Got old or broken electricals sitting in a drawer? There are plenty of easy ways to repair, reuse or recycle them locally, and HypnoCat and the Recycle Your Electricals team can help you find your best option.
Discarded electricals is the fastest-growing waste stream in the UK. But the good news is that anything with a plug, battery or cable can be reused or recycled and turned into something new, from children’s playgrounds to lifesaving medical equipment.
So, whether it is an unwanted laptop, a cracked phone or a tangle of cables, here is how to find the best option for your unwanted tech.
Keeping electricals in use with SHARE
There are plenty of ways we can help you keep your electricals alive and well for longer here at SHARE Oxford.
Fix it: You can bring broken electricals to one of our monthly repair cafes at Makespace in Jericho, where we have a skilled repair team who are dedicated to fixing electricals of all kinds. You’d be amazed at how much can be fixed and we can advise if we’re not able to solve problems on the day.
Fix IT: If it’s IT that you need help with, the teams at our monthly tech rescue sessions at Makespace or with OCA in Blackbird Leys can help. We unpick software problems, speed up older computers that have started to creak or help diagnose or advise on hardware trouble. We can also help with wiping your data if you’re done with a device, whether planning to donate or recycle it.
Pass it on: if you have working electricals you no longer need, we accept donations of IT which we either pass on to Getting Oxfordshire Online or sell to raise funds. And whilst we are limited in what we can handle ourselves, we’re happy to help you find a partner to donate stuff to.
Find out more about or book your slots at https://shareoxford.org/repair/
Lots more great local electrical repair options
We’re one of a growing number of repair cafes across Oxford and Oxfordshire, most of which are well equipped to repair and revive your old electricals and tech. Check out the Repair Café Oxfordshire website to find a café at a location and time that suits you!
We also want to give a shout out to the electrical, computer and phone repair shops that do a great job keeping things working and saving money. Some local companies we’ve had great service from include Repair My Phone Today, GigaFix and Computer Assistance, or Talmages Domestic Appliances for white goods. If we’ve missed your local electrical repair business, do let us know and we’ll add you in!
Finding a new home for your electricals
If you’re finished with your electrical items, whether they’re working or not, here are some great projects which will get them working if possible and find them a new home
- Bicester Green and Orinoco Scrapstores (in Banbury and Templars Square Oxford) accept donations of small electricals which they will then inspect, repair, and resell in their stores.
- For IT, the Getting Oxfordshire Online teams at SOFEA in Didcot and Aspire in Oxford accept donations of working laptops (up to 12 years old), smartphones and tablets (up to 6 years old), and all brick phones, securely wiping them and providing refurbished tech to individuals who otherwise wouldn’t have easy access to it.
- We can also help out here at SHARE if you have older or broken tech. For £10/device (£20 for desktops), we are happy to help you securely wipe your data and pass your old tech on for sale or for free in the local community.
When it’s time to recycle
There are a variety of routes to recycling your electricals. Oxford City Council offers small electricals collections free of charge for many households, and bulky waste collection for a charge of £22 – £33 per item. For small electrical collections, you simply need to place the item in a clear bag on top of your bin on collection day, with the batteries removed and separated. For bulky waste collection, call Oxford City Council on 01865 249811 to book a collection slot. Many electrical retailers will also accept e-waste for recycling too.
Searching for your best option
With all these routes to choose from, Recycle Your Electricals (and HypnoCat’s) Postcode Locator is a great way to find your nearest and most convenient recycling or reuse option.
In Oxfordshire we are also lucky to have the County Council’s Waste Wizard, which shows your options for all sorts of waste from mattresses to paint, not just electricals.
If you are donating or selling working tech, it’s important to correctly and safely destroy your data first – our Tech Rescue team can help or check out this data deletion guide, produced in collaboration with the National Cyber Security Centre and We Fight Fraud.
We hope HypnoCat has inspired you to have a clear-out of that ‘drawer of doom’ filled with old, broken or unwanted electricals. Maybe your old phone could help someone in your community, maybe we can help you wipe your ancient laptop so an eBay customer will love playing their old games on it, or maybe it’s as simple as popping them on top of your bin for recycling so the precious materials in it can be made into the next widget! If you have any questions or want advice on what to do with your electricals, do get in touch!
The Recycle Your Electricals Campaign
Recycle Your Electricals is a UK-wide behaviour change campaign that encourages and makes it easier for everyone to keep their unwanted electricals in circulation rather than contributing to the staggering amount of e-waste that already exists. Using the Recycling postcode Locator on the Recycle Your Electricals website, it’s easy to find a great variety of local organisations that will repair, reuse, or recycle your electricals.
The campaign is led by Material Focus, an independent not-for-profit organisation funded through the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility regulations. They’re on a mission to stop the valuable, critical and finite materials inside electricals from going to waste.
