eWASA News – 5 Nov 21

Here’s what you need to know

1. Producers, importers and distributors of electronic and electrical products, lighting, and lighting equipment have until today, 5 Nov, to register with DFFE.

2. The regulations cover the following categories of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE)

• Large equipment (any external dimension more than 100cm)
• Medium equipment (any external dimension between 50 and 100cm)
• Small equipment (no external dimension more than 50 cm)
• Batteries

3. Producers can either:

• join an existing Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO);
• form a new PRO; or
• develop and submit to DFFE an independent EPR Schemecovering your products.

3. PROs have responsibilities

• Provide compliant and transparent EPR Support to Producer Members
• Collection and handling of the EPR Fees (market data etc. kept confidential and not shared)
• Ensure Producer compliance and reporting to DFFE as per the Section 18 Regulations
• Disbursement of fees to the supply value chain to meet the targets and obligations of producers
• Skills development Program development
• Job creation in the sector
• Support the recovery, recycling, waste reduction, beneficiation opportunities etc.
• DFFE and other Government Liaison
• Informal Sector Integration
• Establishment of best practice and industry Norms and Standards
• Embracing Circular Economy Principles

4. PRO’s will have a vital role in assisting producers in identifying shared constraints and synergistic opportunities

• Along with stronger collaboration across the value chain, a mindset shift will be needed not only for legislative compliance but also for the benefit of the consumer and environment.
• Intensive consumer awareness campaigns will also help to drive behaviour change.
• EPR will see an investment in collection infrastructure, providing consumers with more convenient recycling facilities and a concerted recovery effort at the pre-consumer post-industrial phase.

5. Currently, the majority of e-waste collected and treated holds value

• Non-valuable e-waste is stored or dumped – appropriate treatment costs
• EPR principles enable all fractions to be treated appropriately at end of life (Lifset 1993, Lindqvist & Lifset 2003, Kunz 2014)
• EPR becomes a financial safety net and creates a market demand for material
• Consumers know the e-waste will always be collected and treated.
• Government does not need to finance the collection and treatment

Wired reports: \”Olivier Groux has built a machine that takes apart batteries, part by part. It looks like a big blue safety cabinet, the kind you might see in a lab that handles Ebola, with thick gloves mounted on the sides to reach inside safely. The job is simple: Peel away the metal strips that adhere to a polymer and act as the battery\’s electrodes. As the polymer sheet trundles through a system of pulleys, the electrodes go flying left and right, forming piles at the base of the machine: one for anodes, the other for cathodes, the negative and positive ends of a battery, respectively. They’ll next be dissolved in water, then go through a sieve to emerge as a metallic powder. The goal is to produce raw materials for new batteries from dead batteries as efficiently as possible. Groux thinks he’s nearly cracked it. Read more here.