How To Declutter Your Home and Save the Planet

Manchester is home to a range of organisations that could help us declutter our homes and live more sustainably.

Here’s a Monday morning challenge: count up the number of unused devices in your home.

Care to share your number?  

If you’re shamefacedly tallying up drawers full of ancient Nokias, point and shoot cameras, and a beleaguered laptop from your student days – you’re not alone. According to a 2019 study by the Royal Society of Chemistry, there could be as many 40 million unused gadgets languishing in homes and offices across the UK.

Although more than half of us are likely to be inadvertently stockpiling their old tech, the majority of households say that they have no plans to recycle their collection.

Besides the risk of turning into a nation of hoarders, what does it matter what we do with our old devices? Beyond cluttering up cupboards we fear to open, holding on to our old tech can have serious consequences for the environment.

The phones, cameras, laptops squirreled away in our homes all contain valuable materials that are becoming increasingly rare. When our old devices aren’t repurposed or repaired, the endangered elements used in their construction risk being abandoned in storage or wasting away in landfill.  An estimated £14 billion worth of valuable metals are discarded in this way each year, never to be recovered. With scientists predicting the likelihood that some materials - such as silver - will run out within the next century, we may be unable to meet the growing demand for new devices. More worryingly, we run the risk of exhausting the raw elements needed in infrastructure, transport, and healthcare.

If this wasn’t enough, the UK holds several unfortunate records as producers of e-waste. Currently recognised as the second largest contributor of e-waste in the world, we look likely to claim the ignominious distinction of first if action isn’t taken soon. On average, each person in the UK generates around 23kg of e-waste annually – almost a third of the average adult’s body weight. That’s over 1.6 million tonnes of e-waste in total, spreading harmful toxins across our planet’s air, water, soil and ecosystems. With only 20% of e-waste recycled responsibly, we risk placing an unstainable burden on the Earth’s natural resource.

Luckily, it’s not too late to change the narrative.

Our city is home to a wide variety of incredible businesses, organisations, and people working together to create a healthier, greener, and more sustainable future for our city.

And why shouldn’t that include all of us?

📌 One of the biggest barriers to ridding our homes of miscellaneous electronics is simply not knowing what to do with them! For people living in Greater Manchester, the wonderful folks at Community Computers could provide a solution. Alongside saving unwanted devices from landfill, Community Computers aims to support people struggling to access online services by delivering refurbished devices directly into communities most affected by digital exclusion. With a commitment to protecting your privacy through the destruction of historic data, what better way to grant your device a new lease of life?

📌 Manchester is fortunate enough to be the home of no fewer than five repair cafés! If your phone, camera - or kettle for that manner! – is struggling to go on, a repair café’s knowledgeable volunteers could help to revitalise your items at zero cost. Repair cafes can also provide valuable opportunities to learn new skills, helping you identify and solve problems that could impact your electronics. To find out more about Manchester’s repair cafes and the ways in which they could help you to extend the life of your devices, make sure to explore In Our Nature’s brilliantly comprehensive guide to all things repair related. As Manchester’s biggest climate movement, In Our Nature also provides a wealth of resources to help you create a change in your home, work or community – including other tips to reduce your e-waste!

📌 For those further afield, online services such as Recycle Now and Recycle Your Electricals can help you to locate drop-off points in your local area to dispose of electronics in ways that help us to safeguard our planet.

So how about another challenge - a commitment to working together to reduce our city’s collective hoard of electronics?

If you’re slowly being overrun by old tech, the incredible organisations in our city could provide a way to clear the unwanted items from your home while contributing to a more sustainable future. Adopting strategies to reduce the amount of e-waste in our city could help us to decrease harmful environmental toxins, lower the demand for new devices, and preserve precious resources. At Manchester’s Digital Strategy, we want to make a difference by sharing practical solutions to help everyone in our city recycle, repurpose, and re-use devices more responsibly… and clear out those cupboards once and for all!

One device at a time, we can all make a difference to the future of our planet.

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Let’s work together to take action on climate change, so that we can safeguard our city for future generations.

If you’d like to find out more about the ways we’re working to reduce our collective impact on the environment, head to our projects page to find out more about the digital sustainability initiatives we hope to bring to life this year!