There’s never been a better time to brave the drawer of doom, sort through your piles of unwanted/old electrical cables! This ‘urban mining’ could provide 30% of the copper needed to decarbonise the power grid by 2030.
To support ‘urban mining’, recycling your small electricals and cables couldn’t be easier in Rhondda Cynon Taf! Recycle your items on the go in any of our main Leisure Centres or Community Recycling Centres!
From old phone chargers to broken hairdryers - if it has a plug, battery or cable and is smaller than a four-slice-toaster, residents can take it to be recycled on their way to Swim, Spin or use the Gym!
The SEVEN main Leisure for Life Centres across RCT are kitted out with bins for you to drop your cables/items and then head to your chosen leisure activity – its win, win for the environment and for your fitness.
The participating centres are:
- Abercynon Sports Centre
- Hawthorn Leisure Centres
- Llantrisant Leisure Centre
- Rhondda Fach Leisure Centre
- Rhondda Sports Centre
- Sobell Leisure Centre
- Tonyrefail Leisure Centre
Each of the centres will accept:
- Personal grooming: hairdryers, straighteners, electric toothbrushes and shavers etc.
- Small kitchen appliances: kettles, toasters and blenders etc.
- Technology: radios, CD/DVD players, electronic toys/games, phones, tablets, and cameras.
- Lamps, torches, Christmas tree lights
- Cables and chargers
Please remove batteries and recycle these separately at your nearest participating retailer or Community Recycling Centre.
The centres won’t accept:
- Anything bigger than a four-slice-toaster that has a plug, battery or cable.
- Vapes of any kind
- Larger kitchen appliances such as hotplates, air fryers, microwaves, and slow cookers.
A recent study by Recycle Your Electricals found that unused electrical goods could contain as much as £266m worth of copper - That’s enough to provide 30% of the copper needed for the UK’s planned transition to a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030.
That’s a lot of copper and other precious metals that could be recycled and reused to power new electrical goods and future technologies – including electric cars!
Experts say copper demand is outstripping production – driven in part by sustainable energy projects and electric cars – and the mining process can have devastating environmental and social consequences.
Many household electrical items also contain lithium chargeable batteries – these items are hazardous and could cause a serious fire if it’s placed into your kerbside waste or recycling.
When electrical items are mistakenly collected as part of the general recycling or waste collection, there is a risk that they could be pierced by the crusher on the collection vehicle and become unstable. This could lead to the elements, parts or batteries sparking or igniting and causing a fire in the back of the refuse truck or worse if it happened at the recycling sort centre – which will need to be dealt with safely and could delay collections or potentially endanger employees.
Councillor Ann Crimmings, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment and Leisure said:
“Old cables often end up in the drawer of doom and are never to be seen again! Couple that with the small electrical items that are at the back of a cupboard or on a garage shelf and we have a lot of potentially precious metal available to be reused and turned into something new. In RCT you don’t need to wait until you make a trip to the Community Recycling Centre as you can simply drop the items in the electronics bin at participating leisure centres, before you keep fit or even if you’re just passing by!
“I would urge residents to use the facilities to dispose of their cables and small electrical items responsibly as they can cause a number of hazardous issues if they are placed into household waste or recycling.
”RCT residents have always been great recyclers and I know that they will continue their fight against waste to help RCT meet its target to recycle over 70% of its waste by 2024/25. Keep up the great work RCT”.
Please take larger items to one of the many local Community Recycling Centres in Rhondda Cynon Taf. The Council’s Community Recycling Centres (CRCs) are open from 8.30am until 6.30pm (summer opening hours) and 8.30am- 4.30pm (winter opening hours) and will accept larger household electrical items e.g., washing machines, microwaves, TV’s, fridges etc. Each of these facilities will cater for all recycling needs – a full list of the items accepted can be found at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/communityrecyclingcentres
All centres are staffed, and attendants are happy to advise residents.
More information on recycling your WEEE in RCT can be found at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/WEEE.
Not sure what you can or can't recycle? You can now check online via the searchable A-Z guide at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/recyclingsearch.
For more information on recycling visit
www.rctcbc.gov.uk/recycling
Posted on 13/03/2025