ILM Highland residents urged to recycle their electricals

New project launches 7 small electrical recycling bring banks

ILM Highland today unveils its plans for its Small Electrical Recycling banks campaign across the Highlands.

This new phase of the project will launch in the hope that 110,743 households in the local community will get behind its drive to recycle their electricals. Seven Small Electrical Recycling banks with mobile phone chutes will be positioned in rurally isolated locations across the Highlands, to encourage the responsible recycling of small electricals that may have otherwise ended up in landfill.

This is one of over 40 UK projects funded by Material Focus, the not for profit leading the Recycle Your Electricals campaign who have provided £44,000 for ILM Highlands to install the recycling banks. The project will lead the way in the Scottish Highlands, joining other projects around the country in making it easier for 10 million UK residents to recycle their electricals. The recycling banks will offer real and significant solutions to enable responsible and accessible electrical recycling opportunities to households across the Highlands.

The rural locations will be key to helping local residents access recycling points. The project will make a sustained and significant contribution towards electrical reuse and recycling covering one of the most diverse geographical regions with the most remotely located communities in the whole of the UK. This particular project is anticipated to collect 42 tonnes of small waste electricals.

The aim of the nationwide Electricals Recycling Fund is to significantly reduce e-waste and its environmental impact by making it easier for consumers to recycle their electricals. The projects that have been funded by Material Focus include a variety of recycling methods, from kerbside collections to more drop-off points in schools, community centres, and bring banks. Overall there will be over 400 new collection points plus kerbside collections for 5.5 million UK residents.

Recycle Your Electricals research has shown that 80% of consumers believe recycling is a good thing, and many of us already recycle things like paper and plastic. Research has also shown that most of us have unwanted electricals we want to get rid of, even if it’s just a drawer of cables - millions of electrical items are hoarded in UK homes. And yet 39% of people bin electricals rather than recycle them say they think it’s simply too hard to recycle. The aim of these projects is to overcome these issues by making it easier to recycle electricals.

Claire Weaver, Business Development Manager at ILM Highland said: “Since the initial roll out of our 10 Small waste electricals recycling banks back in 2020, the response from communities across the Highlands has been significant – we’ve even had requests from other communities to add a container in their local area.

“The funding from Material Focus will be of tremendous benefit to ILM, especially as the Highlands is such a vast and geographically challenging area – it is often very time-consuming and expensive for our local residents to responsibly dispose of electrical waste due to travel needs. The initial roll out of our project concept was, and continues to be, highly successful. We know that the growth of this service will be too.”

"We are thrilled to support the ILM Small Electrical Recycling banks campaign that addresses the pressing issue of e-waste.” said Scott Butler, Executive Director of Material Focus. "By investing in improved collection and drop-off services and exploring new recycling methods, we are taking a significant step towards creating a more sustainable future by making it easier for 10 million more people to recycle their electricals."

ILM Highland is a social enterprise and charity, supporting vulnerable people in the Scottish Highlands to live at home – giving them greater independence and freedom. It achieves this through its Handyperson and Care & Repair services, providing assistance with small and large home repairs and improvements.

ILM Highland’s charitable services are supported by income generated from its professional and fully certified service for businesses to dispose of their waste electronic and electrical equipment; a domestic small and large electrical recycling service; and its shop in Alness and online, which sells a wide selection of new and refurbished electrical appliances, refurbished Chromebooks, and spare parts for appliance repairs.

To find out more about ILM Highland, please visit www.ilmhighland.co.uk or follow ILM Highland on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.