Informal e-waste recycling in developing countries and it’s contribution to circular economy and climate change mitigation24.10.2019, CICG Geneva, Sonia Valdivia & Fabian Ottiger

Governance, organizational setup Sustainable Recycling Industries Programme

SECO WE

SRI Steering Committee

SECO WEHU

Country Coordinators

Technical Coordinators (per outcome)

Country component

Outcome 1-4

Knowledge

component

Outcome 5

Ghana

Programme

Management

WRF, Empa

Egypt PeruColombiaSouth Africa

SRI RoundtableNational Steering Committees (government, SECO field office., Empa/WRF)

Sounding

Board

(tbd)

Circular Economy

A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life. (Source: WRAP)

Life cycle assessment: Provides a baseline for improvement

u CO2 baseline example: South Africa with 11 Mio cooling appliances

u 660 kg CO2 equivalent per fridge improperly dismantled

u If these are replaced every 12 years, and 20% are recycled –out of which 85% is done improperly-, then

≈ 100,000 tons CO2 per year are produced…but can besaved!

Limits and opportunities of circularity

u Approx. 1/3 of copper supply comes from recycling.

u Still significant opportunities to increase recycling through better collection, dismantling and separation

The copper case

Source: Luis Tercero, Fraunhofer Institut, @WRFAntwerp2019Data updated from Glöser, Soulier & Tercero Espinoza (2013): Dynamic analysis of global copper flows. Global stocks, postconsumer material flows, recycling indicators & uncertainty evaluation. Environmental Science & Technology, 47, 6564–6572

Impacts on climate change

The copper case

Recycling a ton of copper uses 15% of the energy that would

be used to mine and extract the

same copper.

100%whenmining

15% whenrecycling

Source: Resources School Science, resources.schoolscience.co.uk/CDA/16plus/sustainability/copper3.html

The informal recycling sector is the champion in circular economy –the case of plastic

InformalFormal 14

4.4

4.7

18

7.3

2.6

0.2

0.2

Figure: Plastic flows in India (2015). Unit: million tonnes per year

RecyclingRecycling

Virgin plasticproduction

Waste collection& sorting

Manufacture

Disposal

Informalformal

Use

33% of plasticis back to theIndianeconomythanks to theinformal sector

Recycling by the informal sector poses risks and threats…

Such as child labor environmental pollution, health hazards caused by worst practices

Through inclusive and sustainable recycling, millions of tones of CO2 worldwide can be saved, safe jobs can be created and resource efficiency improved…

… Hence, more circularity can be achieved

Tales of Trash / Relatos de Residuos

5 Principles for Inclusive Recycling

by SRI

sustainable-recycling.org // info@wrforum.org

THANK YOU!Sonia Valdivia & Fabian Ottiger