How to properly dispose of your unwanted appliances

Every year in the UK, 1.4 million tonnes of e-waste are sent to landfill. If your appliance is broken and there’s nothing you can do to repair it or you no longer have a use for it, there are plenty of ways it can be disposed of or recycled without causing too much damage to the environment.

So, if your relationship with your appliance has come to an end and there’s no possible way it can be fixed, here’s what you can do…

Skip the skip!

Rubbish skips may be designed to make waste disposal easier and more convenient, but the fact that 17 million skips are hired annually for domestic use alone is a rather astounding figure. The effect this has on landfills is a great burden on our environment (not to mention our economy, with landfills costing taxpayers over £58,000,000 every year) so avoiding skips as much as possible when disposing of appliances is a good place to start.

Though we are improving our recycling and waste disposal habits, with less than 50% of our waste going to landfills as opposed to 90% little more than a decade ago, we still have a long way to go. More than half of the UK’s waste is still not recycled, and when it comes to our waste going to landfills, we are the third worst culprit in Europe. As expected, excessive skip use is part of that problem. The battle is far from over, and we should still be striving to make more eco-friendly choices when getting rid of our household appliances.

If one of your appliances is really and truly unsavable, here are some other things you can do:

• Recycle through store collection: When you order a new appliance from a store like Currys or Argos, they will usually give you the option for them to take your old one away and recycle it. Currys also offer a free recycling service where if you bring your old appliance to one of their stores they will recycle it for you.
• Find your nearest recycling centre: Websites such as Recycle More will give you details of recycling centres near you. Simply select what you want to recycle along with your postcode and select a centre that’s easiest for you. You could even contact the centre to see if they can help you get it there.
• Apply for collection from the council: Your local council will collect your unwanted appliances for a small fee and either recycle or dispose of them correctly. Search for your local council by entering your postcode and find out how you can do this.

Give it to a good home!

If you have an appliance that still works or could be salvaged but you simply no longer want it anymore, you can always do a charitable deed and give it a good home!

If it’s just a case of wanting to upgrade or maybe it needs a few small fixes, there are plenty of people that can take it off your hands. You can advertise to sell it or give it away online, or donate it to a local charity. Organisations such as the British Heart Foundation, the British Red Cross, The Salvation Army or local homeless charities will collect your items and clean or fix them up to sell on or use themselves.

All in all, there are plenty of things you can do with your old appliances without causing too much damage to the environment. But, if one of your appliances has developed a fault and you aren’t quite ready to let it go, why not try fixing it yourself first? Our handy Advice Centre has hundreds of repair guides to get your appliances up and running again in no time - and your pocket will thank you for it!