Best Practice IT Disposal 

The European WEEE Directive states that all businesses have a legal responsibility for how they dispose of their IT. When you are replacing your IT, you need a company you can rely on to collect your redundant IT equipment to make sure that IT disposal is done in a secure and compliant way keeping it out of the landfill.

This is where Ucan Recycling can help. As specialists in the IT recycling of WEEE and IT re-use of working items, we are fully licenced and regulated by the Environment Agency. We responsibly remove your waste IT and issue the correct paperwork so you can rest assured that your business IT is recycled and data destruction carried out to industry standards. Certificates of Destruction are always supplied as standard.

When dealing with Ucan Recycling, you can be sure that:

• We are a registered waste carrier and an Approved Authorised Treatment Facility (AATF)
• We follow the waste hierarchy where working equipment is reused and non-working equipment is recycled.
• We will always issue your business with a waste transfer note to cover each item of e-waste we collect
• We provide full asset tracking documentation and certificate of destruction for data removal

With Ucan Recycling, it’s easy. IT recycling in 4 simple steps:

• Call our IT collections manager on 0113 242 4421 to arrange a convenient day or contact us on our form here
• Tell us what you have to collect so that we can assign the right vehicle for your needs
• We will give you a realistic date for collection based on when we have a van in your area and nearer the time we will call you with an am or pm time band for arrival at your premises
• We will issue your business with a Waste Transfer Note when making the collection and can provide a Certificate of Destruction and Hazardous note on our return if these are applicable

WE OFFER A FREE COLLECTION SERVICE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES:

A Grade Items*	10 items	20 items	30 items	40 items
Distance
Up to 20 miles	FREE	FREE	FREE	FREE
21 - 100 miles	50p/mile	FREE	FREE	FREE
101 - 200 miles	50p/mile	50p/mile	FREE	FREE
200+ miles	50p/mile	50p/mile	50p/mile	FREE

*Grade A items are defined as: complete computers, laptops, servers, 19" + working flat-screen monitors, switches but please give us a call and we will be happy to advise. For one-off larger items, we will charge accordingly based on mileage and man-hours, call for details on 0113 2424421

As we are a not-for-profit company we have to be savvy with our route planning and plan collections according to postcode clusters, so we know you'll understand that it may be a few days before we can get to you. Whilst in the majority of cases we will try to collect your IT for free but we will have to pass on the £10 charge for the disposal of Hazardous monitors which is a cost incurred from the Environment Agency. Please also note that CRT monitors will incur a cost of £5 per unit to dispose of per Environment Agency charges.

Call us today on 0113 242 4421 to organise your redundant IT collection.

 

IT Scrap

Where a diagnosis states the item cannot be fixed then it is classed as scrap or WEEE. When something attains this status, government legislation requires that it should be disposed of safely and responsibly. Ucan Recycling will break the items up into their component materials (metals, plastics, glass etc) and send them off to be recycled.

Ucan Recycling is a specialist in the buying and selling of working and redundant IT equipment. Top prices paid! (Large quantity is required for payment).

We’re looking to buy:

• Working PC’s and laptops
• All grades of IT scrap

We’re looking to sell:

• Bulk quantities of PC’s, laptops, TFTs and servers

You can rely on us for secure and responsible disposal of:

Computer Bases
Circuit Boards
Hard Drives
Power Supplies
CRT Monitors
LCD/Flat Monitors
Laptops
Cable
Servers
Printers
Projectors
Mobile Phones
Set-Top Boxes
Phone Systems

IT Recycling by computer disposal specialists. Call Ucan Recycling on 0113 242 4421

The current EU Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive

Waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) such as computers, TV-sets, fridges and mobile phones is one the fastest growing waste streams in the EU, with some 9 million tonnes generated in 2005, and expected to grow to more than 12 million tonnes by 2020.

Because WEEE is a complex mixture of materials and components that has hazardous content, if not properly handled it can cause major environmental and health problems. And importantly, the production of modern electronics requires the use of scarce and expensive resources (e.g. around 10% of total gold worldwide is used for their production). To improve the environmental management of WEEE and to contribute to a circular economy and enhance resource efficiency the improvement of collection, treatment and recycling of electronics at the end of their life is essential.

To address these problems two pieces of legislation have been put in place: The Directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE Directive) and the Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS Directive)

The first WEEE Directive entered into force in February 2003. The Directive provided for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their WEEE free of charge. These schemes aim to increase the recycling of WEEE and/or re-use. However, in line with the increase in consumer spend of electronics the Directive was revised in December 2008. The new WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU entered into force on 13 August 2012 and became effective on 14 February 2014.

Re-use over recycle

All equipment that we collect or have donated is considered for re-use over recycle wherever possible and we are confidently working at a 40:60 re-use to recycling ratio and continually working to increase this. We do, however, operate a zero to landfill policy and since the company was formed we have sent no IT waste to landfill - thus exceeding the EU WEEE Directive targets. We adhere 100% to current UK legislation for handling WEEE and its disposal. Where it is not possible to recycle, we dispose of per the WEEE Directive 2012/19.

Where we differ from other IT Disposal companies is that we are a licensed Approved Authorised Treatment Facility (AATF) which means we can break down anything that is deemed unusable whereas other IT disposal companies have to pass this on thus increasing the carbon footprint for collections of disposed of IT equipment. We reclaim more than 30 separate component types for reuse including hard drives, ram, motherboards, power supply units, processor chips, cords, leads, connectors etc for IT disposal.

When IT arrives on site, it is tested to see if it is suitable for re-use in its complete form. If not, then we aim to re-use the components like the ones listed above. For anything that fails to test, it will go into our IT recycling process: where a designated team strip everything down to a primary level. We dismantle and sort IT waste into over 25 streams, enabling the recycling of material that would otherwise be contaminated and not recyclable. For every component, we have an accredited downstream buyer eg steel is sent to a steel recycler and aluminium to an aluminium smelter. 

We categorise WEEE into 1 of 10 categories (the majority falls into category 3 - IT and telecoms equipment). We recycle scrap IT into the core materials and work with accredited specialist recyclers for all downstream materials. We log all weights coming into the facility and all the downstream weights going out as well - this ensures we have zero to landfill. These downstream figures are checked by the EA. We carry out due diligence on all our buyers and suppliers to ensure through the line compliance and constantly review internal processes to ensure we operate 100% compliant with all WEEE regulations and controls.

For more information on our IT recycling processes please call 0113 242 4421 or contact us here