Monitoring Exports of used Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) from the Netherlands

“Monitoring Exports of used Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) from the Netherlands” An integrated method for monitoring exports for reuse

Today (UNU/UNITAR) SCYCLE published a report summarizing a new integrated method for monitoring the export of used electrical and electronic equipment.

This report was commissioned by the “Dutch Monitoringsberaad WEEE”. The monitoring council WEEE brings together representatives of all parties involved in the collection and processing of WEEE. Together with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, a total of 19 parties from the recycling industry, retail, municipalities and producers and importers of electronic and electrical equipment are represented1 .

The council was interested in the methodology behind the quantification of export for reuse developed as part of the study “The Dutch WEEE flows 2020, What happened between 2010 and 2018”. This study quantifies the entire Dutch WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) flows for the year 2018. It presents the electrical and electronic equipment Placed on the Market (POM), the WEEE generated, the compliantly regulated WEEE collection, and the (W)EEE flows outside the regulated WEEE management system in the Netherlands, including the export of used electrical and electronic equipment for reuse abroad.

The export for reuse is calculated by a combination of six data sources and methods, including data from the Netherlands National WEEE Register, a desktop research of recently conducted studies, a trade data price analysis, expert guess of the reusability of EEE per UNU-KEY and finally data from a WEEE Test Centre in the Netherlands. This report describes all the methods and the results, and how the data is integrated to identify the total export for reuse from the Netherlands. In the report is concluded that the exports for reuse in the Netherlands were 31,000 ± 2300 tonnes in 2018. The report also presents a set of 8 recommendations to improve the monitoring of exports for reuse in the Netherlands.


1 NVMP (2015). Monitoringsberaad moet helpen doelstellingen e-waste te realiseren.
https://www.nvmp.nl/nieuws/nieuwsarchief-2015/monitoringsberaad-moet-helpen-doelstellingen-e-waste-te-realiseren.html

Source picture: Olusegun Odeyingbo, Person-in-Port Project (c.f. https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:6349/PiP_Report.pdf)

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