Commercial Lamp Supplies News

You will probably be aware that you shouldnt put a low energy bulb or fluorescent tube in the general rubbish. This is because they contain a tiny bit of mercury. Individually this is not a problem but with all the lamps that are thrown out daily you can imagine that it adds up to quite a lot!

The lamps affected by the WEEE regulations (ie the ones you cant throw in the bin) are the low energy bulbs, fluorescent tubes (also sometimes called striplights) and gas discharge lamps (these are things like Sodium, metal halide and sox lamps - usually used for floodlighting) If you arent sure if your lamp needs recycling then please ask and we should be able to tell you pretty quickly.

So when your low energy bulb gives up (after a long long life we hope!) it needs to go to a Civic Amenity site or Household Waste Recycling Centre - most councils provide these as they are obliged to do so. As a householder you dont need any licenses or paperwork, you just take the bulb there and you are done.

For businesses it is a bit more complicated unfortunately. If you can take the waste lamps to a collection point yourself then you do not need to register as a hazardous waste carrier. If you take other businesses waste lamps to a collection point then you do need to register - you do this with the environment agency.
If you want waste lamps collected from your place of business you need to get a premises code from the environment agency.
You then need to check which company provides recycling for the brand of lamp you have, for example the majority of the brands we sell are covered by Recolight - their website has a search facility to enable you to find your nearest collection point.

If you have large numbers of lamps to recycle you will be able to get them collected free of charge, for smaller numbers you will have to take them to a local collection point yourself or pay for collection.

We do supply a basic recycling service which can be found on our site. It is a reasonably cost effective and simple way for smaller businesses to make sure their lamps are safely recycled without great expense or wasted time.

Basically you pay for the recycling box to be delivered to your premises, once the box is full of waste lamps we take it away and you get a consignment note proving you have recycled the lamps legally. If you then want another box you pay for another one - if you dont want another box then thats it! Basically what you are paying for is the transport and storage box for the lamps - that actual recycling costs have already been added to the cost of the lamp when you buy them.

If you would like to know more about recycling then please give us a call or email us