Small Electricals

There are lots of other places to recycle small electricals

Electrical items are considered hazardous when they become waste, and there are regulations for retailers who sell electronics to also operate a recycling scheme for them.

You can find a location near you using the search tool at www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk, and check inside your local electronic retailers to see if they have a recycling point – some even offer vouchers in return for your old items. If you can’t see the recycling point in the store, ask a member of staff for assistance.

Any shop selling vapes must have a recycling bin for vapes inside the store.

To keep our crews, vehicles, and other members of the public safe from dangerous vehicle fires, you should never put electrical items in any household bin.

When household bins are emptied, the vehicle’s crushing machinery compacts the waste and recycling to collect as much material as possible between trips to the disposal site. When crushed, electronic items are broken apart, exposing hazardous substances that are found inside some electronic items to air, liquids, and other waste – and this causes a fire to start inside collection vehicles or at the disposal site. As of October, we’ve already had EIGHT fires in our collection vehicles in 2025, most of which were caused by lithium in electrical items being crushed after being collected from a household bin. The crew have to stop their collections and empty the entire vehicle’s content onto the street before the fire spreads, and call Fire and Rescue to extinguish the burning waste.

Because our vehicle fleet is mostly electric powered vehicles, the vehicle batteries take up any additional external capacity on the trucks to collect electrical items – a solution that some councils have been able to adopt.

Batteries that are designed to be removed from electrical items (including lithium batteries), can be recycled from your household by placing them in a clear sandwich bag on top of either of your bins.

You can also recycle batteries at any shop that sells batteries – they are part of the same regulations as electricals and should offer a recycling scheme, and can be found using the www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk search tool.

Many retailers offer recycling and take-back schemes for larger electrical items, and you can also dispose of them at

• Our Recycling Centre on Redfield Road - Local Tip Waste and Recycling Centre
• Or by booking a Bulky Waste Collection - Book Bulky Waste