From Monday, 7 September, Mid Devon residents will be able to put out small electrical items, also known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), with their kerbside recycling boxes.

Along with cardboard, cartons, mobile phones, ink cartridges and toners, old electrical items no bigger than the volume of a plastic carrier bag can be placed in the green recycling box for collection, or by its side if space is limited.

For a full list of all small WEEE items that will be accepted, visit middevon.gov.uk/SmallElectricals.

As technology evolves, the speed at which existing electronic and electrical items depreciate is rapid, invariably leaving older items being left unwanted. Many of these items contain valuable plastics and metals, and with natural resources in limited supply combined with soaring waste disposal costs, it is important that residents recycle them so that they can be used in new products.

The Council would therefore like to encourage residents to recycle any small electrical items using their kerbside collection service, on the proviso that items are put out ‘little and often’, due to the finite space on board the collection vehicles.

Mid Devon District Council’s Lead Member for the Environment, Councillor Colin Slade, said:

"I’m very pleased to announce that we’ll soon be able to offer the collection of small electrical items as part of our residents’ kerbside collection service. Not only will this reduce the amount of general waste we send to our Energy-from-Waste-facility, but we’ll also increase the amount of precious materials we can recover. We only have so many precious materials on the planet and it’s very important we reuse as many of them as we can."

Following the collection of these items by the Council’s kerbside collection teams, they will be mechanically separated into plastics, ferrous metals and non-ferrous metals. The recovered plastics will be used to produce street furniture and any metals will be reused in new electrical products.