Electronics Recycling Asia: Proper channels

As it has in past years at the Electronics Recycling Asia event, determining how to divert e-scrap away from the informal sector and into formal collection channels was a common topic at presentations. At the 2015 version of the event, held in Singapore in mid-November, several panelists touched upon the topic.

Nadine Rühle-Niestroy of Germany-based Reverse Logistics Group GmbH (RLG), said her company has been working with government agencies in Vietnam to establish collection points for e-scrap “to recycle in a safe and sound way.”

RLG sees an opportunity, said Rühle -Niestroy, to bring Vietnam’s e-scrap recycling practices in line with a regulatory framework it has passed but not yet widely enforced. Beginning July 1, 2016, there will be “high fines for companies that do not comply with the regulations,” she commented. Those regulations include the mandatory recycling and safe handling of batteries and civil and industrial electrical equipment

Rühle -Niestroy said the RLG pilot program can serve as a “roadmap to identify, train and audit recyclers” and that it also helped “raise awareness with the public and the authorities” in Vietnam. Among the challenges, she added, is that RLG was only able to identify two such recyclers—one each in Vietnam’s two largest cities—to work with during the pilot program

In an earlier presentation, David Scuderi, the head of environment of Samsung Electronics Europe, said OEMs and certified recyclers should put in efforts to reach out to the informal sector. “We are not demonizing the informal sector—it is doing a good job [collecting], but it needs to play by the rules,” said Scuderi

In the European Union and possibly elsewhere, said Scuderi, local and regional government councils “are often contracting with whoever pays the higher price” for collected e-scrap, thus enabling the informal sector

The informal sector’s market share in both Europe and Asia is largely uncertain, but some presenters gave estimates as high as 90 percent or more in some Asian nations

In the developing nations of Asia, which includes India, “90 percent of e-scrap is in the hands of informal sectors,” said Venkatesha Murthy of Singapore-based Van’s Chemistry. Many of these materials are then disassembled in ways that violate environmental, health and safety (EHS) standards and that may involve child labor.

In most of these nations, informal collectors have a direct financial incentive to collect old computers or cell phones, and neither the government nor OEMs have established an alternative. “There is a lack of coordination and cooperation among stakeholders,” stated Murthy.