Waste management and recovery of metals from electronic devices

Submitted by Tedora Aibu on 28 July 2020

Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Daily Webinar on 24 July 2020.

The European Alliance Against Coronavirus discussed waste management and collection of metals from electronic devices in this morning session.

Luca Campedello presented Ecodom, a not-for-profit private consortium established as a compliance scheme by the leading producers of large household appliances, extractor hoods and water-heaters operating on the Italian market to manage Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). ​Ecodom handles 36.1% by weight of all WEEE collected in Italy​ and serves 4,583 picking points through Italy. Ecodom has an important responsibility in the recycling activities in terms of logistics and the relationship with treatment plants. Through the waste management, Ecodom recycles secondary raw materials, reduces CO2 emission, saving energy and generating economic value. 11,886 tons of secondary raw materials are recycled, 90.27% of the total household WEEE managed. Focus points include WEEE leakages, CRM, plastics, and preparation for reuse.

The Covid-19 crisis and the subsequent changes in consumer behavior have had the following impacts and adaptations: (i) reduction of the ordinary monthly flow of WEEE, (ii) longer intervention times, (iii) selection of the necessary pick up requests, (iv) increasing of the formal storage limits.

Paolo Rosa from Politecnico of Milano presented the Horizon 2020 project FENIX - “future business models for the Efficient Recovery of natural and industrial secondary resources in extended supply chains contexts”. The main objectives of this projects are defining business models and industrial strategies, implementing novel supply chains, demonstrating the real implementation of circular economy, supporting information sharing, and proving process flexibility. The project integrates Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) for the efficient recovery of secondary resources like advanced manufacturing systems (e.g. Industry 4.0), industrial biotechnologies (e.g. biometallurgy) and nanotechnologies (e.g. nano-structurization of materials).

With regard to direct needs, the group highlighted:

  • Ongoing analysis of investment and environmental impacts
  • Strengthen the refurbishing and re-use of products
  • Reaching critical mass in waste collection to scale up
  • Find methods to recycle all types of plastics

A recording of the session is available here 

These are the complete minutes of the meeting:

20200724 ECA dailyminutes_v2.pdf

These are the presentations from the meeting: 

European Cluster Alliance - Ecodom - 20200723_v1.pdf FENIX general presentation.pdf

Find information on the previous meetings here; information on the upcoming agenda here 

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