Frequently Asked Questions

Electrical equipment contains hazardous substances which can be dangerous to people and the environment if they’re not disposed of properly. Even if the entire item is not useful anymore, some parts may still be, so throwing those away wastes valuable resources that could be used to benefit your local community.

Keep in mind that Acorn’s primary aim is to save valuable resources for use back into local communities, either as whole items or as spare parts. Items of electrical equipment thrown into the bin or dumped at the local tip will be lost forever for local reuse.

The service we offer is personally tailored to our customer's specific disposal needs.

• Ensure your data is completely safe by securely erasing the contents of the hard drive and can provide documented evidence.
• Make sure all components which can be reused are recovered and refurbished.
• Strip out metals and plastics which can be made into new products like drinks cans, plastic products and new IT equipment.

Thus, we aim to help the environment by producing less waste to end up in landfill and developing countries, reducing CO2 emissions and demand for raw materials.

For the local economy we provide a high quality, good value, secure IT disposal service. We also offer refurbished computers for sale at dramatically reduced prices compared to new equipment, alongside making donations to other community organisations.

If you are going to bother making the journey to the tip you might as well bring it to where the best use for locals will be made of the equipment, (that’s us). Again, valuable resources will be lost if you just dump it, with no social or economic benefit back to our own community. By bringing your equipment to Acorn you can be sure that our own local communities will benefit, instead of the equipment being transported for miles outside our region by non community businesses, just to be shredded and lost to us.

For the reasons we have stated. The resources will be lost, the whole item, the parts or the materials it’s made from, with no benefit to your local community.

First and foremost you! You have the benefit of knowing that you have done your bit to support your local community and environment, along with keeping things out of landfill and saving valuable resources. Secondly, people not as fortunate as you may be able to reuse the equipment you no longer need after it has been refurbished and tested by Acorn. Low-income families and individuals can obtain the refurbished tested equipment at a fraction of the cost of buying new.

We also support other community organisations by making donations of the equipment to them. Some recent prime examples were four full computer systems to the local Sea Cadets and four to the local Air Cadets, (they used them as flight simulators).

Others to benefit from local peoples kind generosity are school students, (work experience), people of all ages that are unemployed through no fault of their own through our work placements, training schemes, volunteer positions and the creation of full-time posts.

Definitely not! Here at Acorn one of our main aims is to repair equipment and put it back into use, making it available for others. If after we assess its condition we decide that the equipment can’t be reused (possibly on safety grounds) we will ensure that it is recycled properly with the value of the resources retained locally for local benefit.

We don’t want to bore you rigid with the fine detail as the Directives themselves are full of legal speak, suffice-to-say that it is all about keeping valuable resources, (but chemically dangerous) out of landfill and putting priority on reuse of whole items of equipment. Weee stands for “Waste Electrical, Electronic Equipment” If you really want a challenge, read all about the Directives here.

Not a penny if you bring it to one of our collection points

Usually businesses would not be charged apart from a small fee towards our transport costs, plus any hazardous waste notes, (£12), but it would depend on the quality of the equipment and whether you had good workable items, as this would offset the charges non-community commercial companies would charge you.

Any company that produces waste is legally and socially responsible for its disposal under the Duty of Care required by the Environment Protection Act (1990). This requires you to take all reasonable steps to ensure that waste is handled legally. This means that it can only be transferred to an authorised person together with a waste transfer note.

If you produce waste you have a legal and social responsibility for its disposal. Businesses wishing to dispose of waste must comply with the legal requirements covered by the Duty of Care. Following the Duty of Care will ensure your business stays within the law and does not harm the environment.

• Your business avoids prosecution and the associated poor public image.
• It improves both your company's business and environmental performance.
• Failure to comply is a criminal offence and the business and its directors could face prosecution. Successful prosecution can result in an unlimited fine.

• All waste collected must be carried by waste carriers registered with the Environment Agency.
• You have a duty to check the carrier's registration.
• All waste must be taken to an authorised facility - by the year 2006 recyclable material had to be precluded from entering landfill.
• A waste transfer note must be in force for every transfer of waste.
• You must retain a copy of all waste transfer notes for at least two years.