What happens to donated hearing aids?

What happens to donated hearing aids? The short answer is we sort them and make sure they go on to help others at home and abroad. Here’s Fletcher Chisalipo from Malawi sharing his joy at receiving a delivery of donated hearing aids. All the aids had been donated in the UK. We shipped 500 Phonak hearing aids direct to Fletcher for his outreach work in Malawi. Here’s the video!

Where do my hearing aids go when I donate them to Hearing Aid Recycling?

What happens to hearing aids when I donate them to Hearing Aid Recycling? For those of you who would like more detail, the rest is for you! Written by me(!) Zoe, Co-Founder of Hearing Aid Recycling.

Why is it so important?

I feel so appreciative every day for every hearing aid we receive and the potential it holds.  On a small planet of scarce resources and much need, it feels important that we all work together to try and extend the useful lives of as many items and products as possible.  That we all do our best to “do more good, rather than do less harm’.  All recycling and re-use is so important.  However, by donating a hearing aid you’re not only helping protect the future of our planet but completely transforming a life.  We now know that access to as good hearing as possible is so important at every stage of life. 

Donated hearing aids are so important at all life stages.

The early years!

Donated hearing aids are so important at all life stages.  A baby born deaf without a hearing aid also never learns to speak.  Condemned to a life of being both deaf and mute.  It is so incredibly humbling to see how quickly a child given a hearing aid manages to begin to replicate the new speech sounds they hear. 

The Middle Years:

Similarly, a person in middle life will be able to lead much closer to a ‘normal’ life.  Enabling them to communicate, interact, work, provide for themselves and their families.  Helping them to not only contribute in a positive way to the world around them. Also massively reducing their potential to be exploited. 

The later years:

We’re also now so aware of how important it is to help the elderly, or in fact the not very elderly(!) with their hearing loss too.  Research shows that as we age and our hearing ability naturally dips, without access to hearing aids we rapidly lose our confidence.  That we become socially isolated from the inability to and sheer hard work of the effort to communicate with others.  That this places us at a very greatly increased risk of developing dementia.  Which again reduces our ability to positively contribute within our environments.  Increases the burden of care on those around us and, also, increases the vulnerability to exploitation.  Working together we can help change this.  The simple act of donating a hearing aid has the potential to create so much positive change.

What happens to the hearing aids when I donate no longer needed hearing aids to Hearing Aid Recycling?  

Firstly and most importantly we make sure that nothing goes to landfill!! 

We do this by checking each of the aids and working out it’s best ‘next’ use.  Ideally as a functioning hearing aid going on to help others at home and abroad.  Some of the hearing aids are beyond economical repair as entire working hearing aids.  Some of the hearing aids aren’t possible to re-use as hearing aids in their first incarnation.  The ‘custom’ mould hearing aids which have been tailored to a person’s individual ear shape (in a bespoke way) aren’t transferrable to another user.  However, these hearing aids, inevitably, share a lot of components with many of the other aids.  Where possible our service personnel will do their best to use any still working bits and pieces from these kinds of aids to make fully working ‘other’ aids.

How (and by who) do the recycled hearing aids get distributed by?

How (and by who) do the recycled hearing aids get distributed by?

How do we make sure they get to the right places?? 

How do we make sure they get to the right places??  We work with many other organisations to make sure the aids get to where they are most needed.  You can read more about these organisations and amazing individuals on our Charity Partners page.  Some of the charities, foundations and organisations we work with are:

Child Aid, Deaf Kidz, Kenya Deaf Children, Vijaya Francis in South Africe and Fletcher Chisalipo in Malawi.

Following the path of a hearing aid all the way from you to a deaf African child:

Here’s an example of how the donated hearing aid gets from you to, for example, a child in Malawi:

First, the hearing aids is donated.  Here is Russell Gadbury very kindly donating his late father’s hearing aids to Hearing Aid Recycling at one of our amazing collection centers. 

We recently had a large donation from a Hartlepool NHS Trust.

Natasha Cuthbert gathered them all up and dropped them into another of our collection centres, Relph’s in Stockton on Tees.  Relph’s is on Natasha’s way home so we’re hoping with her NHS Sustainability work it may become a regular delivery.  A big bag of tiny hearing aids may seem a very small thing within the landscape of all the waste that the NHS has to generate to keep us all safe.  However, from many a tiny acorn and all that.  Every little really does help. 

Creating Circularity within Healthcare!

Hopefully if we demonstrate how circular healthcare might work to help others it may translate across other departments.  There’s a fantastic organisation which specialises in larger items called Grace Cares.  We’ve yet to complete it but you can read a little about our Sustainability here.

Collecting the aids from the centres!

Natasha’s donation happily coincided with a trip North for Co-Founders Zoe and Gordon so we popped into Relph’s to collect them ourselves and to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone.  Here we are!!

It is pretty rare that we collide with a collection centre at such an opportune time. We’re so thankful to our wonderful centres who usually post them to us!

More reasons to love Hearing Aid Recycling:

Gordon and I were actually super lucky to be able to combine collecting the hearing aids with spending an evening dancing and singing to Hearing Aid Recycling’s  amazing supporters Deborah Bonham and Pete Bullick of Bonham Bullick.

Deborah’s vocals were as incredible as always backed up by Pete’s fantastic guitar along with the rest of the band.  Here are Deborah and Pete on stage.  OK so, it’s a slight indulgence to digress down gig going lines but BonhamBullick really are soooooo fantastic.

Even more slight digression!

Whilst we’re, arguably on, but also slightly off subject, I thought I’d mention what a complete delight it was to bump into Mark Taylor at Bonham Bullick.  He and Gordon had a brilliant catchup from their shared love of the oceans and all things boaty as well as (obviously!) all things Hearing Aid Recycling.  Mark is an extraordinary man.  We’re so grateful for his support.  You can find out a bit more about him on our Supporting Partners page Here they are!!

Back on track now…..

What happens to the hearing aids once they have been dropped off, posted in, collected etc and how do they go on to help others?

Generally the hearing aids are stored safely until we have a batch to process.  Here’s the MASSIVE batch that we collected at Relph’s in Stockton on Tees, thanks to, as mentioned, Natasha Cuthbert.

Time to get them organised!

From here the aids need separating and sorting.  By anyone and everyone who has time and a willing nature!

Here’s Coco of Hearing Aid Recycling organising some into different manufacturers and separating out the battery donations.

Next we take a batch of an individual manufacturer and give them a much closer inspection.  Initially grouping them into piles of specific models.  Once we have them basically sorted out we then give them their initial check.  It is important to make sure that no batteries have leaked inside.  Sometimes hearing aids can languish in a drawer for a long time prior to donation.  We also make sure that the battery doors are all secure and working (and that there are no old batteries inside).  From here we also place them into 2 piles.  Those that still have their ear hooks and those that don’t. 

Do ear hooks matter?

The ear hooks are super important and we need to make sure that all the aids we send abroad have them.  If they are missing we’ll try to find something from the stock of parts from other unusable aids.  Failing that we run a tally of aids needing hooks. Then, on a brave feeling day we ring the manufacturers and ask if we may have some replacement hooks.  The ear hooks are very small but vital to the usefulness of the hearing aid.  Often the manufacturers will help us and send us some replacement hooks.

Here are Coco and Fin organising some of the aids into with and without hooks:

Cutting to the chase!!

I know, I’m sorry, I’m waffling and what you really want to know is how and where do the aids go!?

Hearing Aid recycling getting to work in Malawi!!

Introducing the fantastic Fletcher:

At the end of 2023 we had the very good fortune to ‘meet’ a wonderful man called Fletcher Chisalipo.  We are thrilled to have been able to support Fletcher in his work in Malawi.  The beginning of what we’re sure will be a long and fruitful association helping Malawian’s and others to hear around the world.

Here’s Fletcher’s initial enquiry of 28^th November 2023.  We fell a bit in love with him there and then!!

“Hello, I would like to know if you also donate hearing aids to
children with hearing loss who are outside the United Kingdom.
My name is Fletcher Chisalipo, an Audiologist at Mzuzu Central
Hospital in Malawi, Africa. As I am writing this email we are in the
remotest areas in the northern region of Malawi doing free Audiology
outreach clinics. So far, we have diagnosed children with different
degrees of hearing loss. I am writing this message to ask to
collaborate with you to fit these children with any type of hearing
aids. At the moment I don’t have hearing aids to fit these innocent
children. If this is not possible, I would personally raise some funds
for you to sell me hearing aids, but I’m pleading with you to sell us
at a cheaper price than you normally do. These children are from the
villages and their parents cannot afford to buy a pair of hearing
aids.
Let me know what we can do to make sure these children are helped.

Warm regards,

Fletcher Chisalipo”

Meeting Fletcher on Zoom:

Fin and I had the very great fortune to chat to Fletcher.  He’s a really wonderful man and if you’d like to learn a bit more about him then you can find some bits and pieces on the Charity Partners page.  Although, here is he, for now, with Fin and I.

Not just any aids get sent!!

We’re very aware that we don’t want to simply transfer a problem via expensive (from a financial and environmental point of view) courier services to a different corner of the world.  It is really important that we make sure that the aids that we’ve sent will be able to be used to help others.  Or what’s the point!!??  We need to check if the recipient hearing centres will have access to hearing hooks or if we need to lobby, as discussed, the manufacturers too.  We also need to know which manufacturer software the hearing clinics have access to.  Fletcher confirmed he had access to Phonak. 

Batteries are so important too!

We also need to make sure that they will be able to source batteries so that they will be able to carry on using the aids.  We are always so grateful for any battery donations as well as these really can make a big difference. With your help we collected over 4000 unused batteries last year.

Packing and sorting the aids:

We want to make sure that the aids will make it through customs so it is also incredibly important that we pack them and label them carefully.  Coco and Fin prepared and packed the aids like so.

Unable to resist getting in on the action!!

I’m afraid I love being able to send these life changing bits of technology to help others around the world so much that I usually find an excuse to meddle at some stage.  Here I am supposedly ‘checking’ that everything is OK.  In reality, Coco and Fin more than had it all under control!  We also have to include a letter to confirm that the aids have been previously used.  That they have been donated.  That they won’t be resold and that they are only for charitable distribution. Then it’s off to DHL in Chipping Norton to send the aids on their way!

DHL always deliver!!

Here are the wonderful girls at WH Smith in Chipping Norton.  Our closest DHL delivery point.  If you ever find yourself needing to send a large charitable donation to a Developing Country that may be subject to the odd import anomaly (local corruption!?) then the phrase you’ll hear again and again from the potential recipients is:  “DHL always deliver!”.  Our experience to date is just that!  Thank you DHL from all of us at Hearing Aid Recycling. From everyone who has donated a hearing aid and everyone who has benefitted from one!

And then…….

And then, we wait with baited breath for DHL to ‘always deliver’.  The aforementioned Fletcher was so delighted to receive his batch of donated hearing aids he sent us the short video that you can see at the top of this essay!!

So, there you have it!!

Not exactly in a nutshell but I’m rather known for my inability to be succinct…  That is how a no longer needed hearing aid gets from being donated somewhere in the UK to a child or person’s ear where it is most needed.

THANK YOU!!!

We’re so grateful to everyone who donates their and their loved ones hearing aids.  It’s such a simple thing to do.  With people like Fletcher working tirelessly around the world, we really can make such a difference to people’s lives.  We have a network of collection centres. Listed both on an interactive map or alphabetically by counties.  We’re so grateful to all of our collection centres.  Hopefully there’ll be one locally to you.  We’re also happy if you want to post them directly to us.  

Alternative to dropping and posting? Just ask!

Or if neither of those is possible please do contact us, all the info is here and we’ll see how we can help you.   I’ve loved every bit of my journey (so far) with Fletcher.   Fletcher really is an inspiration and if we didn’t already love doing what we do, then just having Fletcher and others like him in our lives, would make us.  Again, I’m often asked what happens to the hearing aids and here you have it!!