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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 43961
Location: yes

Posted: Mon May 05, 25 3:06 pm Post subject:

has it got a PAT ticket? is a big problem with electrical stuff, probably sensible(most folk could not assess or rewire it)

recycling is patchy geographically and a fair bit of is greenwashing/tick boxing

some stuff is easy and prized by the trade, glass , paper/cardboard, al and fe cans

most local collections do not do metals, fabrics, electricals, nor most/any plastics although all could have a value as economically viable resources if collected and sorted for processing and reuse

tetra packs are mixed "ore", technically they can be, but not in an economically viable way

the days of ashes and broken crockery being the only thing in the bin are long gone

landfill metal rich electricals and dig holes for lower grade ore make no sense to me
maybe i should get ambitious with getting money to make good ideas manifest

as mixed ore consumer electronics have lots of potential, Au,Cu,Sn,"rares" etc and quite a bit of energy rich plastics are in far greater concentrations than they are in most mined ores or rf gold hunting across big red deserts

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 53

Posted: Mon May 05, 25 7:16 pm Post subject:

Some of the local charities that take small electricals (kettles type) will have a PAT tester who does it free for a small number of items to support said charity. But unusual.

We've recently had an improvement on the plastics front in that you can now chuck plastic drink bottles and similar in the recycling bin with the lids on.

Electrical stuff is a minefield. Phones and computers even more so.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16337

Posted: Tue May 06, 25 7:19 am Post subject:

Agree with Dpack, but sadly plastics are problematic in that they can be 'mixed' in the same sheet because they are laminated. We can put plastic bottles in our kerbside recycling and several shops will take 'soft' plastic. Still working out if we can recycle the wrapper from cheese which says 'not recyclable' but they say in the shop I bought it that they will take it as recycling. Feels very flexible, so at a guess, polythene or similar.

Electricals, as you say Dpack, are a real mine of metals, but need a lot of sorting and stripping. Possible, but as with a lot of these things is it 'economic'.

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9937
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Tue May 06, 25 9:00 am Post subject:

I didn't realise there was a lack of tip shops in Northern counties. Here in SW England they are run by the council themselves - they weigh everything you buy, even ornaments, as they can declare all sold items as having been recycled, and furthermore they get some cash - I'm not sure what happens to that money - hopefully it goes towards the cost of running the recycling centre

electrical goods are always difficult to rehome - but I have found more charity shops have set themselves up with the correct testing so they can take electricals. Broken electricals are collected at my recycling centre for stripping down etc

plastics are a problem in that only a small percentage of those 'recycled' actually get recycled. 9 - 20% worldwide, 45% in the UK so although it feels virtuous to put it in the recycling sack, the best bet is to generate as little as possible.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 43961
Location: yes

Posted: Tue May 06, 25 12:59 pm Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

that last bit, the chemistry and engineering is highly plausible, most has been tried
the business side needs to "reward" the disposer and get the item/s where they can be "refined" as well as processing the ore profitably to recover the useful metals and energy in a fairly tidy way

my choice would be harvest energy with a plasma furnace, ball mill the black slag, get chem/electrochem on the concentrate

messy would be a heap leach of minced electrical goods and take what lands in the activated charcoal leaving the plastics etc in the "washed" minced heap

very messy is send it to a poor country and children will use a wok to recover solder

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