Stop Hoarding This Black Friday! Recycle on #GreenTuesday!

A countdown to infamous Black Friday has begun and you might be already in the lookout for offers to bag in the run-up to Christmas.

Black Friday remains the busiest shopping day of the year. No retailer ignores it and no consumer can avoid it. Being a savvy-shopper is a good thing, but it can be easy to fall for sales tricks and tactics. Grabbing stuff with unrealistic discount labels that you will regret later and stockpile it at home is nowhere near being savvy.

Spending is on the rise

Technology products occupy top three positions of most wanted items by Britons. UK shoppers are expected to spend £4.75 billion on Black Friday 2018 only, a lot of it on discounted technology such as phones, cameras, TVs and smartwatches. Surprisingly, those digital devices were the most regretted purchase items last year, according to Finder.

Why do we Care?

While new gadgets are purchased, there’s no attention brought to old electronics and Compare and Recycle would like to change it by initiating Green Tuesday - a culmination of four-day long event with an aim to encourage electronics recycling and decluttering after the biggest discounted shopping event. We would like to encourage people to think green and inspire a new tradition following up the Black Friday weekend.

With unboxing of every brand new gadget, there’s an older piece of tech being replaced and hoarded in UK homes. Phone ownership in UK households is at 95% with 16% of households having 4 or more mobile phones. Meanwhile an astonishing 125 million phones are languishing unused around the country. This Everest of discarded mobile devices is a missed opportunity to regain consumer’s spending, combat climate change and address the ICT industry’s increasing carbon footprint.

The Environmental Impact

While smartphones are spreading new opportunities, the manufacturing processes are highly carbon intensive and yearly upgrades encouraged by mobile phone producers shorten the use of life on average down to 1.8 years which leads to older devices being abandoned and creating a harmful environmental impact. Unused and unwanted phones are worth extra cash and can be recycled responsibly to recoup valuable components and reduce the need to mine raw materials from the Earth.

What you can do?

Consider the following points when purchasing items on Black Friday:

• Do I really need it?
• Is it replacing a piece of tech?
• Can I recycle the old gadget?

Green Tuesday is the UK’s response to Black Friday. The Day is meant to encourage people to return their end of life gear so that it can be re-used, repaired or recycled. The day that you can clear out unused tech in your home and take advantage of the many recycling services available for gadgets that are doomed to lay idle in drawers and cupboards. Many of these old gadgets can be a source of extra cash for your household.

We are familiar with recycling, and separating our plastics from our food waste, but when it comes to electronics, there is very little in the way of encouragement from local organisations to recycle IT devices correctly. We can do a lot. But we can’t do it alone. Which is why we are encouraging an annual clear out following the biggest consumer event of the year. Help us spread the word and raise awareness using #GreenTuesday and get involved ?

P.S. Don’t forget - responsible recycling is expected from us all year round!