#WEEEcleanup challenge: Give your electrical equipment a new lease of life!

We’re really happy that you’ve decided to take part in our #WEEEcleanup challenge!

What is the Goal?

To properly dispose of as much waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as possible, thereby helping to protect the environment!

How can I take part?

It’s very simple! Look through your cellar and drawers, and see how many old electrical devices are lying around unused. Collect all your old mobile phones, laptops etc. and dispose them of in a professionally way. Remember to delete all your personal data before handing in the devices for disposal. We explain how to do this further below.

Help protect the Environment!

Take photos of your old devices and post them on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram using the hashtag #WEEEcleanup, and nominate three of your friends to dig out their own electrical and electronic devices and give them a new lease of life too! Remember to actually hand in your electronic waste for disposal.

Where can I hand in faulty electrical and electronic Equipment?

Old batteries and waste of electrical and electronic equipment do not belong in the normal dustbin, nor on the street. There are numerous other options for getting rid of faulty mobile phones, laptops or coffee machines free of charge. These include:

(Electronics) retailers
DIY stores
Recycling centres

How does disposing of WEEE professionally help the Environment?

Recovering raw materials
Preventing health and ecological hazards
Putting a stop to child labour under inhuman conditions

When you hand in e-waste for professional disposal, you are making an important contribution to an operational circular economy, which protects natural resources and thereby helps the environment. Recycling end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment allows resources to be conserved, including rare minerals. For example, copper, cobalt, silver and gold can be extracted from old mobile phones and used again to make new products. In view of the increasing scarcity of raw materials, this is not only an important environmental, but also a social factor. Rare minerals are often mined under hazardous conditions in developing countries, in many cases even by children.

It addition, recycling prevents electronic waste from being illegally dumped in the countryside or landfills in developing countries, where hazardous substances such as lead and nickel may be released into the environment, posing a risk to human beings and to nature. Toxic vapours may be emitted, for example, or contaminants may leach into the groundwater.

What to look out for before disposing of WEEE?

Make sure to delete all your data
If your device still works, you can donate it or sell it to others
Remove any batteries that are not permanently installed

Be sure to delete all personal and sensitive data stored on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, flash drives or hard drives before disposing of these. In addition, the devices should be reset to their factory settings. If you want to be particularly thorough, you can also run a program that deletes all the data from the mobile phone.

What devices count as e-waste?

Electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) requires electricity or energy in order to use it. This type of equipment can be identified by a symbol depicting a crossed-out wheeled dustbin. This symbol is either printed on the device itself or on the packaging. If you see the symbol, the device does not belong in the normal dustbin. Instead, it must be returned to a recycling centre or collection Point.

What is WEEE?

WEEE stands for “Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment” and is the official term for electronic or e-waste. The European WEEE Directive sets out to protect our health and the environment from harmful substances in electrical and electronic equipment, and to reduce the amount of waste by reusing or recycling the materials.