Countrystyle Group has joined forces with WEEE Connect, the industry alliance dedicated to promoting the responsible recycling of Waste Electronic & Electrical Equipment (WEEE). The company is backing the alliance’s major TV advertising campaign, due to run on eight TV stations from Boxing Day 2011 through to 22 January in the New Year.
It has been calculated that the advert will be viewed over 34 million times, which will provide a great boost to the cause by informing the wider public of the urgent need to recycle waste electrical items at this peak period in the year. If every household in the UK recycled one electrical or electronic item an estimated 73,500 tonnes could be diverted from landfill, which would save over 65,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions; the same impact as avoiding over 9500 round-the-world flights.
Last year in the UK we bought over 1.2 million tonnes of new electrical and electronic equipment. Only about half of this amount was reused or recycled responsibly and a significant proportion of the remainder ended up in landfill, where lead and toxins contained in these items can cause soil and water contamination. The amount of electronic waste that we throw away is increasing by around 5% each year, making it the fastest growing waste stream in the UK. Countrystyle is proud to support the ‘WEEE Recycle’ campaign, which has been established to prevent this growth and to ensure that more unwanted or waste electronic items are either reused or recycled.