Electronics

The market demand for household WEEE are expected to grow continuously as most of them are essential to our daily life. The waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) generated by households usually contain a significant concentration of metals. For some metals, the concentration in WEEE may be even higher than remaining ores. It offers a great opportunity for sustainable sourcing of technology metals from metal-rich WEEE. In this section we will share our observation on the current and future state of the embedded materials, components and the potential demand/supply challenges involved.

Supply and demand

Global supply and demand

59 million tonnes (mt) of WEEE were generated in 2019 worldwide, that is 7.3 kg WEEE per capita.
EU was ranked as the world's largest producer with 16.2 kg per capita.

UK supply and demand

UK was ranked as the second largest country in the EU in terms of WEEE per capita (23.9 kg), only behind Norway (26 kg per capita).
UK is also the largest WEEE exporter out of the EU, around 80% of metal products that are classified as waste are exported from the UK.
366 thousand tonnes (tt) of WEEE ended up in normal waste bins in 2015 in the UK, indicating that more than 13 kilograms of WEEE are disposed with the municipal solid waste per household per year.

Environmental impacts of WEEE

27% of greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities can be attributed to EEE.
Unregulated disposal of EEE would also have an adverse impact on the environment and human health due to the release of hazardous substances

Electrical and electronic equipment (EEE)

Typical household EEE

Laptop
Desktop
Games Console
Mobile phone
Portable Digital Music Player
Handheld Games Player
Digital Camcorder
Electronic Educational Toy
Tablet
E-reader
Monitor
Television
Answering machine, fax machine, modem purchase
Digital Radio (Dab)
DVD Player
Blu-Ray Player
Digital TV Recorder/Receiver
DVD Recorder
Freeview Box
Hi-Fi
Phone Not Mobile
Portable Digital Storage
Electric Cooker
Gas Fire
Dishwasher
Washing machine
Electric kettle
Electric Iron
Hair dryer
Hair Styling Appliance
Electric Cooling Fan
Headphones
Portable Speaker
Power Drill
Power Socket
Printer
Refrigerator
Vacuum Cleaner
Mower Electric
Electric Toothbrush
Electric Razor
Electric Heater
Car battery
Light Bulb
Table Lamp
Car bulb

Flows of typical household EEE

This is a brief overview of the linear and circular value chains describes the flows of a typical household EEE.

When a new product is purchased by a household (P1), it would either be used straight away (P2) or hoarded (P3) for future use.

For a used product, there are various scenarios after the use phase. A product may be hoarded (P3) if the household decides to stop using it right now but maybe use it again in the future. A product may also be mismanaged by the household which goes directly into the municiple solid waste (MSW) stream (P9).

For scenarios that are circular, a used product can be re-sold (P4) by the household, or repaired (P5) if broken, or return to local authorities (P3) for repairing (P5), refurbishing (P6), or recovering components or materials (P7). However, not all collected used products or recovered components or materials are reusable, of which will be eventually ended up as MSW (P9).

The most profound challenge is that data for material flow and activities of each process from P4 to P9 remain unknown.

More details on the reverse options including reuse and resale, repair and maintenance, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling can be found in the links below.

Legal and regulatory

More ambitious and robust collection targets are required
Current recycling targets are based on overall weight of product. This is a somewhat crude and broad-based target, as it does not incentivise recovery of the most critical or valuable minerals. More specific targets, focussed on critical minerals, would be far more effective in improving value from recycling
Introducing obligations in regard to minimum recycled content would help level the playing field given that the price of virgin materials can be higher than the cost of recycled material
Repair, remanufacture and product longevity measures are required to enhance the circular economy loop and to extract maximum value from products
Introduction of variety of instruments that will incentivise return and recycling or penalise failure to do so
Improving overall compliance with end of life and EPR rules and more robust enforcement

We haven't added these acts so we will leave it to whomever listed them

The Waste (Household Waste Duty of Care) (England and Wales) Regulations 2005

Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005