To highlight the 250,000 tonnes (61%) of small electronic waste that is disposed of in the UK incorrectly every year, Margate-based artist Zo Defferary has created The WEEE Christmas Treee, in collaboration with Turner Contemporary and Future Foundry.

In the UK, we currently recycle 39% of electronic waste. So where does the remaining 61% of the UK’s electronic waste go?

• Put into household rubbish and burned
• Exported illegally to other countries
• Hoarded at home

The WEEE waste (waste electrical and electronic equipment) has been loaned to the project by Sittingbourne-based recycling company Sweeep Kuusakoski. They recycle 25% of the UK’s electronic waste. Sweeep want to encourage more of us to recycle our electronics and salvage the precious resources that are running out. These resources are much easier to get from recycling than mining. It is a simple message of ‘put waste in the right place’. This simple action allows rare earth metals and over 30 commodities to go back round again and be made into new products.

Zo Defferary creates art from waste. Inspired by calligraphy and a love for glyphic forms and markings, she draws with inanimate objects and materials referencing patterns, symbols and ornamental decorative imagery. Zo has her own ongoing salvage practice which has contributed to the tree.

Dover-based Future Foundry work with artists, designers and makers to enable them to use waste and salvage as a base material for their creative work. The company supply training programmes, studio facilities and their own creative salvage programme which collects waste materials and equipment for re-distribution.

SWEEEP Kuusakoski is one of the UK’s leading waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) collection and recycling specialist. Their £5m recycling plant in the Thames Gateway is one of the most sophisticated and environmentally robust recycling facilities in Europe.