How is e-Waste recycled?

Hardware and e-Waste often contain many different component parts, including batteries, cabling, circuit boards, transistors, heat sinks, and processors. These parts are in turn, made of different materials; such as plastics, aluminium, copper, zinc, nickel and other precious metals such as lithium, indium and tantalum.

For more information, check out our downloads.

What hardware does Galaxy accept?

We accept anything electrical, plus its packaging, and specially controlled wastes such as toners, batteries and fluorescent tubes.

Here we go ... Desktop PC's, thin clients, laptops, tablets, mobiles, monitors, docking stations, headphones, mice, keyboards, speakers, desk phones and conference systems, servers, switches, hubs, routers, wireless access points, patch panels, server cabinets, printers, multi-functional devices, scanners, faxes, photocopiers, projectors, smartboards; domestic appliances such as children's toys, torches, hoovers ... and all the cables that go with these items!

It would be quicker to tell you what we don't accept: food waste, clinical waste, gas bottles and cylinders, ammunition and explosives, flares, asbestos and fibre glass.

Will Galaxy purchase my hardware?

If your hardware can be re-used as a functional unit, or as component parts; we may be able to offer to purchase your hardware, or apply a discount.

Hardware can be sold with - or without - an erased hard disk, so Customers can still opt to physically destroy their data but re-market the remaining non-data bearing hardware.

Alternatively, hardware sold with an erased disk can fetch a higher price, again depending on the specification.

What's better: reuse or recycling?

Most e-waste and computer hardware can either be re-used as it is, or upgraded with new or refurbished parts.

Alternatively, the device could be disassembled into component parts: such as RAM memory, central processing units, heatsinks, graphics and network cards, circuit boards. Those components might be able to be re-used.

However if the device is no longer energy efficient - or if there is a risk that it might not then be safely recycled after resale/donation - then re-use might not be the best option. Plus, we have to factor in the carbon footprints associated with original manufacture, distribution, import and export to the Channel Islands, and then perhaps refurbishment with parts, and export for re-use versus export for recycling.

The above devices and components contain precious metals which are in short supply in manufacturing. So they are valuable whether they are re-used or recycled. We only have a finite resource of precious metals available to us; so the more we can re-use and recycle, the less our dependence on mining for raw materials, and the less our impact on the environment.

There's no short answer to this question! Check out our re-use versus recycling download.

Will my hardware end up in landfill?

No.

Galaxy enforces a Zero-To-Landfill policy, and follows the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Waste Hierarchy.

Hardware and e-Waste, and associated consumables and dry recycling, will be reused (in whole, or in component parts). If the item cannot be reused, it will be disassembled for recycling. If it cannot be recycled, then it will be incinerated in order to produce energy.

We are committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and support Circular Economies.

Galaxy holds Waste Management and Waste Transport Licenses, and benefits from having links to the Guernsey Recycling Group’s other recycling and waste management sites in Guernsey, Jersey and the UK. We are able to transport different types of e-Waste and Specially Controlled Wastes to the most appropriate facility to ensure recycling, or safe disposal via incineration.