Celebrate International E-waste Day!
October 2, 2018
The very first International E-waste Day will be held this year, on 13 October 2018, powered by the WEEE Forum, with the support of 25 non-profit e-waste management companies spanning 19 countries.
It is estimated that 50 million tonnes of e-waste will be generated globally in 2018. Half of this is personal devices such as computers, screens, smartphones, tablets and TVs, with the remainder being larger household appliances and heating and cooling equipment.
Only 20 percent of global e-waste is recycled each year, which means that 40 million tonnes of e-waste is either placed in landfill, burned or illegally traded and treated in a sub-standard way and this is despite 66 percent of the world’s population being covered by e-waste legislation. This results in the huge loss of valuable and critical raw materials from the supply chain and causes serious health, environmental and societal issues through illegal shipments of waste to developing countries.
Even in the EU, which leads the world in e-waste recycling, only 35 percent of e-waste is officially reported as collected and recycled and the lack of public awareness is preventing countries from developing circular economies for electronic equipment.
In this context, the International E-Waste Day has been developed by the WEEE Forum with the support of 25 not-for-profit e-waste companies in 19 different countries across the world. It is being used to raise the public profile of e-waste recycling and encourage consumers to recycle their e-waste with the resulting increase in e-waste recycling rates on the day itself and into the future.
The very first International E-waste Day will be held this year. This initiative will take place on 13 October 2018 in Europe and globally thanks to extensive collaboration between the WEEE Forum and its members. International E-waste Day will focus on raising awareness on e-waste issues and e-waste collection and recycling.
Categories : Around the Industry
Tags : Europe eWaste International E-waste Day Recycling Waste Management WEEE Forum
