Brits urged to cut down on e-waste by fixing broken appliances

75% of British householders don’t attempt to fix broken down electrical appliances, according to a survey.

eSpares asked 5,000 UK residents what they do when an appliance, such as a fridge or washing machines breaks down, with the majority saying they’d rather purchase a new model than get their toolkit out or hire an engineer.

The survey also found that just one-in-five respondents agreed that manufacturers make it easy to fix broken appliances.

Between 2015 and 2016, the amount of electrical and electronic equipment put on the market increased by 2.9 % from 9.8 million tonnes to 10.1 million tonnes in the EU.

Large household appliances accounted for 2.5 million tonnes, namely 55.6 % of the total waste electrical and electronic equipment collected in the EU in 2016.

Ad Casey, head of brand at eSpares said: ‘These responses are concerning – not only because of the huge amount of money wasted every year – but due to the number of easily repairable appliances that, when discarded, go to waste.

‘If we fixed just an extra 10% of those appliances, we could stop an estimated 100,000 tonnes from being thrown away.’

Earlier this year, a study said that the world needs to co-operate to counteract the growing problem of electronic waste.

The study, conducted by researchers from the UK as well as the USA and China, found that toxic e-waste is being shipped around the world illegally or sent to countries with unsafe or underdeveloped recycling facilities.

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