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The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense - Tom Clancy
Sainsbury's pulls PC recycling stunt
RETAIL GIANT SAINSBURY'S is teaming with HP on a London-based recycling drive.
On Saturday 6 September, for the five hours between 11am and 4pm, those in the big smoke can lug their dead and dying desktops, laptops, fax machines, scanners and printers to the Sainsbury's Nine Elms store in Vauxhall for collection.
The stuff brought in will be refurbished by Maxitech.biz, and most of those PCs that are salvageable will be given to local charities. The items which cannot be reused will be recycled by a specialised recycling plant, courtesy of HP.
We have to admit we're somewhat disappointed by the very small scale of this drive, but hopefully a good number of people will use this as a chance to get rid of some of their old electronic junk lying about the house in an environmentally friendly way.
Of course the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive stipulates that any business which sells electrical and electronic equipment to the public, will have to ensure that their customers can return their WEEE free of charge. This is on a one-for-one basis, as long as the new equipment is of a similar type and has the same function as the old equipment.
So if you buy a new TV, PC or something of that ilk from the likes of Sainsbury's, they're legally obliged to take your old one and dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way, anyway.
Ultimately, we applaud the sentiment, but when two giants like Sainsbury's and HP come together on an initiative like this, we expect a little more than just a blip on the radar.
Sainsbury's has said it's looking to roll out more recycling initiatives across the country in the future. µ
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In actual fact retailers are under no legal obligation to take back your old goods and dispose of them for you. They have the option to fund civic amenities so that their customers have somewhere to take them to for recycling. I used to work for a well know office supplies store and this was the action they took, and I am sure most other retailers have as well. Although we did also have special offers on throughout the year where we would give healthy discounts on new printers and/or routers (1/3 off £300 machines in some cases) in exchange for the goods they were replacing which we would personally send off to be refurbished in possible and recycled if not.