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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Sarah Marsh Consumer affairs correspondent

Half a billion cheap electrical items go to UK landfills in a year, research finds

Material Focus United Kingdom Scott Butler
A mixed flock of Gulls fly over a landfill site while a tractor pushes the waste
‘Tip of the iceberg’: More than 100,000 tonnes of waste electricals are thrown away every year. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

Almost half a billion small, cheap electrical everyday items from headphones to handheld fans ended up in landfill in the UK in the past year, according to research.

The not-for-profit organisation Material Focus, which conducted the research, said the scale of the issue was huge and they wanted to encourage more recycling.

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