04/02/2022

Electro Bag: Give your electrical appliances a second life

After the successful pilot project in the cities of Zurich and Bern in 2020, the Electro Bag is now coming to Geneva. With the new, reusable take-back bag, worn-out electrical appliances can be disposed of conveniently from home or still-functioning appliances can simply be given a second life with the new ReUse offer.

Pilots in Bern, Zurich and now Geneva

In 2019 and 2020 SENS conducted two home collection pilots for electrical appliances in Bern and Zurich. Following the success of these first pilots – 7,000 Electro Bags and more than 9,000 kg of electrical appliances were collected – SENS decided to expand the concept. The collection in Geneva started in January 2022, with already 2500 bags collected in the first month. As with the first pilots, households in Geneva can order a free collection bag, which can be filled with old appliances and placed in the letterbox for collection by the post office during the usual mail delivery round.

First novelty: Pass on electrical appliances instead of throwing them away

An analysis of the material collected in 2020 has shown that many of the electrical appliances handed in could still be used. This is why electrical appliances can now be given a second life. In collaboration with the éco-21 programme of the Services Industriels de Genève SIG, the electrical appliances that are given into the reuse path are sorted, tested and cleaned and then entrusted to social institutions to give them an extended life.

Second novelty: reusable bags

The Geneva pilot project also contains another novelty in terms of sustainability: the new collection bags, supplied by “Kickbag”, are foldable bags made of recycled PET that can be reused up to 30 times, with a lowerenvironmental impact than single-use bags without recycled material.

Supporting the circular economy

By allowing not only the option of recycling, but also the option of reuse where relevant, this project aims to support the circular economy, by offering a second life to certain appliances in a very local way. This project is also an opportunity to collect data on the share of devices that can actually be reused, in order to provide food for thought to better integrate this option in the future.

 

About SENS

SENS eRecycling was established as a non-profit organisation in 1990 in Switzerland and started operations on 1 January 1991. They are one of the funding members of the WEEE Forum. You can see here the milestones of their over 30 years history. As of 1 June 2019, SENS eRecycling has contracts with 820 partners. Together, they cover more than 90 per cent of the Swiss household appliances market. SENS works with more than 600 accredited collection points (including municipalities), as well as over 750 individual stores and 6,000 retail chain outlets.