One hundred organisations from over forty countries worldwide will organise activities as part of the second International E-Waste Day taking place on 14 October.
The event, organised by the WEEE Forum, an international association of e-waste collection schemes, and its members, brings together e-waste stakeholders across the world to promote the correct disposal of electrical and electronic equipment to enable reuse and recycling.
The International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency responsible for ICT, has, for the first time, become a partner in the day and its global reach will be important in spreading the message as widely as possible.
It is estimated that 50 million tonnes of e-waste will be generated across the planet in 2019. Half of this is personal devices such as computers, screens, smartphones, tablets and TVs, with the remainder being larger household appliances and heating and cooling equipment.
Only around 20% of global e-waste is recycled each year, which means that 40 million tonnes of e-waste per annum is either placed in landfill, burned or illegally traded and treated in a sub-standard way and this is despite 66% of the world’s population being covered by e-waste legislation.
We are entering the next stage in Europe’s commitment to foster a circular economy
This results in the huge loss of valuable and critical raw materials from the supply chain and causes serious health, environmental and societal issues through illegal shipments of waste to developing countries.
Initiatives being undertaken by participant organisations are designed to increase consumers’ knowledge about e-waste and how to dispose of it correctly.
These initiatives are many and diverse and include conferences, school and city collections, promotions in stores and recycling centres, videos and animations, and an online guide for proper e-waste disposal. All of these will be promoted locally on and around International E-waste Day.
The WEEE Forum itself has developed a series of infographics that illustrate the growing e-waste problem as well as videos featuring different representatives from e-waste value chain giving their take on how to tackle the challenge. All the materials can be viewed here.
Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries explained in his dedicated video message for International E-Waste Day, “We are entering the next stage in Europe’s commitment to foster a circular economy. This will be part of the new Green Deal for Europe announced by the incoming Commission President Ursula van der Leyen.”
He continued “Prevention and dealing with e-waste will be part and parcel of our coming work. This means recycling all our electronic waste where it cannot be avoided. But it also means rethinking the value chain for electronic goods.
“It means considering their appropriateness for reuse or recycling from conception. It means even going beyond and prioritizing dematerialization and closed loop systems.”