Rampant Recycling Scheme Creates a Buzz with Customers

Bath, UK based online adult products retailer, Lovehoney, has collected over 30,000 end-of-life sex toys for recycling through its ‘Rabbit Amnesty’ reward scheme, which has now been extended to all types of small electrical equipment. The retailer explained that its Rabbit Amnesty was first launched six years ago when new EU rules were introduced to divert more waste electrical equipment (WEEE) away from landfill. The company encouraged its customers to send back their old bedroom equipment in return for a discount on their next purchase. All the toys are recycled by Lovehoney's waste partner, Kent-based Sweeep Kuusakoski. According to the company the scheme has been such a success it has not been extended to cover all small WEEE including toasters and mobile phones. “The Amnesty was an immediate success,” said Lovehoney co-founder Richard Longhurst. "We now recycle around 4000kg of electrical goods a year - 90% of which are sex toys. A sex toy weighs an average of 400 grams, so that is around 10,000 items a year,” he continued. The retailer added that for each toy recycled it donates 50p to the World Land Trust for each recycled toy, with each £100 saving an acre of threatened rain forest. "We make sure each item is responsibly recycled through the Sweeep scheme and each toy recycled helps in the preservation of hugely important rain forests,” added Longhurst. Read More WRAP: Product Reuse Would Benefit from Big Brand Backing Very few consumers tradein old products as it is perceived that the infrastructure isn’t there to do so, according to a new research published by WRAP. Additional 15mt Recycling & Waste to Energy Capacity Needed in UK & Ireland With a projected 58 million tpa of C&I waste likely to be generated by 2020 there is likely to be a capacity gap for waste treatment capacity in the UK and Ireland of up to 15 million tonnes. Tesco to Cut Food Waste with Fewer Multi-Buys for Salad & Changes to Bakeries Tesco is to end 'multi-buy' offers on large bags of salad following its publication of figures which showed that show 68% of bagged salad is wasted, as are 40% of apples.