Recycling of Electric and Electronic

Recycling of Electric and Electronic Waste

In the process of discussing the waste from electronic and electric industries in Europe, we will first have to look at the basic structures as have been provided. The first of these is for the governments to fix take back requirements for the industries as also the take back specifications for them. Then they have to provide incentives for design of these items in a more efficient way for the environmental purposes. So far as the consumers are concerned they should be able to return their equipment free of charge for further disposal by the manufacturer. The first directive in this regard was issued dated 27 January 2003 and was to be implemented on 13 February 2003. The regulations for the acts by different governments were to be made during 2005. (EU Directive on Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE))

For the purpose of disposal and recycling the products were divided into groups: large and small household appliances, it and telecommunications equipment, consumer and lighting equipment, electrical and electronic tools without inclusion of the large tools used in industry which are stationary; toys, leisure and sports equipment, medical devices, monitoring and control instruments and automatic dispensers. The applications of the rules will be directly applicable on the 'distributors' and 'producers'. These rules will not apply in way to the component manufacturers. The requirements will come from the users and the responsibility for the equipment will come down the chain to the manufacturer.

It is estimated that the average collection per household will be of the order of 4 Kg. For some items like large household appliances and automatic dispensers, it is estimated that about 80% of them will be returned in a condition suitable for recovery and of them about 75% will be suited for recycling and consequent re-use. So far as ICT and consumer electronics items are concerned the estimates are for 75% of waste recovery and of them 65% of re-use through recycling. When one gets down to the small household appliances, lighting equipment, electrical and electronic tools, toys, leisure and sports equipment and control and monitoring instruments the figures are expected to be 70% waste recovery and 50% of re-use or recycling. (EU Directive on Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE))

The latest revisions have come regarding the responsibilities of different parties involved and it has been decided that the producers will have to install systems for taking back the items and that will not involve any cost to the users of the items. These points may be at the user level or from public collection points. The systems may be at individual or collective levels. The producers will not charge any fee for the process of re-use, recycling or disposal, as may be applicable. The distributors may take up the responsibility of disposing of the material if they wish to. For the items which have not been sold to consumer level customers, producers have to provide for the suitable choice when the customer is on a business relationship with the seller. In any case, the producer will be responsible for collection, re-use, recycling, disposal and all costs of new systems of this nature.

To help the movement and progress of the principle, the member countries shall be responsible for the design and production of these items in a manner that will produce suitable products. The 'new' products should be easier to dismantle and recover. The states are also to give priority to the reuse and recycling of these products, their components and materials. In this context, the member states shall have to take suitable steps to stop the producers from incorporating special design features that stop these items from being reused at least in cases when such alteration does not provide great advantages in terms of manufacturing or use of the product. In this context, the most important considerations are the protections of environment and safety. (EU Directive on Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)) it is clear that his law has been passed at the European Union and all members have to observe it. The date given as of now is the end of the year. Even for new members, there may be only delays in terms of the date the law is applicable, but the law will not change. However since the law has still not started applying fully, one has to wait and see what happens. (Directive 2003/108/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 December2003)

Regarding legalization of the entire process, it has been decided that member states shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary for the states to comply with the Directives regarding this by 13th August, 2004. This means that they have to ensure informing the Commission by 13th August, 2005 of the financing costs that will be involved for the costs of collection, treatment, recovery and disposal in an environmentally sound manner of the products coming under the waste from electrical and electronic products other than private households by the producers of items that are sold after 13 August 2005. This is to be provided by the producers.

Member states are also to ensure before 13 August 2005 for the disposal of the waste that has been generated before that period from those products, and this is called historical waste for easy reference. This will require funds and management which will have to be provided. There is also the question of new products that are being developed to fulfill the same functions as those products which are now out of date. The finance for these costs shall be provided by the producers of those products which were in those states when the product was supplied. The alternative solution that may be provided by the member states that even producers other than those who did not produce the products may also be partially or totally responsible for providing this finance. For all historical waste, the financing shall have to be provided by the users other than private households. (Directive 2003/108/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 December2003)

Now let us look at the importance of this legislation and its impact. Almost all consumer items have electrical parts and those can damage the environment when not disposed correctly. The methods of tackling with these items are becoming more and more difficult as the life spans of these items are getting shorter. Apart from this, their usage is also increasing and that means the quantities being thrown away are increasing. Let us now look at some of the items that come under the purview of this law. These are like large household appliances like refrigerators/freezers, washing machines, dishwashers; small household appliances like toasters, coffee makers, irons, hairdryers; information technology and telecommunications equipments like personal computers, telephones, mobile phones, laptops, printers, scanners, photocopiers, consumer equipments like televisions, stereo equipment, electric toothbrushes, transistor radios; lighting equipments like fluorescent lamps; electrical and electronic tools like handheld drills, saws, screwdrivers; toys like Play station, Game boy, etc. And medical equipment systems excluding the exception of all implanted and infected products. (Waste from electrical and electronic equipment)

The above are common and items of everyday usage. These contain items that can be re-used like Monitoring and control instruments, automatic dispensers, printed circuit boards, cathode ray tubes, wires and cables, mercury switches, batteries, light generators like lamps, capacitors and resistors, sensors and connectors. These are very useful as they contain substances that are considered to be harmful to the environment and human health, especially if disposed in a careless manner. The quantity of these items present is not large, but for the environment they can cause a lot of damage. The directive of the European Union states that these items have to be substituted by 1 July 2006. These items are mercury, cadmium, lead, hexavalent chromium, poly-brominated di-phenyl ethers and poly-brominated bi-phenyls. The other substances that remain in these electrical and electronic wastes are arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls, chlorofluorocarbons and hydro-chloro-fluorocarbons, nickel and asbestos. (Waste from electrical and electronic equipment)

Now let us look at the position of a bigger country like UK and as per estimates there is a generation of 1 million tons of waste electronic and electrical equipment in this country as they are thrown away by householders and commercial groups. It is important to deal with this waste as the life of these items is very short and this is leading to more quantities of obsolete and broken equipment being put aside. In the entire continent of Europe, it is noted that it makes up about 4% of the total municipal waste and the growth of this waste is three times faster than any other waste. The utility of the items in this group were different in functions and they also contain different material. As an example one can note that television sets generally contain 6% of metal and 50% of glass whereas a cooker consists of 89% of metal and 6% of glass. The largest component of these appliances is white goods and that constitutes 43% of the total waste. (Electrical and electronic equipment recycling information sheet)

The next largest component is it equipment and that is 39% of the total. Most of the it equipment that is being discarded is computers which become obsolete vary rapidly. There are also a large number of TV sets which are thrown away every year and the annual figure is now around 2 million. As per the figures of 1998, there was a discard of 6 million tons of electrical equipment and along with this equipment there was a loss of 2.4 million tons of ferrous metal, 1.2 million tons of plastic; 652,000 tons of copper; 336,000 tons of aluminum and 336,000 tons of glass. (Electrical and electronic equipment recycling information sheet) the process of enforcement of the European Union rules has led to a situation where some novel efforts are also being tried out. There is a mobile phone recycler called Cellular Surplus in Norfolk who is making plastic rulers, pens and pencils from the excess plastic that is coming out from the phones that it is processing. This is important as the expected number of surplus phones in UK this year is expected to be 12 million units as their owner are all going in for new phones. (How do you make a mobile phone into a ruler? By recycling it!)

At the same time some of these items have toxic components like the rechargeable battery and LCD displays. One of the items which are not being disposed till now is the mobile phones, and they make up only 1 or 2% of the electronic waste. The reason for this is that people believe that they may have some value. Another dangerous item that is thrown away every year are 100 million lighting tubes and 100,000 tons of CRT glass, and at present they are shredded and thrown into landfill sites. There is now a compulsory collection by the unitary council, or district or borough. They are obliged to come and collect the item, though they may charge a fee. On the other side, the person may take it to the local civic amenity and give it for disposal without a charge. (Electrical and electronic equipment recycling information sheet)

At the same time there are some materials that may be considered to be worth getting, and the most important among them is ferrous metal. Even for a country like Ireland, the quantity is estimated to be between 16,000 and 33,000 tons in a year. There are also other metals like aluminum, copper and other metals which make up about 13% of the waste by weight. Glass is estimated to be 5.4% of the total weight. Plastics are another large component and they make up about 21% of the quantity by weight. The problem with plastics is that some are flame retarded and requires special methods for disposal. Certain countries like Ireland have no plants for incineration and this process is helpful in converting some of the hazardous items to less hazardous products if treated in those plants. (Waste from electrical and electronic equipment)

Some items which have a high amount of plastics are suited to treatment by incineration. At the same time the resulting slag from this process also has a high proportion of heavy metals and halogenated substances which are also dangerous. As a result, 72% of the waste in Ireland ends up in landfill sites along with the municipal wastes. In the entire European Union, two thirds of the waste is disposed by land-filling and there has not been much of an increase in the rates of recycling for the last few years. Now the aim is to treat landfills only as the last resort. Council decision 2003/34/EC has now established criteria and procedures for accepting waste at landfill sites. It also details the methods to be used through ID 5369. (Waste minimization)

There is now a problem of finding more space for landfill sites. In addition, there are many companies in the country which have made a business of recycling. The reason for making the manufacturers responsible for disposal of electronic items at the end of their useful lives was expected by WEEE to improve the recycling of products, but this is expected to have the opposite effect on printer cartridges. This will send all empty cartridges to land fills. The manufacturers will fit the inkjet cartridges with smart chips so that they would not be suitable for refilling and reuse. This means that 30% of the cartridges that are being re-used in UK would also be not used. (London faces Printer Cartridge Mountain Threat-Loophole may destroy Fledgling Recycling Industry) Some of them export the products to countries which have more advanced systems for recycling, and the others sell the item. The resale is most prevalent with it machines which are refurbished, cleaned up, repaired and then sold. The market is high for these items in Eastern Europe and Asia. The most problematic products for recyclers are the computer monitors and televisions as there is no market for these items. These are sent for processing to UK, Germany or USA. (Waste from electrical and electronic equipment)

Some items like household appliances like cookers, washing machines, refrigerators and freezers are processed with vehicles and light iron items. These are processed by shredders or large hammer mills. At the end of the exercise they produce a metal rich material and a mixed non-ferrous product consisting of dirt, concrete, rubber and plastics. Now legislation is coming up on these operators so that the processed material will meet the requirements of the new law. As mentioned the directives of the European Union came on 13th February 2003. In Ireland the recycling is being carried out by some companies and local authorities and even when a person wants to get the waste from his organization treated, he should contact these units. At the moment there is no law in Ireland to deal with waste from electrical and electronic equipment. At the same time, the Waste Management Act gives the necessary powers to the local authorities, and this also permits them to control waste streams and provide for 'producer responsibility' when needed. This will be the basis for Ireland to impose WEEE and RoHS directives into national law. (Waste from electrical and electronic equipment)

The other major problem is the illegal export that these electrical and electronic products are facing, and the First International Management Conference on Illegal Waste Shipments was held in Prague in March of the current year. There have not been any conferences of this type, but people are now worried about the rapid increase of illegal exports of electronic waste that is taking place from Europe to non-OECD countries in the Far East, Indian sub-continent, West Africa and China. There was a report prepared by Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling which estimated that about 23, 000 tons of electronic waste is being sent on ships from UK without clearances from the Environment Agency. The rules as they exist now say that it is not legal to send any hazardous electrical or electronic waste to a non-OECD country or developing country for disposal or recovery.

The only situation where an electronic item may be sent is for minor repairs, but even then the dispatch has to be approved by the environment agency. To make sure that they know about what is going on, the environment agency has set up dedicated enforcement teams at all ports in England and Wales to increase the random inspections that are carried out. This should provide proof of illegal activities. (European regulators set for talks on illegal waste exports) the matter of these illegal exports have also been seriously taken up by the British Environment Agency and they told companies involved in the export of electronic waste to Pakistan, India and China that they are aware of the rules and have to follow them to avoid punishment. This came as soon as the Environmental Agency decided to step up it network for checking of illegal exports. (UK Agency Warns E-Scrap Exporters)

The positions in the countries of Eastern Europe are much behind the Western part in these laws. The situation in Hungary is that it has a product fee system, and was one of the first countries to adopt a recycling for packages. Poland is likely to enact two broad laws that will cover the taking back of packaging on batteries, lamps, tires and some other appliances. It already has a law on packaging in plastic. (East Europe Country Pages) Another country in Eastern Europe which has been a pioneer in actions regarding environment has been Greece. They have been the leaders for the Mediterranean Component of the European Union Water Initiative or MEDEUWI from 2002 onwards.