We’re proud to partner with Genuine Solutions to turn your old tech into vital funds to support students in hardship
Only half of our students feel confident they have enough money to meet their basic living costs, and 1 in 4 students are regularly go without food or other necessities. These are challenging times to be a student. Because of this, we’ve established a hardship fund to help students in financial difficulty. The fund is topped up by generous donations, and we’ve already supported students with more than £200,000 of financial support this year.
We’re always looking for innovative ways to increase the number of students we can support, and our new partnership with Genuine Solutions will help the whole UCL community reduce waste and raise vital funds for students.
Search your drawers, ask your friends and family, and gather up all your old phones, cables, tablets, laptops, from January you’ll be able to ethically recycle your e-waste and help students at the same time.
Clearing out your clutter could help us support students to access their education at UCL or help support students in emergency situations like facing homelessness. Our hardship funds also help students access extra-curricular activity, reducing loneliness and improving mental health. Read more about the different hardship funds on offer through the students’ union.
How it works
Genuine Solutions are multi-award-winning experts in the recovery and distribution of mobile technology.
When you drop off your old tech with us, we’ll ship it to the Genuine Solutions processing hub where experts will grade and segment it into different categories. All devices will be data-wiped using industry standard software accredited by ADISA. If devices cannot be powered up, motherboards will be securely destroyed to avoid any data breach. Some of your old tech will be repaired and resold, and some will just be responsibly recycled. Money raised from tech that can be resold will help keep our hardship funds topped up.
We’re looking for mobile phones, laptops, tablets & associated accessories like cables, chargers, and headsets. Anyone can donate, including staff.
Please note, if you are donating smart devices, please ensure cloud accounts (iCloud or Google) are removed as we will be unable to unlock them. For more information on how to prepare and remove these accounts from your device please click here.
Launching on 17 January
Visit the Genuine Solutions stand on Wednesday 17 January in the South Cloisters during the January Welcome Fair - you can bring your old tech to donate there on the day, and get all your questions answered by the Genuine Solutions experts themselves.
After launch, the drop-off location is the ground floor Students’ Union reception desk at 25 Gordon Street, WC1H 0AY.