Updated
As the consumption and production of electronic devices increase, so does the waste with all those that break or become obsolete. The traditional drawer for cables and chargers that is in every house becomes a piece of furniture of enormous dimensions worldwide. A few weeks ago, on the occasion of International Electronic Waste Day, the WEEE Forum made an estimate: by the end of 2021, 57.4 million metric tons of electronic waste will have been generated worldwide. That is, the equivalent of almost 5,700 Eiffel towers.
This quantity grows at a rate of approximately two million tons per year, so it is estimated that in 2030 it could be around 75 million. The problem is that the percentage of this garbage that is not recycled -due to ignorance or accumulation- is still very high. According to data from the Global Electronic Waste Monitor, in European homes there are an average of 11 devices that are not used.
In Spain, the resolution of the General Directorate for Quality and Environmental Assessment that regulates the minimum collection targets for producers established, for example, that in 2021 they should receive 29.2 million kilos of screens, 3, 2 million lamps or 66.9 million small electrical appliances (that is, with dimensions less than 50 centimeters). Large devices (184.3 million) and small IT and telecommunications devices (the section that includes phones and tablets, 17.7 million) also have ambitious targets that allow one to get an idea of the amount of electronic waste that is generated in the country.
As regards the chargers, the annual cost is over 2,400 million euros and the waste related to the component would be equivalent to a little more than one of the Parisian towers; 11,000 tons for the 10,100 of the monument.
A partial response to this global tangle of cables is the proposal by European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner Thierry Breton that within three or four years there will be a standard charger for small electronic devices, regardless of its brand, function or operating system. If it comes to fruition, the already widely ubiquitous USB-C - the charger used by most Android phones - would become the 'official'. This would also allow manufacturers to save on transformers or the cable itself, since it would be assumed that the customer would have one at home.
"The news is positive," says Rafael Serrano, Ecolec's communication director. "Anything that is standardizing an essential accessory to be able to make a mobile phone work seems fundamental to us," he points out. The reason, again, is the drawer: "It makes it easier for them not to fill up with chargers that we don't know very well what to do with either and spend years and years there."
According to Serrano, currently in Spain approximately 700 million kilos of household products are placed on the market (around 1,000 million if the professional environment is also taken into account). Of these, between 55 and 60 are recycled "through the collective systems of extended producer responsibility (SCRAP), which is where the different manufacturers registered in the registry of the Ministry of Industry are brought together." The legal minimum set by Spanish regulations is 65%, so we would be close, but "that small step would be missing."
In this sense, the manager considers that in Spain "there is awareness" from a social point of view. "Another thing is that it is easier to leave the microwave in the set of islands of different waste and believe in the good faith of the system itself and that the garbage truck will take it where it corresponds", he argues. That is to say, although the citizen knows what to do in theory, it is not always easy in practice. "If we put many impediments, people are discouraged," he sums up, "but it would separate environmental awareness, which I think we do have as citizens, from the facilities we need to be able to properly manage waste."
On the other hand, he explains, there is a lack of information. "More than 15 years have passed since the regulation was applied and people do not know that you can go to a point of sale for electrical appliances and have the obligation to keep the used one when you buy a new one," argues Serrano, who also recalls that this Management is the responsibility of the distributor.
The latest WEEE report, with data corresponding to the year 2019, details some of the characteristics of the country. According to their data, there is a 34% electronic waste collection rate, which is equivalent to 5.8 kilos per inhabitant, 10.3 below what is necessary to reach the 85% goal.
One of the main reasons for this low rate, explains the document, is that "large quantities" of this waste are managed by scrap dealers (0.9 kilos per inhabitant) and due to ignorance (causing the appearance of a kilo of electronic products per inhabitant in regular garbage).
In any case, the organization values that the collection of electronic waste "has increased consistently in recent years." One factor that could explain this is the end of the 2012 economic crisis, which increased the number of devices on the market and their degree of substitution.
Lost resources
To this must be added something as human as resisting giving up an electronic device for dead, which makes the drawer a cemetery and a refuge at the same time. "That 'just in case the new breaks, I keep the old' is present in the older population, also because they have lived through other times and circumstances," Serrano details.
At least, since 2005 (with the transposition of the community directives of a few years before), both the accumulation and the absence of recycling do not have such harmful consequences -without ceasing to be negative- since many highly polluting or directly hazardous materials. Cadmium, for example, is no longer present, although there are still heavy metals.
"I always see it with a positive nuance: I prefer to talk about resources that are lost", explains Serrano."Copper, aluminum, iron or plastics that could be introduced again in the production process to avoid having to resort to oil and activate a manufacturing process from the raw material", he summarizes.
WEEE contextualizes this loss of resources: for every million phones that are not recycled, the possibility of recovering 16,000 kilos of copper, 350 kilos of silver, 24 kilos of gold and 14 kilos of palladium is lost. "Electronic waste is a true 'urban mine'", they compare. And, in addition, it is a richer one, since there is 100 times more gold in a ton of telephones than in a ton of ore of this metal.
In any case, Serrano believes that the human component - "our way of being and this tendency that we carry within us to hoard" - will make it difficult to reach 100% recycled products: "Maybe it will be smaller, but I don't think make that drawer disappear."
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