WEEE Recycling: An Opportunity Worth Exploring

Globally e-scrap – or WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronical Equipment) – is the fastest growing waste stream so it’s easy to see why the need to separate and recover valuable materials from WEEE is becoming increasingly important. WEEE has a complex composition and encompasses items from computers, office electronic equipment and gadgets, to mobile phones, television sets and refrigerators. WEEE contains a significant amount of valuable and scarce raw materials like ferrous metals (40%), non-ferrous metals (printed circuit boards, aluminium, gold, silver, copper, platinum etc.) (20%), plastics (30%), glass, wood as well as other materials (10%).*

Global demand for good quality secondary raw material recovered from WEEE is high, but here in the Middle East, the infrastructure for the collection and reprocessing of WEEE is still very much in its infancy. This is largely due to the fact that there is currently no legislation governing this waste stream and consequently a vast quantity of valuable material is landfilled every year. A few companies thave taken on the challenge of reducing the amount of WEEE being landfilled or shipped overseas. From an environmental and commercial perspective more recycling and processing needs to be done nationally to support local economies as well as reduce negative impacts of WEEE being exported.