A Statistical Outlook on E-waste in Romania

Transcription

1 A Statistical Outlook on E-waste in Romania Professor Daniela HINCU (BORISOV) PhD Senior Lecturer Carmen Nadia CIOCOIU PhD Senior Lecturer Răzvan Cătălin DOBREA PhD Elena ȘERBAN, PhD. Candidate Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest Abstract The paper related to top-interest subject in dealing with increased waste quantities from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE, e-waste). It focuses on analyzing the two indicators waste collection and products put on the market corresponding to in Romania and some European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. The dynamics of these indicators was used to identify specific patterns for the selected countries. These categories were analyzed starting from the statistical evidence: 1 st category-large household appliances represents majority in total quantity of e-waste collected by Romania and 5 th category-lightning equipment records an enormously rhythm of the quantity collected from 2007 to Key words: waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE, e-waste), indicator, variation, convergence Introduction Currently, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) receives more and more public attention as it is considered to be one of the fastest-growing waste streams (Huisman et al., 2007). This sector operates within a long-established legislative framework that covers issues such as product safety, energy labeling, minimum efficiency requirements, ecodesign and waste. Two Directives (2008/34 and 2008/35) on waste electrical and electronic equipment and the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment were introduced in 2008 in order to amend the Directive 2002/96/EC and Directive 2002/95/EC. The EU aims to take measures to prevent the generation of electrical and electronic waste and to promote reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery in order to reduce the quantity of such waste by encouraging manufacturers to design products with the environmental impacts in mind throughout their entire life cycle. The current EU legislation restricts the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment according to the Directive 2002/95/EC. It also promotes the collection and recycling of such equipment (along with Directive 2002/96/EC, which was put in force in 2003). Despite such rules on collection and recycling, only one third of electrical and electronic waste in the European Union is reported as separately collected and Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

2 appropriately treated 1. A part of the other two thirds is potentially still going to improper storage location (such as landfills) and is subject to sub-standard treatment in or outside the European Union. The collection performance varies from one Member State to another and from one system to another. Using the empirical evidence, one may see that many of the EU state members have collected more than 4 kg / inhabitant in 2007 (Huisman et al., 2007). The official collection target of 4 kg per person per year does not properly reflect the amount of WEEE arising in individual Member States. Yet, in some Member States, the collection systems are competing with other systems, reducing the amount collected per capita. For many organizations, 2007 was the second or even first year of ongoing operations. Not all systems collect all types of equipment. In the line of poor practices regarding e-east, the illegal trade of electrical and electronic waste to non-eu countries continues to be identified at EU borders (Cobbing, 2008). In 2002, there was released the EU WEEE Directive strongly focusing on the producer responsibility as a key policy mechanism for reducing the quantity of WEEE going to end disposal treatment facilities. The relevance of the related subject is given by the fact that the electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing sector in the EU-27 generated EUR 82.9 billion of value added in 2006 from sales of EUR billion. The electrical machinery and optical equipment sector is an important and strategic part of Europe s manufacturing sector, producing a wide range of mostly high-technology products (for example, computers, switchgears or semi-conductors). This sector has been cited as being at the centre of industrial development, as almost every other sector depends, at least to some degree, on the capital equipment, technology, end-products, research and innovations that are provided by the electrical machinery and optical equipment sector. It is therefore often referred to as one of the main drivers of productivity gains and central to the EU s objective of creating more and better jobs. Current definitions and classifications By waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) it is understood any electrical or electronic equipment which is waste within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2008/EC on waste, including all components, subassemblies and consumables which are part of the product at the time of discarding. In the definition, the electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) means equipment which is dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic fields in order to work properly and equipment for the generation, transfer and measurement of such currents and fields falling under the categories set out and designed for use with a voltage rating not exceeding 1000 Volt for alternating current and 1500 Volt for direct current. Table 1. Categories of electrical and electronic equipment covered by this Directive No. Categories 1. Large household appliances 2. Small household appliances 3. IT and telecommunications equipment 4. Consumer equipment 5. Lighting equipment 1 Recast of the WEEE Directive Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012

3 No. Categories 6. Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary industrial tools) 7. Toys, leisure and sports equipment 8. Medical devices (with the exception of all implanted and infected products) 9. Monitoring and control instruments 10. Automatic dispensers. The WEEE issue as approached by European Union institutions The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) is the European Community directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which, together with the RoHS Directive 2002/95/EC, became European Law in February 2003, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) has now been transposed in national laws in all member countries of the European Union. It was designed to make equipment manufacturers financially or physically responsible for their equipment at the end of its life, under a policy known as Extended producer responsibility (EPR) 2. "Users of electrical and electronic equipment from private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE at least free of charge", and manufacturers must dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner, by ecological disposal, reuse, or refurbishment. EPR is seen as a useful policy as it internalizes the endof-life costs and provided a competitive incentive for companies to design equipment with fewer costs and liabilities when it reached its end of life. However, the application of the WEEE Directive has been criticized for implementing the EPR concept in a collective manner, and thereby losing the competitive incentive of individual manufacturers to be rewarded for their green design. Since August 13, 2005, electronics manufacturers have become financially responsible for compliance to the WEEE Directive. Under the directive, each country recycles at least 4 kg of electronic waste per capita per year. Furthermore, the Directive should decrease e-waste and e-waste exports. In December 2008 a draft revision to the Directive proposed a market-based goal of 65%, which is 22 kg per capita in the case of the United Kingdom. A decision on the proposed revisions could result in a new WEEE Directive by The directive imposes the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment on the manufacturers of such equipment. Those companies should establish an infrastructure for collecting WEEE, in such a way that "Users of electrical and electronic equipment from private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE at least free of charge". Also, the companies are compelled to use the collected waste in an ecologically-friendly manner, either by ecological disposal or by reuse/refurbishment of the collected WEEE. The legislation provides for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their used e-waste free of charge. The purpose of Directive is, to contribute to sustainable production and consumption by as a first priority, the prevention of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), and in addition, the reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of such wastes so as to reduce the disposal of waste and contribute to the 2 Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

4 efficient use of resources. It also seeks to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment, e.g. producers, distributors and consumers and in particular those operators directly involved in the collection and treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment.in particular, different national applications of the producer responsibility principle may lead to substantial disparities in the financial burden on economic operators. Having different national policies on the management of WEEE hampers the effectiveness of recycling policies. Table 2. Main actions proposed for the revision of the WEEE Directive Targeted aspect Description Collection target a 65% WEEE collection rate (including B2B equipments) is proposed which is set in function of the average amount of EEE placed on the market in the two preceding years. This target reflects the amounts of WEEE which are currently already separately collected in the Member States and takes the variations in EEE consumption in individual Member States into account. Therefore, it will encourage Member States to come to the most optimal separate WEEE collection. The proposed collection rate should be achieved annually, starting in Recycling targets it is proposed to include re-use of whole appliances in the increased (with 5%) target for recycling combined with re-use. The recycling target for medical devices is proposed to be set at the level of those for monitoring and control instruments. Producer Registration In order to reduce the administrative burden related to the application of the WEEE Directive the harmonisation of the registration and reporting obligations for producers between the national producer registers is proposed including making the registers inter operational. Enforcement: In order to bridge the implementation gap, it is proposed to set minimum inspection requirements for Member States to strengthen the enforcement of the WEEE Directive. Minimum monitoring requirements are proposed for shipments of WEEE. The recent developments in romania The status of knowledge of e-waste issues is attentively watched and surveyed from an international perspective. Existing estimations of domestic generation and international flows of e-waste are annually reviewed, but still cover a short time prospective. For reporting to the Eurostat, member States collect information, including substantiated estimates, on an annual basis on the quantities and categories of electrical and electronic equipment placed on their markets, collected through all routes, re-used, recycled 188 Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012

5 and recovered within the Member State, and on separately collected WEEE exported, by weight. The following analysis covers the annual variation in terms of coefficient of variation as possible indicating convergence in dynamics; it is based on the WEEE Eurostat database 3 (code env_waselee) which is still in the process of configuration; it is relatively poor in terms of time series length and in number of countries reporting on a specific issue. It may be seen that in the both years, the most important categories in terms of volumes correspond to: the large household appliances (category 1) and lighting equipment (category 5). The composition of the first category is given by the following: large cooling appliances, Refrigerators, Freezers, Other large appliances used for refrigeration, conservation and storage of food, Washing machines, Clothes dryers, Dish washing machines, Cooking, Electric stoves, Electric hot plates, Microwaves, Other large appliances used for cooking and other processing of food, Electric heating appliances, Electric radiators, Other large appliances for heating rooms, beds, seating furniture, Electric fans, Air conditioner appliances, Other fanning, exhaust ventilation and conditioning equipment. For the lightning equipment category, the list of included products consists of: Luminaires for fluorescent lamps with the exception of luminaires in households, Straight fluorescent lamps, Compact fluorescent lamps, High intensity discharge lamps, including pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps, Low pressure sodium lamps, Other lighting or equipment for the purpose of spreading or controlling light with the exception of filament bulbs. Table 3. WEEE Indicators for Romania in 2008 Table 4. WEEE Indicators for Romania in WEEE Key Statistics and Data on the Environmental data centre on waste; Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

6 Figure 1. The 2008 composition into various WEEE categories in Romania on separate processes as percentages from the annual quantities regardless the e-waste category Figure 2. The weight of various e-waste categories in Romania Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012

7 It may be seen that the category 1 large household appliances is placed with the largest portion pf 41%, followed by category 3 - IT and telecommunications equipments with a relative weight of 28%, the both categories covering approximately 70% of the e- waste quantities in Romania in Figure 3. The 2007 composition into various WEEE categories in Romania on separate processes- as percentages from the annual quantities regardless the e-waste category Figure 4. The weight of various e-waste categories in Romania 2007 Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

8 In 2007, the category 1 large household appliances is placed with the largest portion 0f 44%, followed by category 3 - IT and telecommunications equipment with a relative weight of 31%, the both categories covering approximately 75% of the e-waste quantities in Romania in For the categories 1 (large household appliances) and 5 (lighting equipments), in tables 5 and 6, the dynamics of quantities of waste collected and the volumes of products on the market were registered. The evolution of the volumes seems to be very peculiar in the sense of quite heterogeneous rhythms of variation, in magnitude and in the direction (increase or reduction front year to-year). For this reason, in the attempt to infer on possible patterns on the production and waste collection, a simple statistical analysis was performed. Indeed, Romania has some outlier values in the case for large household appliances: for the waste collected indicators, the Romania registered a rhythm of 448% from 2007 to 2008; for the products on the market quantity the value is 62% (figure 3). Mentioning a possible convergence in the process of waste collecting, in terms of coefficient of variation, the statistical evidence shows the contrary situation as the indicator values increases (from 1.33 to 1.61 table7). The same reasoning applies to the product s volumes on the market since the values for the coefficient of variation goes upward, from 1.31 to 1.33 (table 8). This reveals an erratic behavior of the country in the sample those countries reported in the Eurostat s database for the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (coded env_waselee) figures extracted in November For ensuring the statistical series continuity, some countries were eliminated such as: Netherlands (because it reports using numbers instead of tonnes unit as the rest majority), Liechtenstein, and Slovenia. 192 Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012

9 Table 5. Waste collected for the large household appliances - Statistical characterization for in Year to year variation Average (tonnes) 49, , standard deviation (tonnes) coefficient of variation (%) % % minim value (tonnes) 1, , maxim value (tonnes) 238, , Table 6. Products put on the market for the large household appliances - Statistical characterization for in Year to year variation Average (tonnes) 180, , standard deviation (tonnes) 237, , coefficient of variation (%) % % minim value (tonnes) 5, , maxim value (tonnes) 837, , Along with these calculations, the graphical representation was used, for both categories: the large household appliances and lighting equipment in order to identify if there are some peculiar country s behaviors. In figure 5, some countries point out specific behaviors from 2007 to 2008: Romania, for example, is placed in the extreme upper-right corner, with the (x, y) coordinates of (62%, 448%) meaning the its market was invaded with numerous large household appliances (no surprise, having in view the consumers appetites revealed in that period, inflated by spectacularly attractive credit loans offers). In the same situation, United Kingdom seems to be, with coordinates of (70%, 319%); as well, Estonia (placed in the lower-right quadrant) reports a positive variation in the products volume and a negative variation in the waste collection growth. In figure 5, one may notice the cluster placement of the majority of countries in the graph s centre, with quadrants identified according to the average rhythms x product 2.15% for the product on the market and y wastecollection 47.07% for the waste collection. Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

10 Figure 5. The diagram of dynamics: waste collection=f(products on the market) in the case of Large Household appliances Legend: the abbreviations are: Belgium BE, Bulgaria BG, Czech Republic CZ, Denmark DK, Germany DE, Estonia EE, Ireland IE, Greece EL, Spain ES, France FR, Italy IT, Cyprus CY, Latvia LV, Lithuania LT, Luxembourg LU, Hungary HU, Austria AT, Poland PL, Portugal PT, Romania RO, Slovakia SK, Finland FI, Sweden SE, United Kingdom UK and Norway (as a EFTA state member) Again, the possible convergence is not convincing for the lightning equipment, in the process of waste collecting, in terms of the coefficient of variation, the statistical evidence shows the contrary situation as the indicator values decreases slowly from 2.18 to 1,93 table 11). The same reasoning applies to the product s volumes on the market since the values for the coefficient of variation goes upward, from 2,21 to 2,01 (table 12). 194 Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012

11 Table 7. Waste collected for lightning equipment - Statistical characterization for in Year to year variation Average (tonnes) 1, , standard deviation (tonnes) Coefficient of variation (%) % % minim value (tonnes) maxim value (tonnes) 15, , Table 8. Products put on the market for lightning equipment - Statistical characterization for in Year to year variation Average (tonnes) 24, , standard deviation (tonnes) Coefficient of variation (%) % % minim value (tonnes) maxim value (tonnes) 267, , The values in the case for Lighting equipment: for the products on the market quantity, the Romania registered a rhythm of 78% from 2007 to 2008; for the waste collected indicators the value is enormously of 2384%. In figure 6, again, several countries point out weird behaviors from 2007 to 2008: Romania, for example, is placed in the extreme upper-right corner, with the (x, y) coordinates of (78%, 2384%) meaning that the market was literally invaded with large volumes of lighting pieces of equipment. One may notice the cluster placement of the majority of countries in the graph s centre, with four quadrants identified according to the average rhythms x product 13.56% for the product on the market and y % for the waste collection. wastecollection Figure 6. The diagram of dynamics: waste collection=f(products on the market) in the case of Lighting equipment Legend: the abbreviations are: Belgium BE, Bulgaria BG, Czech Republic CZ, Denmark DK, Germany DE, Estonia EE, Ireland IE, Greece EL, Spain ES, France FR, Italy IT, Cyprus CY, Latvia LV, Lithuania LT, Luxembourg LU, Hungary HU, Austria AT, Poland PL, Portugal PT, Romania RO, Slovakia SK, Finland FI, Sweden SE, United Kingdom UK Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/

12 Conclusions Some European countries implemented laws prohibiting the disposal of electronic waste in landfills in the 1990s. This created an e-waste processing industry in Europe. In these circumstances, Romania has reported some outlier values in both e-waste categories which were looked up, in terms of the waste collected and products put on the market indicators. In some way, the high values for the product put on the market could be explained by the distorted consumer behavior generated by the inflated rhythm of economic growths of the period of time which almost invite people to purchase household appliances and various types of electrical equipment. This situation invites for a special attention in few years, for preventing dangerous irregularities in the waste collection process, depending on the forecasted life cycle of the above mentioned products as they will become waste in short time. Keeping a close interest in WEEE recycling is important considering the hazardous substances contained in many of the products in this waste stream. One key issue is the multi-criteria nature of the challenge: it is desirable to maximize reuse of equipment and economic development while minimizing environmental burdens and economic costs. Acknowledgments This work was supported by CNCS UEFISCDI, project number PNII IDEI 1834/2008. References Cobbing, M. (2008), Toxic Tech: Not in Our Backyard. Uncovering the Hidden Flows of e- Waste, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, Retrieved from: Huisman, J., Magalini F., Kuehr R., Maurer C., Artim E., Ogilvie S., Poll J., Delgado C., Szlezak J., Stevels A., (2007), 2008 Review of Directive 2002/96 on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Final Report, United Nations University, AEA Technology, Gaiker, Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe, Delft University of Technology, for the European Commission, Study No /2006/442493/ETU/G4. Ongondo, F. O., Williams I. D., Cherrett T. J. (2011) How are WEEE doing? A global review of the management of electrical and electronic wastes, Waste Management, Volume 31, Issue 4, April 2011 Waeger, P, Hischier R, Eugster M. (2011) Environmental impacts of the Swiss collection and recovery systems for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE): A follow-up, Science of the Total Environment, volume 409, issue 10. p Williams, E., (2005) International activities on E-waste and guidelines for future work, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Material Cycles and Waste Management in Asia, National Institute of Environmental Sciences: Tsukuba, Japan (2005) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) (Recast) {SEC(2008) 2933} {SEC(2008) 2934}/* COM/2008/0810 final - COD 2008/0241 */ Recast of the WEEE Directive, Revista Română de Statistică Supliment Trim II/2012