This week is Recycle Week, and recycling teams from Wandsworth Council will giving information and advice on how to recycle and reduce waste.

This year the focus is on small electrical items, anything with a battery or plug, including toasters and kettles gathering dust in the loft, old mobile phones in drawers and disused power tools cluttering up the garage.

On average each person in the UK buys three new electrical items per year and three quarters of us have at least one unused electrical item sitting unused in our home, a council spokesman said, and some people even have unused electricals from the 1960s and ‘70s, including stylophones, lava lamps and teasmaids.

The spokesman said: “The majority of people don’t realise these items can be recycled, and more than a third don’t know where to take them. Often they are left out with the rubbish – adding to the council’s landfill costs.

Broken electricals contain valuable materials such as silver that can be used again, saving precious new resources and energy. Many that are disused after an upgrade could find a new home somewhere else.”

The recycle team is in the Northcote Road where they will be available to answer your questions on saving waste.

More information can be found on the council’s website at wandsworth.gov.uk/waste.