The trouble with WEEE

As one of the biggest metal recyclers announces that it plans to withdraw from WEEE recycling, the cracks are beginning to show in the legislation designed to promote recycling of ewaste. Fears have been raised that Sims departure from the market puts achievement of the UK's WEEE targets in jeopardy, but actually the problem goes deeper than that.

The real reason the government compliance schemes can't meet their targets is because there are much more commercially appealing options available. WEEE producer compliance schemes charge the producer a membership fee and a handling fee. Customers typically pay for collection of their WEEE. Yet in many market sectors - especially IT equipment - there are services available which actually return revenue to the organisation returning the unwanted kit. These services are fully compliant with waste legislation, and typically operate higher up the waste hierarchy than WEEE producer compliance schemes. But the WEEE they process doesn't contribute to the government compliance targets.

The WEEE producer compliance system is fundamentally flawed, for several reasons. Firstly, because it operates on the basis of volume targets so it is geared towards collecting the maximum amount of ewaste, not deriving the maximum value from the resources contained within it. Secondly, because it doesn't measure whole device re-use or parts re-use, both of which are preferable to recycling from the point of view of the waste hierarchy. And thirdly because it imposes a cost on the EEE producer which is based purely on market share and takes no account of how easy it is to recover value from the device. As a result, the most expedient process for recyclers is to bulk up ewaste and shred everything, resulting in low-grade recyclate that has little value as a manufacturing resource. Even if a device is working, or repairable, the collection process damages it beyond repair. and there is no incentive on WEEE producers to improve the design of their products to facilitate repairability or material recovery at end of first use.

Compare that with an ICT asset recovery company that inspects devices to determine what can be refurbished or cosmetically improved and resold for second use, what can have spare parts harvested for use in repairing other devices and what can be dismantled so that single metals or polymers can be recovered and returned in as-virgin quality for other manufacturing processes. A large proportion of ICT equipment has sufficient intrinsic value to fund the recovery processes, generate a profit margin for the asset recovery company and even return some value to the producer or the user. Many such programmes offer social value, by making donations to charity or funding education projects. This approach supports the resource stewardship agenda, returns value to the economy and creates jobs, but no account is taken of it in the government's WEEE targets.

Many suppliers of ICT equipment in the B2B sector now find themselves in the same position as my employer. We are compelled to pay into a compliance scheme which hardly any of our customers use because the alternatives are preferable from both an economic and an environmental point of view. Indeed, when we retired old IT we used a free asset recovery service with added social value in preference to the WEEE compliance scheme we offer our customers. The current WEEE legislation will miss its targets because it serves nobody but the compliance partners - and yet apparently they can't make it pay either. We need a better system, and quickly.

Serendipity and shared values

I spent today with a bunch of like-minded people exploring the barriers to a circular economy and sharing ideas for catalysing change, under the auspices of the Circular Economy Task Force convened by Green Alliance. At the moment I think it's fair to say that we have more questions than answers, but we're definitely making progress. One of the key challenges we've identified is how to incentivise the behaviours that support a circular economy, for example returning end of life products to a recycling centre. Work done for the day, I headed home and met my 12-year old son at Reading Station for an artisan ice-cream at the fabulous Tutti Frutti.

On the bus home, he told me he'd discovered his favourite place in the entire world - a city in Brazil with many green spaces, a cheap and efficient public transport system and impressively high recycling rates achieved through the issue of "green tokens" that can be exchanged for public transport tickets and fresh produce. He couldn't remember its name, but I have since found out that it's Curitiba. My son had no idea how I had spent my day, and I hadn't planned to discuss it with him, but his observation prompted a lively discussion about the merits of a circular economy. And I genuinely learned something new that is of direct relevance to my work.

I suggested, jokingly, that perhaps next time the Task Force meets, he should come with me. He was so excited by the idea that I'm beginning to think seriously about suggesting it. And not just him - perhaps a whole cohort of young people.  After all, it's their future we're trying to safeguard. And, as my son reminded me today, they might just know more than we give them credit for.

Not paperless, but paper-less

Toshiba seems to have caused something of a furore with its announcement of a "National No-Print Day". Unsurprisingly the paper industry is particularly exercised about it, with campaigns from both the pro-paper lobby Two Sides and the Printing Industries of America trade assocation which is calling for a "No Toshiba" day. As with so many sustainability decisions, paper vs. electronic media is not an easy call and the right course of action is probably a compromise.

As pro-paper campaigns point out, timber for paper is a renewable resource and plantations assist with CO2 balance. Paper's carbon footprint peaks once it has been printed, whereas a digital document creates fresh emissions every time you read it due to the energy consumed by your computer or e-reader. PIA offers some compelling statistics about the relative impacts of paper and electronic media.

We need to re-think the way we engage with documents, and use different media depending on the expected life of the content. For information that is likely to be read once and not referred to again a digital medium is probably better - it's certainly not eco-efficient to print out emails to read them, for example. Even a document which has to be archived could originate and remain in digital form unless it is likely to be referred to frequently. But printed documents are perfect for pass-on readership or for material that is intended to be read and re-read. Libraries, although in decline, are an elegant way of ensuring that we gain maximum value from the resources used in making books, and the most serious flaw of e-readers is that they prevent us from lending titles to others.

The issue of document design and production is also key. Better use of typography and layout can reduce the number of sheets needed to produce a printed document and of course it should always be printed double-sided. Paper weight, inclusion of recycled content and use of images all have a part to play in controlling the environmental impact of printed material. And we mustn't lose sight of the fact that manufacturing paper doesn't just consume trees, it also uses water, chemicals, oil and energy - and those resources are still consumed to make recycled paper. Recycling paper is important, but not as critical as making sure we don't print unneccessarily.

In my view, a No-Print Day is no bad thing as a means of drawing attention to the need to be mindful about printing, and the pro-paper and pro-printing organisations may be over-reacting. Like Earth Hour, Buy Nothing Day and so many other events the value is in making people think twice about habitual behaviours which may no longer be appropriate in a resource-constrained world.

UK worst at recycling

A study by Dell, published on the BBC website, suggests Britons are the worst in Europe when it comes to recycling electrical equipment. The survey found that fewer than half of UK residents regularly recycled old hardware, compared with more than 80% of Germans. Within the UK, the Welsh are the worst when it comes to recycling technology products; almost 20% have never done so.

The results are similar to the findings of Kyocera in a survey last year, which found that only 56% of respondents recycled end-of-life IT equipment. By industry sector, retail/media/leisure were worst at 50% and manufacturing/construction/utilities best at 61%.

It is thought the UK creates enough electrical waste each year to fill Wembley Stadium six times over. Under WEEE legislation, suppliers of electrical and electronic equipment have a legal obligation to take back end of life equipment when a new item is purchased, and dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner.

Something old, something new

I loved the story in Metro this week about the bride and groom who paid for their honeymoon flight with rubbish. They spent three months picking up 60,000 items of litter and taking it to their local Tesco store to claim one Club Card point for every four items they recycled. By converting the Club Card points to 36,000 air miles they paid for their BA flight from Atlanta Georgia to Gatwick at the end of their honeymoon touring the United States - having sailed there on Queen Mary 2.

I wonder if they offset the carbon for the flight?