Electronic Waste Recycling & WEEE Waste Management

About our WEEE
WEEE Recycling Service

Recycling Lives offers bespoke services for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling. We recycle WEEE at our industry-leading 15-acre Recycling Park and export straight from site reducing CO2 emissions each year by returning recycled metal and plastic to market as raw materials.

Processing all WEEE at our Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities, which are fully licenced by the Environment Agency
Guaranteeing secure, audited destruction facilities
Offering an entirely confidential repair and reuse services for reusable WEEE

We provide you with a service that suits your needs, from drop-off centres for the disposal of small electrical items to total WEEE management solutions for large businesses.

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Advanced WEEE recycling processes

Our Recycling Park undertakes Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling processes designed to maximise the retrievable value from WEEE:

Europe’s only on-line fragmentiser - recording the entire process in HD to ensure total compliance
Dedicated Flat Panel Display (FPD) and Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) recycling facility
Secure recovery and resale of reusable electrical equipment

We process all types of WEEE including large and small household appliances; IT and telecommunications equipment; electrical and electronic tools; consumer equipment like radios and TVs; toys and sports equipment; and lighting equipment.

who we work with

Benefits designed to help your business

Modern weighbridge systems ensuring total transparency
Visible weights on all scales and weighbridges
Camera footage of weighbridges and processing available
Dedicated account managers; experts in WEEE recycling
Sales support team to handle day-to-day account management
Monthly reporting on WEEE collection and materials recycled
Compliance Services to ensure you meet all electronic disposal legislation and regulations
Evidence can be issued on B2C equipment as required

WEEE Recycling that
has a Social Value

All our services, from WEEE collection to WEEE recycling, contribute to the creation of significant social value - so disposal of electrical goods becomes a charitable process.

We manage WEEE waste streams on site and in our HMP Academies, creating employment for our on-site operatives—many of whom started with us after experiencing long-term unemployment, homelessness or having been recently released from prison—and providing work experience opportunities for offenders in our Academies.

Working with Recycling Lives means your business supports and sustains our life-changing charitable programmes.

Our Facilities

WEEE ready for recycling is processed either at our recycling sites or in our HMP Academies; creating meaningful and skilled jobs for offenders who earn money while gaining work experience.

Eight of our nine HMP Academies are recycling academies, where men and women process WEEE to extract aluminium, copper, steel, glass, plastics, and circuit boards for recycling.

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Creating Opportunities

All our commercial activities support and sustain our charitable programmes; reducing reoffending, supporting homeless men and redistributing food. These create opportunities through:

HMP Academies - offenders in prison undertake meaningful work, in recycling and waste management processes, to gain transferable life and work skills ahead of release;
Residential Support - individuals who would otherwise be homeless are supported to regain their independence and move into work and housing;
Food Redistribution - small charities and community groups are supported to reduce their running costs and expand their service offering as we redistribute surplus food from supermarkets and suppliers to them.

The Impact of our partnerships

Our work is doing more than just changing lives for individuals, families and communities - between 2015 and 2018 it has created huge savings for society by reducing costs to the taxpayer and creating social value worth millions of pounds.

In the last three years

24 individuals supported into
independent living
+ 136 ex-offenders rehabilitated
and supported into work
+ 2,174,140 meals delivered across
Lancashire & Cumbria
= £17.3m reported Social Value -
created through savings to society

WEEE Recycling Process
and Regulations

The Process of Recycling WEEE

We take care of the entire WEEE recycling process from collecting WEEE to exporting recycled metals and plastic, providing total waste management solutions for large businesses and convenient sites for tradesmen and members of the public.

We recycle the majority of WEEE we receive at our industry-leading Recycling Park and HMP Academies. WEEE may be assessed and tested for reuse then sold, or manually dismantled before it is processed through our fragmentiser.

The Regulations around WEEE Recycling

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations (2013) came into law in 2014, superseding the 2006 WEEE regulations.

The aim of this WEEE legislation is to reduce the tonnage of waste going to landfill by setting targets for the collection, recovery and recycling of WEEE. Producers of EEE are made accountable to meet these targets, by taking responsibility for their products when they reach the end of their working life. All businesses who place EEE on the UK market for the first time, either by importing, manufacturing, rebranding or distance selling are considered producers under the WEEE directive.

The WEEE regulations for business dictate that producers must:

Register with a WEEE Producer Compliance Scheme (PCS), like Recycling Lives Compliance Services, or the Environment Agency directly
Minimise the waste arising from their EEE and promote reuse
Declare the tonnage of EEE they put onto the UK market
Facilitate the collection and appropriate disposal of end-of-life waste
Ensure that all EEE products are correctly labelled

WEEE Recycling
FAQs

Find the answers to all your questions about WEEE Recycling below.

Q: Where can I dispose
of electronics?

We offer electronic waste disposal at five of our Recycling Lives sites:

Recycling Lives Recycling Park
Recycling Lives Head Office
Recycling Lives Workington
Recycling Lives Braconash
Recycling Lives Bury

Q: What about WEEE
compliance?

Recycling Lives operates its own Producer Compliance Scheme for all businesses wishing to recycle WEEE at our facilities. For more information about this please visit our WEEE Compliance page.

why work
with us

Josh Steiner Social Value & Sustainability Manager Wates Group Recycling Lives has reaped the rewards of strong commercial and social credentials to secure large-scale contracts. The high value and quality nature of the service, alongside its demonstrable social benefits has prompted the organisation’s ongoing success, allowing it to expand its range of services and open in new locations to achieve nationwide coverage Read moreRead less

Martin Chown Supply Chain Director Sellafield Limited We are committed to ensuring our local communities derive maximum economic benefit from the money we spend at Sellafield, by insisting companies that win work with us to invest to support local growth. Recycling Lives has these values at its core and I’m excited by their plans. The contract win also allowed for the creation of a number of jobs in Cumbria as we work to open a new site in the county, creating jobs for yard operatives, drivers and site managers. Read moreRead less

Jeremy Hartley Managing Director Eric Wright Group The Eric Wright Group has always recognised the importance of supporting the local community and using our business activities to improve people’s lives. Working with Recycling Lives gives us an opportunity to continue to make a real difference and achieve more through working together. Read moreRead less

Steve Giblin Group HSSEQ Director Speedy Critical to the appointment of Recycling Lives was its enlightened approach to social value. In Recycling Lives we have found a supplier that matches our own company values and ethos while delivering the services we need. This approach provided a clear advantage over their competitors and is, we believe, a unique offering within the sector. Read moreRead less

Discover the benefits of the Recycling Lives Portal

Our bespoke customer portal can be tailored to your business needs. After we’ve assessed your waste streams, we’ll ensure the portal is responsive to making collection requests, viewing the recycling process and tracking recycle rates.

Waste Management Portal Producer Compliance Portal