FAQs - "WEEE recycle-more" poster competition

1. Who is recycle-more?
www.recycle-more.co.uk was founded in 2000, and offers information on recycling to schools, households and businesses as well as links to other recycling resources. The website is one of the most popular recycling sites in the UK and received over 3 million hits in 2007. The site is run by Valpak, and was set up to fulfil our members' legal requirement and to promote recycling to consumers. The site offers the UK's most comprehensive recycling bank locator. Find out where to recycle near you by typing your postcode into the unique bank locator, which is updated by over 450 local authorities. The site also offers activities and recycling information for schools.

2. Who is Valpak?
Valpak is the UK's largest Producer Responsibility scheme, meeting the obligations of 3,000 UK businesses under the Packaging Waste Regulations. The regulations place a legal requirement on certain UK businesses to recover and recycle packaging. Valpak takes on the legal obligation of its 3,000 members (including many of the country's top businesses) and ensures recycling happens on their behalf. We also ensure member funds are invested in to UK recovery and recycling infrastructure, which in turn will mean that Valpak customers play their part in assisting the UK to achieve recycling targets set by the European Packaging Directive. This system of recycling investment is one of the most cost-effective in Europe and since 1997 has consistently delivered the required targets. As well as offering competitive compliance with these regulations, Valpak also advises members on other issues of Producer Responsibility.

For more information about Valpak visit www.valpak.co.uk

3. Who is Wincanton?
Wincanton is a leading European provider of supply chain solutions with a turnover of £1.9 billion and operations in 15 countries, the business employs 27,000 professionals. Wincanton's recycling division offers a wide range of cost effective solutions for WEEE, fridge and CRT recycling at its state of art facilities which treat all electrical items in a fully compliant and environmentally sound manner.

4. What does WEEE stand for?
WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and refers to any old electrical items you may have. There are 5 categories of WEEE:

5. What electrical items can be recycled at Easter Queenslie Household Waste Recycling Centre/ Civic Amenity Site?
Easter Queenslie has a range of recycling facilities for a number of types of waste materials. They now have facilities for depositing various types of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). These facilities are identified by WEEE category. This means you can take almost any electrical or electronic items to be recycled here. For a detailed list please refer to www.recycle-more.co.uk where you will find a guides to the type of goods that fall into each WEEE category.

6. What items cannot be recycled at Easter Queenslie?
Easter Queenslie has recycling facilities for WEEE across all five WEEE categories. However, some items are not as obvious to categorise as others. Please refer to www.recycle-more.co.uk for a list common misconceptions.

7. Is Easter Queenslie the only place in Glasgow where I can recycle my old electrical items?
No, all 4 Household Waste Recycling Centres in Glasgow have facilities to take your old electrical items, in all 5 WEEE categories. For further formation, please access www.glasgow.gov.uk

8. Why does this competition ask for a poster to be designed to encourage the people of Glasgow to recycle Mixed WEEE, when the 4 recycling sites in Glasgow offer facilities to dispose of all types of WEEE? Surely it's better to encourage the recycling of all types of WEEE?
Glasgow City Council is joining forces with Valpak and Wincanton to launch the WEEE recycle-more campaign. Valpak distributes funds to a number of Civic Amenity sites across the UK so that they can accommodate WEEE. Wincanton transport the collected WEEE from the recycling site at Easter Queenslie to a recycling plant. Valpak also contracts with other companies who can transport other types of WEEE to be recycled. This is because some types of WEEE may contain hazardous substances, which means that hazardous WEEE has to be transported separately. The WEEE recycle-more campaign is asking for a poster to promote Mixed WEEE. This is because items from the Mixed WEEE category are most likely to be thrown out with normal household waste instead of being recycled. In turn the Mixed WEEE category has the lowest recycling rate out of all the WEEE categories. Therefore the campaign is trying to encourage more people to recycle these items instead of throwing them away.

9. Why is this competition only open to schools and youth groups in the Glasgow area?
The WEEE recycle-more campaign is being trialled out in Glasgow first, to see if the rate of Mixed WEEE recycling increases and the quality of Mixed WEEE collected improves in this area.

10. Will a similar competition be run any where else in the UK?
If the campaign is successful, it is hoped that it may be rolled-out to other areas of the UK. For further information please contact recycle-more@valpak.co.uk or call 08450 682 572.