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 // [email protected]
THANK YOU!Sonia Valdivia & Fabian Ottiger