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End-of-Life Recovery & Recycling Technologies in Electrical and Electronic Goods Sector
A Research Project led by the The centre for Sustainable Manufacture and Reuse/Recycling Technology (SMART) at Loughborough University
For further information please contact: Dr. S. Rahimifard Mr M. Abu Bakar The centre for SMART Wolfson School of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering Loughborough University Loughborough LE11 3TU United Kingdom Tel: (44) 01509 227657 S.Rahimifard@lboro.ac.uk www.lboro.ac.uk/smart
www.lboro.ac.uk/smart
Project Background
In recent years, growing quantities of end-of-life Electrical and Electronics Equipment have increased the attention devoted to product recovery. EU has responded to this issue by introducing a producer responsibility legislation referred to as the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. The directive applies to almost all consumer electrical and electronic equipment and a wide range of business equipment. The main requirements of this directive include the following: Manufacturers, from June 2006, have to finance the end-of-life operations (collection, treatment, recovery, environmentally sound disposal) of WEEE from designated collection sites. The recovery of upto 80% of appliance weight by June 2006. Targets to be revised in December 2008. Collection target of 4kg of WEEE per person per year.
The WEEE directive has been developed to help reduce the amount of waste from electrical and electronic equipment which have been consigned to landfill and to encourage resource efficiency by reuse, recycling and recovery. At present, more than 90% of WEEE is landfilled, incinerated or recovered without any pre-treatment which may contribute to further environmental pollution. One of the major issues that has hindered the recycling of WEEE is the economical concerns. However, it is commonly reported that there is a potential hidden value within significant proportion of WEEE. As a result manufacturers need to have a clear awareness of the current costs and possible avenues of revenue generation in recycling WEEE.