Thousands of tonnes of waste electrical equipment are being diverted from landfill each year through ‘unofficial’ routes such as ebay, car boot sales and incineration, according to new research from WRAP.
The report, titled ‘Market Flows of WEEE materials’ indicates that around 58% of WEEE disposed of in 2010 was reused, reprocessed or recovered in the UK, significantly higher than the 37% reported through approved authorised treatment facilities (AATFs).
According to the report, this trend can be attributed to WEEE having a greater value and more material-rich streams than other waste sources which makes people more likely to reuse the items, as well as a significant proportion of WEEE being classified wrongly when it reaches recycling facilities.
Evidence
Under the WEEE Directive, producers of electronics are required to provide evidence that a certain proportion of waste electrical goods generated are being recycled when they reach the end of their working life. In order to do so, producer compliance schemes obtain recovery notes from WEEE reprocessors as evidence of this recycling.
AATFs are licensed sites set up to carry out WEEE recycling, which includes depollution, disassembly, shredding, recovery or preparation for disposal of waste electrical items, and can issue evidence of recovery. Authorised Treatment Facilities (ATFs) are permitted to process WEEE but are not able to issue recovery notes.
WRAP manufacturing project manufacturer Lucy Keal claims it is difficult to measure the total amount of WEEE being recovered outside of AATFs, but estimates that up to 260,000 tonnes of WEEE are being reused or reprocessed each year outside of the WEEE recycling system.
She said: “We estimate that aside from the 37% entering approved authorised treatment facilities, just over a fifth is also being recovered through authorised treatment facilities, scrap merchants, material recycling facilities (MRFs) or incinerators, as well as reused through facilities such as Ebay and car boot sales.”
Data
In producing the report, WRAP obtained sales data for electrical items sold between 2007 and 2009 and estimated the likely lifespan for products in each of the WEEE categories. From this information, WRAP was able to estimate the total amount of electrical equipment that was likely to reach the end of its usable life and compare this to the amount of WEEE that had been recycled through AATFs in 2010.
Source: letsrecycle.com