Host: Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management
An efficient collection and recycling system is a key for sustainable environmental management of electronic waste (e-waste). Over the last decade, several new waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management systems have been applied globally. However, many developing countries still face difficulties to establish a formal e-waste collection and recycling system. In this study, we compare four different WEEE recycling systems in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan). Their background of the implementation, stakeholders’ responsibilities, outcome of related policies and programs and future development of each system were analyzed. Data from each system (collection rate, per capita collection rate, and material recovery rate etc.) was used for evaluating their system performance. Our preliminary result shows that Taiwan and Japanese home appliance recycling system have high collection rate of large home appliances while the Korean system has a high collection rate for small appliances. Because of the low collection rate of Japanese PC recycling system, it needs system reform to establish incentive mechanisms for producers to collect more end-of-life PCs. The common difficulty associated with the implementation is to organize efficient collection and organize a system separately from the conventional waste management system including the competition against the informal sector.
