Padraic Larkin - Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Irish people have been very good at recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) since regulations were introduced here in 2005. Over 9 Kg of WEEE per person was collected and sent for recycling.
Where this material is recovered is not so clear cut and much of the European WEEE ends up being exported to Africa and Asia where the precious metals are recovered by hand in dangerous working conditions.
Much of the material is shipped through the port of Rotterdam and is destined for locations such as the Ivory Coast where children burn the plastic on open fires or leach the gold components with cyanide.
Rotterdam is Europe's busiest port, a hub for regional shipping with more than nine million containers passing through each year. Just one-third of those carrying goods for export are from the Netherlands, with most coming from the EU's other 26 states.
Customs officials select suspect shipments through risk profiling, sorting through a list of indicators including the container's sender and its destination. But even though the Dutch have led the way in cracking down on illegal e-waste exports - the European Union banned the trade in the mid-1990s - only 3% or so of the containers in Rotterdam are checked. An unknown number of containers slip through, or are directed to European ports with fewer controls.
Traffickers trick the authorities by not labelling goods as electronics, by pretending they are for re-use, or by hiding them in the middle of a container. The containers that get through are shipped to West Africa - most commonly Ghana and Nigeria - and to South Asian countries including India and Pakistan.
According to ABI Research some 53 million tonnes of WEEE were generated worldwide last year and only 13% of that material was recycled. Most of the WEEE from the USA ends up in China.
Many of the electronic items are badly designed making it very expensive to recycle in Europe and therefore it is dumped in developing countries. Alongside environmental damage in the developing world Europe is buying then losing large quantities of increasingly scarce raw materials contained in e-waste.
The solution lies in getting electronics companies to design greener products and weaning consumers off their electronics habit. If the laws are fully enforced and people pay the full cost of their actions then we may be able to move to greener production and consumption.
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Padraic Larkin - Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government recently launched a Draft Statement of Waste Policy for public consultation. The Minister said the draft policy was intended to map the future of waste management for the next decade and beyond and aimed to protect the environment, reduce costs for householders and businesses, while at the same time promoting job creation and innovation in the waste industry.
The policy document sees waste as a resource that can create jobs and enhance prosperity and proposes a number of changes to divert waste away from landfill or incinerator. The proposals include; devising a National Framework Plan which will guide regional planning of waste infrastructure.
- modifying existing waste regions
- making local authorities responsible for collection of household waste
- holding a competitive tender for the provision of services (public or private)
- the rationalisation of the waste regulatory functions of local authorities into a single nationally administered arrangement
- the introduction of measures to ensure that no local authority should enter into any contract for treatment or disposal of quantities of waste which would exceed those that they or their agents might reasonably expect to control
- a series of residual waste treatment levies with an increased landfill levy and a new levy on incineration
- minimum standards of service will be required of all those providing a household waste collection service including possibly the collection of food waste weekly and the collection of textile waste monthly
- improvement in service provided at civic amenity sites
- the setting of targets for the reduction in overall waste quantities and increased rates of recycling
- new producer responsibility requirements on packaging, construction materials, electronic equipment and hazardous substances
- possible financial support to the private sector from the Environment Fund
- use of gas from anaerobic digestion of waste
This is a significant document and, if all of the proposals are ultimately implemented, it could make a big difference to how waste is handled in Ireland. One of the more significant issues relates to the planned incinerator for Dublin. These proposals could have a bearing on the eventual size (and economics) of this incinerator and opens the debate about where energy recovery from waste fits into the waste heirarchy.
The draft policy document is open for public consultation until October. If you want to have a say in how Ireland’s waste policy develops then you can find the document at http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Environment/Waste/WasteManagement/FileDownLoad,23397,en.pdf
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