Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack What’s WEEE? WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Introduction What is Electrical and Electronic Equipment? The legal definition in the UK of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) is products that are dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic fields for their basic function – if an item has batteries or needs to be plugged into a power socket to work then it is considered to be an EEE item. For example, mobile phones, televisions and computers. EEE is taking a more important role in our lives as it gets smarter and we become better at developing and designing it. We are now using multiple pieces of EEE every day and this seems likely to increase, with the average person in the UK buying three new electrical items every year. As we use so many electrical items, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) has become increasingly commonplace, and continues to rise. This can be a problem as many people don’t realise that electrical items can be recycled or re-used, even if they are broken, so lots go to landfill. In January 2007, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations came into force with the aim to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill and improve recovery and recycling rates. To do this, manufacturers and importers of products had to agree to collect and process some of the WEEE that had been produced. Of the WEEE collected in this way 75% was re-used or processed to recover useful materials.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack How is Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) produced? What are rare Earth elements? A rare earth element (REE) or rare earth metal (REM), as defined by IUPAC, is one of a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table.

EEE is made of raw materials, recycled materials or a combination of both. A raw material is the most basic material from which a product can be made. In WEEE these might be: ►►

Crude oil: The most common raw material of plastic is crude oil.

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Metals: Metals such as aluminium, iron, copper and even the rare earth metals are elements, and are found in ore that are mined out of the ground.

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Sand: Normal sand (silicon dioxide) is the most common raw material used to make glass, although some special forms can be made with other substances.

Where are the rare Earth elements found in EEE? In a typical mobile phone there can be up to 62 different rare earth elements and 12 of these currently have no alternatives! Colour screens, circuit boards, speakers and vibration units in your phone are all full of rare earth elements.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack The Lifecycle of Electrical and Electronic Items At the moment, most electrical and electronic items are made without recycling in mind. They are built, used and thrown away:

A more environmentally friendly way of making electrical and electronic items is to re-use recycled materials:

The plastic, metal or glass materials are made

The plastic, metal or glass materials are made

A new item is made out of these materials

A new item is made out of these materials and from recycled materials

The item breaks or gets out of date and is thrown away into a big hole in the ground or to an incinerator where it is burned in a big fire

The item breaks or gets out of date and is thrown away

The item is reused, repaired or recycled

This means the item NEVER has to be thrown away because it gets recycled back into new electrical and electronic things!

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack How can we reduce the amount of electronic and electric equipment we waste? The Waste Hierarchy The increase in usage, along with the speed at which new and updated products are being released creates the problem of what to do with old products. The Waste Hierarchy gives guidance on what we should be doing with our WEEE for the minimum environmental impact. Reduce Reduce the amount of EEE bought and used or waste created (through better product care). Repair Mend broken EEE instead of buying new (remember to be safe if attempting to mend EEE, unplug and remove batteries and if in doubt don’t try it). Reuse Give or sell unwanted EEE to others (always seek parent’s permission first and remove personal data). Recycle Take WEEE to collection points for recycling (recycling centres, electrical shops may have collection points). Dispose This is the last resort as sending it to landfill or incineration is the least environmentally efficient option.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack How is WEEE recycled? Collection Take WEEE to recycling centres in your local area (find your nearest with the Recycle Now locator tool). Some shops offer free recycling schemes or take back options

Recycling process Products can be recycled in a slow or a fast way: ►►

Slow recycling Products are dismantled by humans so components can be reused. o Gives high quality recycling but it is slow, costly and time intensive. o Dismantling needs to be done by humans because machines cannot cope with the range of different products. Machines can be programmed to do simple repetitive tasks but are currently unable to think and solve problems themselves. o Often used for specific items when components have a value ,such as with computers.

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Fast recycling This is the preferred option as it is fast and can involve machines for more efficiency. o Pre-sort: Removes some components that go through different processes such as leads, monitors, batteries and capacitors. Products such as fridges and freezers contain potentially harmful gases as well as compressors that are removed under safe conditions and processed while any leftover parts carry on through the process. o Dismantling: Reducing products to components either by course shredding or, in the case of Sweeep Kuusakoski, products are placed into a giant drum and spun around so they hit each other, dismantling in the process. o Sort: Removal by hand of valuable resources, such as circuit boards, and potentially dangerous components, such as batteries and capacitors. o Shredding: The components are now finely shredded before being mechanically sorted. o Ferrous: Magnets pick up and remove ferrous metals (containing iron which is magnetic) for melting down and recycling. o Non-ferrous: Spinning magnets propel aluminium and copper away using eddy currents for melting down and recycling (eddy current are loops of electric current that change the magnetic field in the conductor). o Plastics: Plastic is left which can then be recycled.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack Faulty goods: Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that products must last a reasonable amount of time. If you return a faulty product within six months to the store where it was brought, the store must prove it wasn’t faulty when you brought it in order not to fix it or provide a replacement.

Repair by experts: Companies can be found who will repair your EEE. A quick search online around your area will show you but try to go with recommendations from friends you trust.

How can we reuse EEE? ►►

Ask friends and family if they would like your unwanted electrical items.

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Ask parents to sell them at car boots, nearly new and bring and buy sales.

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Advertise online for someone to take the EEE away or sell it.

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Parents can place adverts in local newspapers or some shops exchange EEE for cash

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Mobile phones and tablets can be exchanged for gift vouchers or cash through a number of online sites, for example https://www.freecycle.org/ and https://ilovefreegle.org/.

Before doing this, make sure that you have removed anything private, e.g. personal data held on your mobile phone.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack MYTHBUSTER Can you work out what is myth and what is fact?

Myth Only some of the valuable Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) components are removed before the rest is dumped in landfill.

Truth The ‘Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2013’ became law on the 1st January 2014 (replacing previous legislation). These regulations state that for WEEE, reuse of the product or components should be considered first and where this is not preferable, high levels of recovery and recycling should be achieved. It also gives a list of components that must be removed so that they can be used more readily.

Myth You can’t recycle the plastic on WEEE as it’s different to the other plastic.

Truth It is true that a lot of the plastics used in EEE have flame retardants added (known as ‘brominated’) so that the EEE is more protected. However, there are many ways in which these plastics can be recycled and the only time when this is not possible is when brominated plastics have contaminated other plastics at a low level. There are a range of less eco-efficient waste management options available, including incineration with energy recovery.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack Myth Our WEEE is shipped off to a developing country where it is dismantled with fire causing great harm to those involved.

Truth Burning and using corrosive chemicals are 2 ways in which the WEEE is effectively stripped of useful materials. This dangerous way of of recycling does occur in some developing countries but in the UK the ‘Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2013’ ensures that the treatment of our WEEE is safe no matter where it is undertaken.

Myth Only parts of the items are recycled before the rest is dumped in landfill.

Truth There are rules to make sure that WEEE is not thrown away and is recycled. Special laws state that EEE should be treated using the waste hierarchy.

Myth There is only a small amount of WEEE in comparison with other types of waste.

Truth The amount of glass waste produced every year in the UK is 2.25 million tonnes, metals are 6.06 million tonnes and plastic waste is 3.2 million tonnes. The amount of WEEE items that are discarded each year is a similar amount to these with 2 million tonnes, but the WEEE items are also made up of other materials as well. The average TV contains 6% metal and 50% glass and cookers are 89% metal and 6% glass.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack Myth There is no point in recycling, it doesn’t make a difference.

Truth The current level of UK recycling (for households this was 44.9% in 2014) is estimated to save more than 18 million tonnes of CO2 a year. This is the equivalent to taking 5 million or 14.3% of UK cars off the road.

Myth Electronic items are made up of different materials and so it costs more to recycle WEEE than make a product from raw materials.

Truth As well as having substantial amounts of plastic, glass and metals such as aluminium and steel that can be recycled cheaply, WEEE items also contain precious metals like gold and rare earth elements. Rare earth elements are special substances that are used in EEE making materials stronger, enabling a better range of screen colours and even in making items smaller (speakers were a lot larger before neodymium magnets). Although they are not actually rare, they are found in small amounts and mixed up with other elements making the purifying difficult and costly so, not only can you save money by recycling the plastic, glass and metals but the rare earth elements in WEEE items are cheaper to purify than from natural sources.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Information Pack Sources https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/487916/ UK_Statistics_on_Waste_statistical_notice_15_12_2015_update_f2.pdf http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/waste-electrical.htm http://www.uel.ac.uk/greenthing/recycling/benefits/ https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2013 http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/rare-earth-elements.htm http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/518777/IPOL_ STU(2015)518777_EN.pdf http://gizmodo.com/ http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/value-re-using-household-waste-electrical-andelectronic-equipment%20 http://www.recyclenow.com www.sweeepkuusakosk.co.uk http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3113/pdfs/uksi_20133113_en.pdf http://www.bsef.com/recycling/ http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3113/pdfs/uksi_20133113_en.pdf http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/WEEE%20recovery%20in%20the%20UK.pdf http://www.step-initiative.org/what-is-ewaste.html

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