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 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 the 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 aims to demonstrate viable approaches to increase the recovery of target CRMs by 5% within the project lifetime.
The target product categories are: display, consumer electronics, ICT and small household appliances; and The target materials are graphite, cobalt, antimony, tantalum, rare earths, silver, gold and platinum group metals (PGMs), but the project will not be limited to these materials. These targets have been selected because previous work by all partners has indicated that these are the CRMs with the highest value and concentration and these are the product categories where they are found in greatest volumes.
Supporting objectives are 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 end result of end-of-life products, parts, components and materials; and How through positive price mechanisms WEEE shipped to non OECD countries can be reduced. Expected results:
The development of a European wide model of the flow of WEEE through the recovery system; A completed collection assessment matrix for each of the host countries prioritising the collection mechanism to be trialled; Comprehensive trial reports that outline the methodology and approach used, all the data associated with the trial and a cost/ benefit analysis of the individual trial; A minimum of 100 tonnes of product collected across 10 collection trials and reprocessed through re-use, component recovery and recycling operations as defined during the project; A suite of possible nation-specific policy intervention routes and an EU policy options document; and EU infrastructure development recommendations that outline the required collection and recovery infrastructure to secure resources and value in the EU. In the long term this project aims to increase the recovery of target CRMs by 5% by weight by 2020 and by 20% by 2030. This will result in a 20% increase in value as re-use will also deliver high values.
