WEEE Campaign

New “environmental” WEEE Directive may actually harm environment and damage the educational opportunities of African schoolchildren

What is the WEEE Directive? An EU directive, the legislation aims to reduce the amount of electrical waste going into landfill, it has been passed in Parliament and will come into force on 1st July 2007. The Directive places the responsibility for disposing of redundant electrical equipment on the manufacturers of new equipment.

How does the Directive affect the consumer? For home PC users this means there should be a facility in their borough for them to drop off their old PC when they buy a new one. For business users it means the manufacturer that sells them new computers is responsible for disposing of the old ones (but only if they were manufactured after the 3rd August 2005, or are being swapped out on a like for like basis).

But surely that’s a good thing? In theory. But in practice what the legislation will mean is that hundreds of thousands of reusable computers from British companies will simply be crushed and recycled, rather than being reused.

What’s the difference between reuse and recycling? Recycling materials is much better than throwing things into landfill. However, whenever possible, reuse is by far and away the most environmentally friendly option, saving on materials and  the energy used in recycling and production. This is especially true of computers, the production of which uses fossil fuels some 10 times the weight of the PC itself. Manufacture of just one desktop PC consumes 240 kilograms of fossil fuel, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water – or 1.8 tons in total, the equivalent of a rhinoceros or sports utility vehicle*. 

What does the Directive say about reuse? It says that it requires that “systems are set up to prioritise the reuse of whole appliances”**. However, there are no targets set, no incentives given, and no specific “systems” required for the reuse of business computers, meaning these “requirements” are pure rhetoric. Because data cleansing and refurbishing computers is more expensive than simply crushing and partially recycling them, it is commonly recognised that the most likely result is that very high quality new equipment will still be refurbished and resold, but any slightly older yet still fully functional equipment will be crushed and recycled. This means the weight of hundreds of thousands of rhinoceroses worth of resources will be wasted every year.

But how does that affect schoolchildren in Africa? At the moment millions of African schoolchildren are benefiting from the donation of redundant computers through charities such as Digital Links International. The charity, and several others like them, take computers from UK companies, refurbish them, and place them into schools across the developing world. In addition to providing all-important computer skills, PCs in schools open up incredible educational opportunities, offering access to free or low cost educational software in place of non-existent or hopelessly out of date textbooks. After receiving computers and software from Digital Links, Finn Mazibuko, a teacher from Hivuyeriwile High School school in the poverty stricken South African province Limpopo, said: “Before we had computers with maths and science software, not a single pupil passed Grade 12 in the subject ”Now – not only do we have pupils who love the subject – but we have people passing for the first time”

It used to be that companies had to find their own way of disposing of their computers – so they could call Digital Links or another charity, and get them to collect and process the PCs. This provided companies with certificated data erasure and valuable reporting helping them to demonstrate their social and environmental responsibilities. However as a result of the legislation, most companies will just give their old computers to the manufacturer, most likely to be crushed and wasted.

Will the WEEE Directive signal the end of charitable computer reuse in the developing world? Not necessarily - it’s up to Britain’s workforce. Ask your IT manager what happens to the old computers at your work. All companies have to do is call someone like Digital Links to take away their redundant PCs, and they will be guaranteed secure data erasure, a smaller carbon footprint through the reuse of computers, and feedback about their donation. In addition, companies purchasing new PCs could negotiate a discount from suppliers in return for disposing of PCs themselves.

* United Nations University Study (March 2004)

** UK Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive 2006, Article 24

Trying to dispose of redundant equipment? Our decision tree will help you to decide what to do!

WEEE_Decision_Tree.doc