Stopping the WEEE leakage

Much has been said in the media in recent months about how the high price of metal is driving a rise in scrap metal thefts. Indeed, the British Transport Police has been quoted as saying it is the second biggest problem they are currently facing in the UK after terrorism. Now the problem seems to be moving into the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) marketplace, with recyclers in more established European WEEE countries seeing valuable electronics waste being removed from the waste stream.

Graham Davy, chief executive of Sims Recycling Solutions talks to LGE about the missing WEEE problem, his own experiences in Europe and the trouble it can cause further down the line for waste collection sites and organisations with material to recycle.

“Leakage from waste streams is not new. It is something that nearly all Civic Local Amenity sites (CLAs) will have experienced over the years – waste with a perceived value being stolen before it is processed, either for personal use or to be sold on. Operating across Europe, as Sims does, we have started to notice first-hand that this problem is getting growing, with a rise in valuable WEEE being removed from the waste stream.

“This isn’t as a result of the cherry picking we are used to but, rather a concerted effort by traders and/or illegal operators to cash-in on high prices for materials. In the Netherlands for example, we are seeing outsiders approaching staff at waste collection centres, and the equivalent of CLAs, asking them to remove high-value items such as computer central processing units (CPUs), servers and cables, prior to collection or treatment in return for cash.

“Once this untreated waste is taken from waste stream, a lot of it gets shipped out of the EU to countries that do not have the same stringent waste regulation, such as China and a number of countries in Africa. This practice isn’t just happening in the Netherlands, we are seeing it across all the locations we operate in including Belgium and Germany and with the directive recently implemented in the UK, we expect cases in the UK to come to light in the very near future.

“With WEEE leaking from the supply chain in this manner, it presents a number of problems to the industry, most notably in relation to volume and cost. For example, when we began collecting WEEE in one European country, as an organisation we factored in losses of 5-7 per cent of volume due to WEEE going missing from the waste stream.

Now with the value of scrap materials high and the theft of WEEE growing, the leakage is closer to 15 per cent.

“As a recycler we look to high value material to offset the cost of recycling, for both our clients and ourselves. The industry quotes on volume of material received and recycled, often with an eye on the perceived value of the material. If the most valuable pieces of WEEE are removed from the waste stream and the volume of material is reduced before it reaches the recycler, then this could make any quote given at the outset of the process incorrect. The final price could therefore be higher for customers like compliance schemes and their members and those organisations that deal directly with a recycling partner.

“The theft of WEEE will also create other side effects, most notably environmental issues, data security risk and potential negative publicity for those organisations with end of life equipment to recycle. Quite simply, missing WEEE defeats the purpose of what the WEEE Directive is trying to achieve. If waste electronic equipment is stolen before it has been treated, any hazardous material will reenter the mainstream market place, either being resold as fit for use or shipped off to another country for landfill disposal – not the environmental goal we’re aiming for.

“Fraud is also a big issue. When it comes to items such as computer hard drives or servers, if the materials stolen haven’t been properly data-wiped, it could lead to people’s personal details falling into the wrong hands and identify fraud being committed. If this equipment is subsequently discovered, or worse, any fraud is committed as a result, either the site or facility where the equipment was stolen and the company from which the hardware has come from could come under the media spotlight.

As both businesses and consumers become more green aware, then the volume of WEEE will grow dramatically, making the problem of missing WEEE more prevalent. Therefore, it is now the ideal time for all those organisation involved in the WEEE reverse logistic chain local authorities to realise what is happening in European WEEE market and put in place controls to ensure that material does not leak from the WEEE chain.

“By deploying stricter monitoring systems, reducing the number of people in the supply chain and educating staff about the dangers of untreated waste being removed from the chain, then we as an industry can start to stamp out this threat before it becomes an ever bigger problem.”