Waste, City Strategies & Governance, environment and climate change
E-reuse project. Preventing Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in Europe
In 2014, the Governement of Catalonia planned to discard 30,000 computer devices a year until 2019. Of the devices, 92% were functional, and 87% of them were potentially reusable locally by social entities, schools and people in situations of digital exclusion. The government wanted to involve all the active reuse centers to reform, channel and monitor these devices. This was the request they made to a research group from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. A few months later, eReuse.org was launched
Challenges addressed
Most devices from business and public administration are discarded when considered amortized, and although they still have a value for use and are suitable for reuse, they are scrapped (recycled) or illegally exported to other countries via informal reuse circuits. Reuse is an effective way to develop the circular economy, strengthen the creation of local employment, prevent the generation of waste, and reduce the digital divide. The positive aspects of reuse are well understood, but without a quality and traceability standard, confidence cannot be generated in the consumption of used products.
Main objectives
- Transition towards a collaborative and circular consumption of electronics.
- To optimize refurbishing, ensuring the quality of second-hand electronics and bringing stewardship to the reverse supply chain to incentivize reused devices.
- To sustain and grow ecosystems that increase reuse and recycling.
- Building new mindset and open-source technology to make the reuse/recycle technology industry more durable, reusable, repairable, and responsible for impact
External resources
Facts
Project type Prevention of Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Partners eReuse is a community of refurbishers, reuse promoters, social inclusion organizations, recycling companies, public administration, university service-learning programs, charitable giving programs and IT companies. The partners are, among others: Association for the Progress of Communications, Ereuse, Zero Waste Europe and Electronics Watch.
Dates 2014-2019 and ongoing
Funding EU Projects Chest #611333 and TagltSmart.eu #688061.
Project description
The Electronic Reuse federation works to empower and engage people around the world to create local communities which bootstrap reuse and guarantee final recycling. They are a project under Pangea.org, a private, independent non-profit organization founded in 1993 to promote the strategic use of ICT. Their members are local groups, businesses and organizations with the goal to extend the lifetime of products through repair, refurbish, and reuse. They develop and share open-source resources and traceability data to ensure any refurbished asset is finally recycled (even at component level). In their opinion, this is the only way to persuade governments to prioritize reuse over recycling. Their partners are international groups that promote social awareness about the social and environmental impact of electronics, zero waste, circular economy, fair electronics, the right to repair, the reduction of the digital divide, and social inclusion.
eReuse partners and members are advising governments to prioritize reuse over recycling through the creation of formal reuse circuits that offer traceability until recycling. They continuously support their members to put in value what they do and be able to measure the social, environmental and economic impact of their work. They coordinate the development of open-source resources such as refurbishment tools, asset management and traceability systems, self-certification mechanisms for quality and circularity standards, good practices and case studies.
Collaborative circuits establish an agreement between reuse centers and distributors to manage, share and maintain the circularity of digital devices and seek collaboration instead of competition. The mission of a collaborative circuit is to promote cooperation between entities in the reuse sector and the responsible, collaborative and circular use of digital devices.
Circuit Sempiterna (Madrid) is a network of entities, institutions and social economy companies that promote the circular economy in the field of electronics. They carry out the functions of distribution, repair, reconditioning, marketing, maintenance and recycling, ensuring the traceability and formal reuse of devices, and avoiding premature recycling. Participating entities cooperate to develop, maintain and share a set of technological tools, methods and data for the common good.
Impact and results
- More than 8 countries involved in reuse.
- More than 10,000 reused devices.
- More than 10 open-source projects.
- 22,680 units of computation created per year.
- 90% of reused components are collected.
Publications & main documents
RELATED CONTENT
https://www.ereuse.org/en/
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