Media Release, 31st July 2025
In celebration of this year’s International E-Waste Day on 14th October, Material Focus is bringing back ‘The Great Cable Challenge’ – a nationwide campaign aimed at tackling the millions of cables and other old, unwanted electricals sitting idle across UK households. This Autumn, Material Focus is calling on households, local authorities, retailers, and community projects across the UK to take part in the challenge, and help stop valuable copper from going to waste.
International E-Waste Day (IEWD) is a global moment to highlight electrical waste – the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, and in the UK. Each year, millions of people and countries worldwide unite to raise awareness and drive action towards reuse and recycling of unwanted electricals.
First launched for International E-Waste Day 2024, the Great Cable Challenge brought together 200 organisations who ran collections and held events in offices, schools, shops and local communities, helping thousands of people clear out their ‘drawer of doom’ and recycle their old cables and electricals. Organisations like Curry’s, B&Q, Gumtree, Ecotricity, Virgin Media O2, and 98 local authorities all encouraged their employees, customers and residents to recycle their cables . This year, The Great Cable Challenge is back – aiming to build on last year’s success by engaging even more partners and inspiring action on reusing and recycling electricals.
According to Material Focus’ research, the average UK household is holding onto and binning 22 cables which, across the UK, is enough cables to reach the moon and back! Each of these cables contains valuable, critical and finite materials like copper, which are lost forever when cables and other electricals are thrown away. Copper is also 100% recyclable and uses significantly less energy than mining for new materials and can be reused to create anything from phones, transport, clean energy and medical equipment.
Anyone can get involved in the Great Cable Challenge – households, local authorities, retailers, community projects and businesses.
Simply bag up your cables – and any other old, unwanted electricals you find in your ‘drawer of doom’ – and visit Recycle Your Electricals’ postcode locator to find your local donation or recycling point.
Material Focus has created a campaign toolkit to enable local authorities, retailers, and community projects across the UK to take part in the challenge and help inspire people to recycle their old cables and other small electricals. If you would like more information then please email hello@materialfocus.org.uk.
Partners can either:
Scott Butler, Executive Director of Material Focus said, “Almost all of us have old cables stashed away at home – I have a box under my bed of cables I’ve been holding onto ‘just in case.’ Last year, over 200 organisations joined The Great Cable Challenge and helped save hundreds of kilos of copper from going to waste – proving just how big a difference we can all make – one cable at a time. By recycling just one cable, we can all help reclaim valuable materials like copper and see how easy it is to make a positive impact.”.
ENDS
For media enquiries please contact Kate Hinton or Will Treharne – kate@materialfocus.org.uk or will@materialfocus.org.uk
Notes to Editors
About Material Focus
Material Focus is a not-for-profit organisation whose goal is to stop the nation throwing away or hoarding all their old, small electricals. Material Focus is delivering the UK-wide Recycle Your Electricals campaign. The campaign is revealing the value hidden in electricals and is making it easier for us all to recycle and reuse the small electricals we no longer need by providing more recycling points as well as providing practical information on how households can reuse and recycle.
The campaign is funded by producers of electrical appliances which pays for a range of activities, including communications, behaviour change activities, increased recycling projects and research. Ultimately the aim is to support actions that will help the UK increase the levels of reuse and recycling of waste electricals.
About International E-Waste Day
IEWD was founded by the WEEE Forum, the international association representing producer responsibility organisations. The UK lead member is Ecogenesys (formerly REPIC). IEWD is open to any one to participate. Founded by the WEEE Forum, the international association representing producer responsibility organisations, IEWD is a global moment of action open to anyone to participate. Each year, millions of people and countries worldwide unite to raise awareness and drive action towards reuse and recycling of unwanted electricals.
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