Inside Currys’ huge National Repair and Distribution Centre at Coddington and Newark this National Recycling Week

Take a look inside the business stopping electronics from going to waste, saving both money and the environment.

Currys is an imposing site when passing Newark, with the company employing over 3,000 people across its huge 1.5m square feet site in Coddington.

National Recycling Week is an countrywide initiative to get people and businesses thinking about better way to recycle and reducing waste.

One particular concern is the amount of electronic-waste the country produces, from mobile phones, laptops and TVs, to washing machines and vacuum cleaners.

This is something the Currys site specialises in — bringing broken or faulty electrical devices back into circulation, stopping them from going to landfill.

The Coddington site is home to the Currys National Distribution Centre, but also one of the largest electronic repair facilities in Europe.

Here, 1,000 expertly trained colleagues work to refurbish and repair old or damaged technology, helping to reduce the number of electrical items being sent to landfill.

Technicians have access to specialist tools direct from suppliers, meaning they have the right tools for the job regardless of if they’re fixing a tiny issue on an iPhone or a giant fridge-freezer.

Currys also use innovative 3D printing technology to produce new parts from scratch, cutting costs and stopping an entire item from being scrapped for the sake of one small break.

Thanks to this work the facility processes over 2.9m products every year — the majority of which are repaired and returned to customers, re-sold as cheaper refurbished items or broken down into components which can in turn be used to fix other products.

Speaking about National Recycling Week, Moira Thomas, a Currys director, said: “The UK faces a real challenge when it comes to e-waste.

“Put simply, when we buy new tech we’re not always thinking about the best thing to do with our unwanted devices.

“As the UK’s leading electronics retailer, we’re uniquely placed to help Brits change their relationship with technology, encouraging customers to be more mindful with how they discard of their old or unused tech.

“We’ve introduced a range of initiatives which incentivise a more responsible approach to replacing technology, all encouraging customers to recycle their old tech with us regardless of whether they are buying something new at the time.

“These initiatives allow us to collect a mountain of e-waste each year — made up of thousands of tonnes of redundant items from faulty fridges to decades-old iPods to vintage record-players – we’ll take anything that runs on mains electricity or batteries.

“Whilst these unwanted items may be worthless to our customers, they have a value for us.

“No matter what it is, we’ll either repair or reuse it, or we’ll break it down, harvesting any valuable parts and then responsibly recycling it, as we believe we have a responsibility to not just sell amazing technology, but save it too.”

One of the repair centre managers, Samantha Canham, said: “We do a great job of making sure customers have a reason to bring their old tech to us — it’s called Cash for Trash.

“Cash for Trash guarantees customers a £5 voucher to spend in-store when they bring any old tech trash to their nearest Currys — it doesn’t matter if it works or not, it just has to be an electrical item powered by batteries or a mains electrical supply.

“This is so important as there is so much tech waste sitting around in people’s homes. It’s not always easy to have that clear-out, so it’s that our customers know what to do with their unwanted items, and give them a financial reason to bring them to us.

“Any item that is collected through Cash for Trash will be brought into the repair centre, put through the harvesting database and be stripped for valuable parts.

“For example, we can carry out up to 20 different repair jobs from harvesting the parts from just one unwanted laptop. It’s great for the environment, and good for the customer.”

At the start of October the Prime Minister,RishiSunakalso visited the facility to learn about what they did to combat waste and speak with workers.

After the visit, Currys chief executive, Alex Baldock said: “The Prime Minister wanted to get out and about to see a business which helps millions of people and that’s what we’re trying to do here.

“What we’ve got here is Europe’s largest electrical repair facility of any kind.

“We’ve got over 1,000 colleagues here who really know what they’re doing and what they’re doing is giving longer life to millions of people’s technology.

“That is something the Prime Minister praised. We are helping millions of people during a cost of living crisis to keep their laptop, phone, washing machine, whatever it may be for longer so they are not having to buy a new one when finances are tough.

“So it’s good for the customers pocket but it’s also good for the planet because we’re not ending up with loads of electrical waste.

“Look around, this is something that is core to our business, we’ve got 14m repair customers in Currys and it’s an example of purpose and profit going hand in hand, it’s good for customers, the planet and the business.”