Catalonia could build three Eiffel towers every year only with waste from refrigerators, mobile phones, headphones, lights – in short, the so-called WEEE (electrical and electronic waste) – and it would still have a few thousand tons of material left over to start building. a fourth In the first half of this year, 17,700 tonnes of WEEE were collected in Catalonia, 6.43% more than in the same period last year. The weight of the Eiffel Tower, by comparison, is only 10,000 tons. In Spain, 139,000 tonnes were collected, which represents a growth of 3.28%.
“It is an optimistic figure that allows us to say that collection has increased in Catalonia”, says Isaac Peraire, director of the Catalan Waste Agency, in the framework of the 5th WEEE National Congress. Last year, 61% of WEEE was managed correctly in Catalonia. The target set in Europe, and therefore in all of Spain, is 65%.
“The collection target imposed by Europe is equivalent to 65% measured by volume, that is to say by weight, of the devices that are put on the market, calculated on the average of the last three years. This means that if one ton is put on the market, you are obliged to collect 650 kilograms”, explains Andreu Vilà, vice-president of OfiRaee, an IT platform for logistics coordination for the management of WEEE from green or municipal recycling points and which groups the collective systems of extended responsibility of the producer (Scrap) of electrical appliances.
The main problem with this measure in percentages is that “unfortunately, the objective is the same for all devices and it does not discriminate between useful life and durability”, points out Vilà. It also does not consider devices that are inherited (for example, the old refrigerator that is given to a relative) or those that are kept due to the so-called “treasure effect” (I keep my old mobile phone in a drawer, even though not work).
José Pérez, president of OfiRaee, has also highlighted the complication posed by thefts at clean points and the existence of illegal management channels for the correct management of WEEE. “Sometimes this waste is lost in channels that we do not control”, introduces Pérez. This happens, for example, when a refrigerator is abandoned in the street, instead of being taken to a clean point.
WEEE ranges from lamps and mobile phones to photovoltaic panels. These are elements that become useless when they stop working and that can be highly polluting if they are not properly recycled. In addition, many of these devices contain substances such as mercury, cadmium or bromine, which can pollute the environment. “A poorly recycled refrigerator emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere equivalent to the emissions of a car that travels 15,000 kilometers”, exemplifies Peraire.
In Catalonia, around 5 kg of waste from electrical and electronic devices of domestic origin is collected per inhabitant. The national average in Spain is 6 kg per inhabitant, with the Balearic Islands at the top with 10 kg per inhabitant, followed by Cantabria, with 8 kg of domestic WEEE collected per inhabitant, and with the Community of Madrid in third position, also with 8 kg per inhabitant.
According to Eurostat data, in 2020 an average of 10.3 kg of electrical and electronic waste was collected per inhabitant in the European Union. However, recycling practices vary between EU countries: Austria (15.7 kg/capita), Finland (15.7 kg/capita) and Sweden (14.kg/capita) occupy the top three positions, but in the tail are countries such as Portugal, Cyprus or Greece, which only reach 5.8 kg per inhabitant. In 2020, Spain occupied the eighteenth position in this ranking, with 8.3 kg per inhabitant – two points below the European average.
