Talking about global warming the first thing that comes to our mind are cars and factories. But what if our unused kitchen or personal care appliances are also one of the polluting ones? This is what is happening as 880 million unused electrical items in UK households are sitting idle and causing global warming. Moreover, the value of these items is around £927 million.
Little did they know that these electrical items are becoming the reason for carbon emission. Now, that is something confusing because if an object is just lying idle then how can it cause pollution?
According to the report by Material Focus, Electrical Waste: Challenges and Opportunities, UK households are holding up to 880 million electrical items. Out of them, each household has around 30 unused electrical items. In the past 4 years, this ratio has almost increased from 20% to 50%.
880 Million Unused Electrical Items Gathering Dust in UK Homes – Is Yours One of Them?
- A major cause is the rising demand of these consumer electrical items.
- Holding onto, throwing away, or illegal exporting of electrical products.
The first report in this regard was published in 2021. Both new and old versions use publicly available waste data flow for identifying different UK regions’ contribution to the total national electrical waste collected and recycled by local authorities.
To cope with the situation and help people to sell, repair, or recycle their unused electricals, Material Focus started the initiative, Recycle Your Electricals.
Highlights: The Electric Waste: Challenges and Opportunities Research
- Around 880 million unused electricals are held by UK households.
- Electrical items thrown away came in around 103,000 tonnes.
- Items held and not recycled are costing the economy around £488 million for raw materials to produce new products.
- Illegal export and theft includes 343,000 tonnes of electrical items, leading to the loss of £439 million of valuable raw materials.
- If these items are properly recycled, 7.98 million tonnes of CO2 could be saved.
The following is a region-wise list as per their contribution to the total electrical waste of the nation.
The new assessment’s main focus is on:
- To extrapolate metadata for stocks, times, and fates from the remaining 54 UNU keys by using reasonable assumptions.
- To filter the WOT POM as per CN-level UK product assessment.
- To separate second-hand EEE flows from WEEE flows and to quantify associated end of life and second-hand stocks WEE
- To identify the top 10 products as described by UNU keys according to the units and tonnages of hoarding, flowing, and in EEE POM
- To compare the result estimates for EEE POM and WEEE of UK collected with data collected by the relevant Environmental Agency.
Datasets used by updated assessments:
- EEE POM from the WOT model for 54 UNU keys.
- Mapping protocol between UK14 categories and UNU keys developed by
- Lancaster University and REPIC.
- Metadata (in use and hoarding) for times, stocks, and product fates from the 2020 Material Focus Challenges and Opportunities report54 (five separate datasets).
- Population and number of households in the UK provided by ONS.
- Collected report by PCS for Environmental Agency data on EEE, WEEE and POM
Material Compositions
The previous research by Material Focus mentioned the material weights per product of the 880 million unused electrical items in UK households. As per the new analysis, there are large numbers of valuable materials found among everyday items hoarded by UK households. In the case of plugs and wires they make up a huge proportion of personal care products and they also contain a significant amount of copper.
| Type of product | Quantity (approx.) | Precious metal quantity (tonnes) |
| Gadgets (laptops, mobiles, tablets) | 26.5 million | Steel – 810 Lithium batteries – 1020 Aluminum – 662 |
| Personal care items (hair dryer/straightener, electric shavers/toothbrushes) | 6.4 million | Steel – 56 Lithium batteries – 138 Aluminum – 93 Plugs and wires – 814 |
| Food preparation items | 4.3 million | Steel – 923 Plugs and wires – 509 |
Do you know: Around 70% of worldwide copper produced is used for conductivity or electricity and communication purposes. Also, copper is 100% recyclable.
Interesting fact about copper
Recycling copper results in no significant loss of performance and it has lower CO2 emissions than virgin copper. Moreover, it has lower energy requirements than primary production.
Between 2017 and 2021, the economy witnessed a reduction in the weight of electricals thrown by UK households. This was because the newly produced items were already much lighter and smaller than old ones. But this does not mean that the amount of items thrown also decreased, on the contrary it has been increasing per year.
- 2020 study (2017 data) – Annual tonnage – 16,711kt; Total WEEE tonnage – 155kt; Average WEEE composition in residual waste – 0.93%
- 2023 update (2021 data) – Annual tonnage – 15,330kt; Total WEEE tonnage – 103kt; Average WEEE composition in residual waste – 0.67%
Volumes of recycling waste has not seen any major shift in the UK as the nation struggles with irregularities caused by Covid. As per the latest report, in 2021 AATF experiences decline in collection and received 498 kilotonnes. The following figures tell about the main WEEE streams that were as per AATF, 2021. The list excludes PV panels and lightning.
Light Iron Recycling of LDA Affected due to 880 Million Hoarded Electrical Items
Light iron refers to scrap metal with a positive value in recycling due to its mixed metal composition. The sub-flow of light iron flow is as follows:
- DCF mixed scrap.
- End of Life Vehicles
- Separately collected Large Domestic Appliances (LDA) at a DCF site
- Small Mixed WEEE (SMW) and display equipment from AATFs
- All other sources.
The below-mentioned figure shows the comparison of materially susceptible LDA that can leak into the Light Iron stream. This majorly happens due to their physical characteristics.
Theft
The research regarding theft was carried out in partnership with REPIC and Valpak Consulting in 2019. The model is constant, but with some new data source inputs, there are recent new updates available that include:
- Breakdown of major WEEE streams that are susceptible to theft like SMW, LDA, Cooling and Display
- Consistent ratios applied to flat screen vs CRT and product trends like their life-span to determine lag caused from Placed on Market (POM) to disposal.
- Components’ loss rates are still applicable. Even though there is no mention of specific tests in the study, there is possibly a correlation between components theft and material values.
The table below shows the estimated incidences of theft and resulting volume of lost WEEE from official collections, as per specific data sources.
| Category | 2017 report (tonnes) | Total Weight Lost – Theft (tonnes) |
| Cooling Equipment | 7,758 | 11,925 |
| Large Domestic Appliances (LDA) | 89,671 | 106,232 |
| Displays | 12,118 | 62,853 |
| Small Mixed WEEE (SMW) | 3,201 – 5,335 | 14,056 |
| Total | 114,882 | 313,224 |
Illegally Exported
The Material Focus study talks about original estimates and the recent study mentions the one made by Unitar researchers. They performed the study as a part of the Global Transboundary E-waste Flows Monitor 2022.
The Unitar study, being the latest, serves as a baseline for this new Anthesis research project. It is also considered the most accurate global estimate available presently. The new study estimates the illegal waste movements in Europe while specifically focusing on UK contribution. The researchers also used additional UK EEE POM and Eurostat data for their calculations.
The following figure present the summarized version of data used in estimating WEEE illegal exports leaving the UK.
WoT Model Approach
Waste over Time (WoT) is a model specifically designed by the Statistics Netherlands for determining the volume of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) waste in the economy. It also identifies the time and quantity it is released as Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).
Key identifications with WoT model
- What are the products?
- How much product is sold in the market – in terms of quantity and weight
- Quantity of products stuck in use, retention, or held unused stages of their life cycle
880 million unused electrical items in UK households and most of them are easily forgotten as they are smaller, or the infrequently used ones. The table below shows the number and weight of hoarded items, mostly the smaller or neglected ones. The table will help in better planning to remove these items from households and to ensure proper recycle or reuse.
| Product UNU Key No. | Unused Stock Held | Stock Held Unused units (tonnes) | Average Weight Per Unit Kg. |
| 201 | Small household items: adapters, clocks, irons | 24,083,447 (26,618) | 1.11 |
| 202 | Food preparation appliances: grills, toasters | 4,374,427 (14,311) | 3.27 |
| 205 | Personal care: razors, toothbrushes, razors | 6,415,745 (3,542) | 0.55 |
| 303 | Laptops and tablets | 5,616,874 (6,066) | 1.08 |
| 306 | Mobile phones | 20,888,486 (1,880) | 0.09 |
| 401 | Consumer electronics: remote controls, headphones | 20,923,783 (8,160) | 0.39 |
| 405 | Speakers | 6,478,774 (13,865) | 2.14 |
| 501 | Portable lightning: bicycle or pocket lights | 5,619,695 (506) | 0.09 |
| 502 | Compact fluorescent lamps: table lamps, study lamps, night lamps | 4,318,769 (393) | 0.09 |
| 506 | Household luminaires: Christmas/regular lamps, light fittings | 10,722,697 (4,826) | 0.45 |
Possible Solutions
- It is evident that to move towards a circular economy and for better management of scarce raw materials, recycling should increase.
- It is important to simplify the recycling process of electricals by offering more retailers and household collections.
- To reduce theft and illegal exports, the regulatory and enforcement system needs national support.
To reduce their reliance on fossil fuel Smart Energy System Market and Business in Indonesia is improvising lately.
Carbon (CO2e) Savings
CO2e or carbon dioxide equivalent is the number of metric tons of a greenhouse gas that has the same global warming potential (GWP) as that of 1 metric ton of CO2 over 100 years.
It is a standard comparison between different greenhouse gas emissions like methane. Carbon measurements techniques are one of the prominent ways to measure the environmental impact of products. Some commonly lost, unused, or hoarded electricals were selected for this study to understand their CO2e metric.
The data is mentioned below:
- Laptops and tablets 1,426,433
- Mobile phones 1,066,478
- Food preparation appliances 126,683
- Personal care appliances 65,953
It is a high-level analysis showcasing the scale of CO2e footprints lost by products as they hoarded in homes and businesses. They could have been handed over for reuse or recycling to prevent this emission.
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Future Trends
The final research regarding 880 million unused electrical items in UK households as per the study looks into the future opportunities and challenges that businesses and consumers are related to the consumption of electricals. It is based on economic analysis of consumer spending on the basis of published research. It also includes feedback received from interviews of 10 stakeholders across the WEEE system, including manufacturers, trade associations, WEEE compliance schemes, and retailers.
Among various efforts, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory are breaking down pizza box recycling challenges.
The main aim is to understand the main determiners and consequences causing the changing behaviors towards buying the electricals. According to the retail spending and sales trends ONS data, 6 out of 10 adults (around 67%) in Great Britain are spending less on non-essential electricals. This happened as a result of increased cost of living. Additionally, 53% of them are shopping more than required.
| Question | Changes as per increased cost of living |
| Spending less on non-essentials | 67% |
| Shopping more | 53% |
| Using less fuel (gas/electricity at home) | 46% |
| Less spendings on shopping food and essentials | 43% |
| Reducing non-essential vehicular use | 29% |
| Using up savings | 28% |
| Bringing energy efficient changes in home | 21% |
| More credit usage (credit cards, loans, overdrafts) | 16% |
| Doing none of the above | 11% |
| Doing other things | 8% |
| Using supports (charities/other banks) | 3% |
The following figure gives an overview of retail sales volume from June 2019 to June 2023.
The Electronics Market
As of 31 March 2023 the UK business-to-consumer electricals market was worth around £30 billion. It shows a decrease of 2.9% since April 2022. Despite this the small domestic appliances and mobile market is growing.
It is expected that decrease in sales will continue as cost of living is an important consideration for consumers. Maybe, 2024 can bring some shift in this ratio as situations improve.
How to Access Recycle Your Electricals?
Visit the website and enter the electrical items you do not need or just want to get rid of. Put in your postal code and the site will show you the list of nearest places to recycle, donate, or repair.
The HypnnoCat and Recycle Your Electricals are raising awareness to increase recycling and reduce electrical wastage.
So the study brings forward the reasons and challenges brought up by 880 million unused electrical items in UK households. It not only highlights the problems but also the possible solutions and even a way out of it. What are you waiting for? For more such insightful and interesting content, explore our website.
Source: The Electric Waste: Challenges and Opportunities Research
