July 2022
This information is for volunteers collecting electronic pledges as part of the council’s Circular Economy Champions scheme.
We're hoping to make Brighton & Hove a city that chooses to repair, recycle and reuse. All sorts of things would otherwise go to the landfill or be incinerated.
This information pack helps you pass on tips and information to family and friends. This can help keep things in circulation longer.
Hundreds of volunteers are collecting 20 pledges to reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle. These pledges are from friends, family, colleagues and neighbours.
This scheme can have a real impact on waste reduction in the city.
Funding comes from a European project called BLUEPRINT to a Circular Economy.
Extra support comes from local reuse and repair shops, these include:
We have a linear economy. This means raw materials are made into products that consumers use until they discard them as waste.
Pledges are new actions someone commits to, that support the development of a circular economy. This involves recycling, repairing, returning and reusing products for as long as possible.
These pledges can:
You can:
We will:
This will help us find out if the pledges are having a positive impact on the numbers of people implementing the changes.
Image source: The R Collective
In the linear economy, household waste is converted into a reusable material at the ‘get rid’ stage. While this means the waste doesn't end up in landfill or energy recovery straight away, energy and materials are still needed to recycle.
For most materials there's a limited number of times that material can be recycled before it needs to be thrown away.
In a circular economy, rather than waiting until the ‘get rid’ stage, extending the products' life is possible at the creation stage. This prevents waste and pollution.
A circular economy:
Image source: The waste hierarchy London School of Economics and Political Science
As part of this toolkit, you’ll receive a form for collecting and monitoring pledges.
When you collect pledges, encourage people to prioritise the most preferred options like reduce and reuse.
On the electronics pledge form, we’ve given examples of actions residents could take. We've listed actions with the greatest impact first. For example - repair damaged electronics to avoid buying new ones.
Actions lower down have less impact like - stop throwing old electronics in the bin, and instead and instead donate or recycle them.
Some suggestions for pledge examples are:
You can also:
Talking to neighbours, or close friends, about their habits and behaviours can be challenging.
It’s good to use open questions, to avoid suggesting a right or wrong way to do things. This helps people to trust you and not feel judged.
Try one of these questions to start a conversation.
When you collect pledges, use some of these interesting facts to help people make good choices around electronic consumption, reuse, repair and recycling.
The average Brit replaces their smart phone every 2 to 3 years, and less than 9% of these are reused or refurbished products.
We could run out of materials found in smartphones in less than a century.
Indium is a metal used to create touch screens for phones and computers. According to president of the European Chemical Society, the world's indium supply is extremely thinly spread across the planet. It could soon dry up if we continue throwing away our old devices every few years.
Electronic or e-waste is thought to be both the fastest growing waste stream globally and the fastest growing waste stream in Europe.
The UK is the second largest producer of household e-waste in the world after Norway.
The UK has significantly lower collection and recycling rates for e-waste than other countries in the European region
Electronics contain valuable non-renewable resources including gold, silver, copper, platinum, aluminium and cobalt. When we throw them away without recycling, we are throwing away precious materials. Precious metals in global e-waste has a potential value of $62.5 billion annually.
Find out more about how your mobile phone is powered by precious metals and minerals.
Mining from ore could be 13 times more expensive than recovering metals from e-waste.
E-waste contains hundreds of different materials and toxic substances including lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and flame retardants. These leach into the environment and contaminate drinking water.
The UK is the worst offender in Europe for illegal e-waste exports to developing countries, with most of its waste going to Africa.
Mining gold from discarded electronics creates 80% less emissions compared with mining it from the ground
If everyone in the UK handed in one of their unused devises for recycling, this would save 3.2 million tonnes of CO2. This is equivalent to the carbon savings of 665 wind turbines running for a year.
However you choose to collect pledges, it's important to think about Health and Safety.
The table below shows some common considerations for any activity. This list is not exhaustive, and if you have any questions, send an email to BLUEPRINT@brighton-hove.gov.uk.
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Threat |
Control measures |
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Threat of verbal abuse or physical assault |
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Slips, trips and falls |
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Pre-existing medical conditions |
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Lone working |
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Safe lifting |
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