Cyprus context
These are not stand-alone pages, but
complements to the above ones.
|
|
Have you ever wondered what you should do with used electrical or
electronic items? If you live in the European Union, then you should be
aware that everything has been honed down for you, right down to the
last iota. Outside the European Union, this is up to your local
government to decide what you should do or shouldn't do. This essay will
therefore be essentially around the EU directive called WEEE (waste in
electrical and electronic equipment).
Essentially, this directive ensures that everything which has a wire
attached or inside it has to be recycled. Now, I am all for recycling
but, in some respects, it goes far too far. One could be excused for
thinking that it would be easy to think up a directive on the subject
but, no, it takes up all of 15 pages of close printing with 19 articles
and five annexes! Let me quote article 1 verbatim:
Objectives
The purpose of this Directive is, as a first priority, the prevention of
waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), and in addition, the
reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of such wastes so as to
reduce the disposal of waste. It also seeks to improve the environmental
performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical
and electronic equipment, e.g. producers, distributors and consumers and
in particular those operators directly involved in the treatment of
waste electrical and electronic equipment.
In order to meet these objectives, the first thing that is done is to
define what is WEEE. This is done in very comprehensive annexes and
really includes everything that runs on electricity. Note that both
industrial and household equipment is covered. In the original official
version there is an exclusion of equipment related to arms, munitions
and war material.
For equipment from private households, member states have to ensure free
collection facilities, taking into account the population density. When
new equipment is purchased, the distributor is obliged to take back the
old equipment on a one-to-one basis, where such equipment performs the
same function as the new appliance; there is room in the wording for a
provision to use alternative methods of recovery, provided that is not
made more difficult for the householder. It should be noted that "free
collection" does not necessarily entail kerbside collection and
householders may need to take the equipment to a collection point. Users, other
than householders, do not necessarily benefit from free collection.
Article 5, paragraph 5 contains one of the most controversial parts of
the directive. It states:
... Member States shall ensure that by 31 December
2006 at the latest a rate of separate collection of at least four
kilograms on average per inhabitant per year of WEEE from private
households is achieved.
This is probably achievable in the highly developed Member States,
where the average household has a large number of appliances which are
changed at frequent intervals and where even the kids have mobile
telephones, electronic games etc.
However, it becomes ridiculous where there are large poorly developed
rural populations with large families. Imagine a family of six whose
only electrical appliances are for lighting and, of course, the inevitable
television set; is there any way that such a family could produce 24 kg
of electrical waste per year? In a way, it could be said that this clause is counterproductive to holistic environmental care, because it almost incites people to throw out the equipment before it reaches end of life.
The directive puts forward mandatory targets for the recovery of
equipment. Recovery is ill-defined without reference to other directives
but is essentially all the material in an appliance which is not sent to
a landfill or other means of destruction. Typical rates of recovery that
are mandated include 80% of the weight for large appliances, including
75% which is reused or recycled. For electronic equipment such as
computers, televisions, telephones (including cellular telephones) and
suchlike, the percentages are 75% and 65% respectively. For small electrical
appliances and other equipment, the percentages are 70% and 50%
respectively.
It is fairly obvious that a large appliance, such as a washing
machine, consists essentially of steel panels, a stainless steel drum, a
fairly powerful electric motor, heaters, pumps etc and represent most of
the weight. As all these components are easily recycled, it is not
difficult to recover 80%. On the other hand, small electronic devices,
such as calculators, have the major part of their weight in a single
printed circuit assembly. The only part of this that can be easily
recovered is the solder, which may represent less than 1% of the total
weight of the device; it is clearly impossible to reach the required 75%
recovery on this kind of item. It would seem that the authors of this
directive did not have their feet on the ground.
The first paragraph of Article 10 states:
Member States shall ensure that users of
electrical and electronic equipment in private households are
given the necessary information about:
(A) the requirement not to dispose of WEEE
as unsorted municipal waste and to collect such WEEE each
separately
(B) the return and collection systems are
available to them;
(C) their role in contributing to reuse,
recycling and other forms of recovery of WEEE;
(D) the potential effects on the
environment and human health as a result of the presence of
hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment;
(E) the meaning of the symbol shown in
annex IV [this symbol shows a crossed out wheelie bin]
I invite readers from the EU to consider whether they have
been fully informed by their governments about these five items
of information!
Of course, non-EU readers who live in a country where there has
analogical legislation have to follow their own regulations. The real
problem probably lies in countries which have no corresponding
legislation at all. According to the US EPA, 2.25 million tonnes of end of life TVs, cell phones and computer products were disposed of in
2007. Only 18% were recovered for potential recycling of usable parts.
Most of the remainder went into landfills. Even if the recovery of these landfilled items were only 50%, that represents almost 1,000,000 tonnes
of material that could be reused for new equipment. The EPA also states that
the 18% that was recovered were in States that had implemented
recovery legislation. If you happen to be in a state or a country which
has no specific recovery programme, and you have electrical or
electronic equipment to dispose of, please look up the Yellow Pages to
find someone who handles end of life equipment.
There is a dark side to this question. Although it is forbidden by the
Basel Convention, some companies illegally send end of life equipment to
Third World countries where they are dismantled under primitive
conditions, with potential risks to the health and safety of the
personnel doing the dismantling. This is to be strongly discouraged, of
course. It would seem probable that some customs authorities may be lax
in determining the contents of containers being exported. On the
brighter side, there are companies that accept used computer equipment,
even if they do not work, to salvage them into components which they
rebuild after testing. On an average, they can make seven working
computers out of 10 faulty ones. These are then sold at very low prices,
often to Third World countries. In contrast to the above, this is
perfectly legal and does not contravene the Basel Convention, because
the equipment is sold in working state. Larger companies in this
business have become very profitable.
Although this essay only scratches the surface of a very large
problem, it is hoped that readers will benefit from the fact that no
electrical or electronic equipment should ever be landfilled or
similarly scrapped without at least the recovery of all the parts that
can be reused or recycled. This applies in every country in the world.
If you happen to be in the EU, and have not been informed correctly on
how to dispose of end of life equipment, ask your authorities how to
dispose of it, free of charge; it is your right to be correctly informed
and to have the equipment taken off your hands for recovery.
|