Disposable & Recycling Information

WEEE Information

Why are we involved?

Recycling facilities are now available for all customers to deposit their old electrical products, required under the UK and European legislation WEEE (The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive.

The legislation aims to:

• Make good use of the materials that make up old electrical equipment by recycling rather than disposing of them to landfill.
• Prevent the adverse environmental effects of sending often hazardous electrical equipment to landfill.

TLC Southern Ltd has met these requirements as a conscientious business by offering all customers buying new electrical and electronic equipment free take-back of their old electricals on a like-for-like basis.

How does this work in practice?

Wherever practical, old electrical waste should not be disposed of with your household waste. Customers will be able to return old electrical equipment to us when buying a like for like item.

You can return an item at your cost, up to 28 days after you purchased the replacement, as long as you provide the invoice for that replacement. Please remember that the equipment will be further handled during the recycling process, so please be considerate when depositing your equipment. Please also remember to remove all batteries and recycle these separately.

You can also dispose of it at your local recycling centre, which you can find at recycle-more.co.uk.

Fluorescent Tubes

We can also recycle your old fluorescent tubes if the glass is not broken.

Other information

UK households dispose of over 1.2 million tonnes of electrical and electronic waste every year. This is the equivalent of 150,000 double-decker buses and would be enough to fill the new Wembley Stadium 6 times over.

Much of the UK’s electronic waste ends up in landfill sites, where toxins put communities at risk. Failure to segregate any type of recyclable material in the home will usually result in items being disposed of in a landfill site (buried in the ground in the UK) or being incinerated.

As a reminder for you to recycle, all new electrical products are marked with a crossed-out wheeled bin symbol.

Battery Recycling

TLC’s new battery recycling points mean it’s even easier to get recycling.

Currently, the UK recycles less than 3% of portable batteries, with more than 30,000 tonnes of batteries discarded every year.

In February 2010, a new European Directive came into force, meaning wholesalers, including TLC, must provide collection containers for customers to return used portable batteries. The EU Directive states that 25% of all batteries placed on the market must be recycled by 2012, rising to 45% by 2016.

Batteries can contain hazardous substances such as mercury, lead and cadmium. So along with the obvious benefits of recycling waste batteries, thousands of tonnes of valuable metals, such as nickel, cobalt and silver, could be recovered too.

TLC has joined the Wastecare compliance scheme and will be rolling out battery recycling points at all branches.

After you’ve recycled your batteries, find out where they go at the Wastecare website.

What batteries can I recycle?

You can recycle all household batteries at TLC battery recycling points. These include all sealed batteries from AAAs through to laptop batteries, mobile phone batteries and button cells used in hearing aids and watches.