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purchase a new item rather than getting the old one fixed. As a result, there is an important market in developing countries for usable electronics such as phones to TVs and computers. And with reuse higher up the recycling hierarchy, it’s also much better environmentally. However, as the recent Panorama programme, ‘Track my Trash’, has shown, this opportunity is being exploited by rogue traders who are using it as a way to dispose of defunct electrical items and pocketing the higher charges paid to ensure they are recycled correctly. As a result of this illegal trade, unusable equipment is being sent abroad under the guise of being usable – for example, an estimated 75 per cent of the 400,000 second-hand computers arriving at ports in Nigeria’s biggest city Lagos every month are believed to be obsolete and unserviceable.
These illegal practices have a massive environmental impact and are resulting in young children in Africa being exposed to harmful chemicals as they try to recycle the materials used in electrical equipment with no proper recycling processes or protection – something no responsible organisation wants to be associated with. But, for organisations whose equipment is illegally exported, they are finding themselves at risk of being exposed for illegal recycling practices – often when they believe they’ve followed the correct procedures.
The lack of a reuse quality standard has opened up this loop hole for businesses, which often take different approaches in checking WEEE for export. For example, one business might assess quality with just a visual check, such as looking for a broken screen, but not actually turning it on, whereas another might do a full function test. This is soon to change, however, as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has recently launched PAS141. This standard sets requirements for those involved in reuse helping to minimise the impact of electrical equipment on the environment and to assure consumers that any reuse electrical and electronic equipment (REEE) is fit for purpose both in terms of safety and function. PAS 141 plays an important role in minimising illegal exports by assisting regulatory bodies in differentiating between ‘bona fide’ exports – or tested safe reuse equipment – and illegal exports
of waste. This will assist in deterring the export of equipment misdescribed as being fit for reuse to developing countries. So, how best can organisations minimise the risk of their electronics being illegally exported? It all comes down to taking responsibility for knowing where waste ends up, rather than thinking it’s ‘job done’ once it’s taken off premises. Those responsible for identifying recycling partners should not only do a thorough check on the company, they should also look at the supply chain – who are their partners, where does the waste end up, how is it recycled and where does the recovered material go. Only through undertaking such a thorough audit can an organisation be confident that their waste is ending up where it should and it’s handled in a manner that they would be happy to be associated with. The negative impact on reputation for public sector organisations being exposed for such practices is highly damaging and something that such businesses want to avoid at all costs.
Organisations should only send relatively new equipment for export, to ensure that it offers many years of use before it needs to be disposed of. Meanwhile, broken or end-of-life electronics should be reprocessed at approved facilities in the UK and organisations should investigate the processes to ensure the highest quantities of materials are recovered and reprocessed. To set a benchmark, at SWEEEP we recover 94 per cent of material contained within various WEEE, such as precious metals, copper, plastics, circuit boards and lead and ensure that they are reprocessed into reusable raw materials.
It is at this stage where exporting of defunct WEEE material is acceptable and indeed important. Having been separated within a safe environment, and all
‘nasties’, such as mercury, disposed of, the materials are often sent to Asia and the Far East – where demand for raw materials is rocketing. This demand comes at a time when western companies are looking to increase the recycled content of products thus creating a win-win situation – a market for the recycled materials and a reduction in virgin material consumption.
The other issue that is of utmost importance to public sector organisations is data security. So much information is now stored on a myriad of different devices, from phones and cameras, to servers, computers and tablets, all have to have their memory boards wiped or destroyed before being sent for reuse or recycling. This is where organisations have to take stringent responsibility to ensure the data they are responsible for holding can never be accessed – the negativity and public distrust such incidents cannot be underestimated. When disposing of WEEE, it is vital that companies understand how data-wiping will be undertaken and any reputable recycler will be more than happy to talk a client through the cleansing process. Or indeed, consider taking on responsibility for ensuring no device leaves the inventory without having been thoroughly wiped. The key element when dealing with old electronics for public sector organisations is responsibility. Ultimately, if your company name becomes associated with exposé programmes it damages the organisation’s reputation – with those who handled your waste seemingly getting away lightly in comparison. Landfill is no longer the ‘easy’ alternative for WEEE and therefore it’s crucial that the public sector is getting involved in analysing its waste management supply chain to ensure that all the due diligence is taken to ensure that waste is handled correctly and responsibly.
www.sweeep.co.uk
PUBLIC SECTOR SUSTAINABILITY • VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 21
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