports a substandard treatment regime.
The Forum has put forward proposals to Defra to add ambition back into the targets to maintain achievable growth. It recognises the challenges caused by reduced new product sales, but there is still a huge gap of 772,000 tonnes between WEEE and EEE placed onto the market that is not explained.
The Forum is also urging Defra to maximise the use of the Compliance Fee revenue raised from the 99,000 tonne shortfall on the 2017 targets to focus on identifying why so much WEEE is not being captured and to educate both householders and businesses on the need for correct WEEE disposal through a properly funded media campaign.
https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/weee-aatf-critical-defra-targets/
Current AATF Forum Members
AO, Balcan Engineering, Eco Technology, Electrical Waste, EMR, Environcom, GAP Waste, Light Brothers, London Mining, Mercury Recycling, Recycling Lives, S Norton, Sims, SWEEEP, Veolia, Viridor, Wastecare and Wiser.
With 10 years now under their recycling belt, time has
With recent changes in the WEEE directive increasing recycling
SWEEEP Kuuskakoski are proud to
The repair parties for broken appliances
Are you a
Zero Waste is no longer a utopian dream. The reality, which
SWEEEP Kuusakoski is tackling a global challenge thanks to a
Schools recycling race is down to the wire
More than
SWEEEP Kuusakoski helping to prevent climate
SWEEEP Kuusakoski was awarded the first ever Recycling Business
30 November 2018
After 11 ½ years of good service our old main granulator is being retired to light duties.
Today we took delivery of our new Andrirtz MeWa UG1600H https://www.andritz.com/products-en/recycling/recycling/granulator-ug
which is being installed over the next week. The granulator is virtually the last step in our plant once the Small WEEE de-pollution has happened via labour intensive hand sorting and MeWa QZ disassembly process.
Keeping any recycling facility operating reliably demands continuous investment in both quality plant and top engineering staff to maintain smooth running. This in turn allows us to give a reliable and cost-effective recycling service with best environmental outcome for our customers.
Thanks to everyone for a busy 2018.
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