WEEE

I tried to get my old landlord to recycle a whole load of WEEE, but they wanted her to pay 12 quid to come and pick it up so she ditched it.

My flatmate put a broken VCR in the recycling bin, but I told her it would probably contaminate that batch of recycling and they'd have to landfill that too, so she shouldn't bother.

Businesses are having to pay to have their WEEE treated responsibly, but domestic waste can normally be dealt with at the local CA site. Most people I speak to (I work for a computer recycling social enterprise), are surprised to learn that WEEE taken to the dump doesn't get landfilled. But local authorities must also abide by the new legislation and are having to find alternatives too.

Good for you, for asking her to remove it from the regular recycling!

A good place to find a local re-use organisation that will take your WEEE and aim to re-use it, and recycle when it's not re-usable is the Furniture Re-use Network. They represent a network of re-use organisations all over the country. A members list can be found on their site.