PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The UK has identified electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) as priority products due to their high embodied carbon and their environmental impact as a waste stream. Each year, around 9.9 million tonnes of waste EEE (WEEE) is generated in the EU. Only 30% of WEEE generated is reported as properly collected and recycled. Many modern electrical and electronic products contain metals which have been classified as critical raw materials (CRMs) by the Commission. The supply and economic viability of CRMs are at risk in the EU, and these materials have higher impacts than other raw materials. Most CRMs are virtually unrecovered from WEEE. The high losses of CRMs are attributed to current collection and recycling arrangements. In the UK, WRAP has explored the viability of recovering CRMs from the EEE waste streams and highlighted the need to find a wide-reaching solution.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE 2014 CRMRecovery project aimed to demonstrate viable approaches to increase the recovery of target CRMs by 5% within the project lifetime. The target product categories were displays, consumer electronics, ICT and small household appliances. The target materials were graphite, cobalt, antimony, tantalum, rare earths, silver, gold and platinum group metals (PGMs), but the project did not intend to be limited to these materials. These targets were selected because previous work by all partners indicated that these are the CRMs with the highest value and concentration, and these were the product categories where they are found in greatest volumes.
Supporting objectives were to demonstrate:
- the environmental, economic and social benefits that an innovative circular economy for CRMs could deliver for the EU;
- innovative collection, reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of WEEE;
- key inputs to a European infrastructure plan for collection and recovery of products, parts, components and CRMs from WEEE;
- innovative methods to support the 7th Action Programme, to improve the evidence base for environmental policy and citizen support to improve the transparency of the outcome for end-of-life products, parts, components and materials;
- how through positive price mechanisms WEEE shipped to non-OECD countries can be reduced.
RESULTS
The project achieved its primary objective to demonstrate viable approaches to increase the recovery of target CRMs by 5% within the project lifetime. It also mostly achieved all its supporting objectives.
The project developed a European WEEE Flows Model summarising two key data sets (EC 'Study on Collection Rates of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)' and Eurostat.), which allows filtering by several parameters including product category, measure (kg or kg/capita), member state, and 'flow point' (which includes original characteristics, recycling, reuse, recovery and treatment location).
CRMRecovery completed a collection assessment matrix for each of the host countries (UK, Italy, Germany and Czech Republic) prioritising the collection methods (such as retailer take-back schemes, etc.) to be trialled and metrics for analysis of the impact of actions, which were different in each trial, and included a cost-benefit analysis of the individual trial.
The project collected approximately 44 tonnes of waste WEEE, conducted 5 WEEE collection trials using 14 different methods, and completed 7 CRM recovery trials. They collaborated with over 20 different organisations across the supply chain to deliver the trials and conducted over 1,000 surveys among participants. While the tonnage was below the predicted level, this did not impact on the effectiveness of the recovery trails. Monitoring revealed GHG emission savings as well as recovery of 1.76 kg of CRMs and 2 tonnes of WEEE diverted into reuse. The CRM captured in recovery were calculated to have a value of €3,531.
CRMRecovery also had a long-term target of 20% increase in recovery by 2030 and the project evaluation indicates that this is possible, with sufficient uptake of the methods and recommendations provided, that cover aspects such as collection infrastructure, awareness raising, updates of standards or large-scale CRM recovery smelters. Whilst the innovative recovery methods used were shown not to be viable at a commercial scale currently, there was some financial benefit through increased revenue to the participating organisations from collection and reuse. Social benefits were also provided through awareness raising and engagement with stakeholders and participants, as well as capacity building in the participating organisations (frequently social enterprises).
The findings have subsequently informed the development of five policy and infrastructure recommendations (see Layman’s Report) to optimise WEEE collection and maximise the recovery of CRMs in the future. A main takeaway is that a key measure to increase CRM recovery is the preparation for re-use, through e.g. improved product design or selective collection.
