🌱 What is the impact of mismanaged e-waste?
According to the UN Global Transboundary E-waste Flows Monitor 2022, “[m]ost e-waste movements are currently not controlled, which may favour illegal movements and which poses a threat to managing e-waste”. The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 states that “[m]ost e-waste is managed outside formal collection and recycling schemes”. Non-compliant e-waste management notably results in “58 thousand kg of mercury and 45 million kg of plastics containing brominated flame retardants” entering the environment annually, which severely impacts human health and ecosystems.
🌱 How does global e-waste flow?
Of the 62 billion kg of e-waste generated in 2022, 13.8 billion kg was “documented as formally collected and recycled in an environmentally sound manner”, 16 billion kg were “estimated to be collected and recycled outside of formal systems in high- and upper-middle-income countries with developed e-waste management infrastructure”, 18 billion kg were “estimated to be handled in low- and lower-middle-income countries with no developed e-waste management infrastructure, mostly by the informal sector”, and 14 billion kg were “estimated to be disposed of as residual waste, the majority of which is landfilled globally”, according to the UN’s 2024 Monitor.
🌱 How much global e-waste is exported?
Many countries ship their e-waste abroad as the result of high local disposal costs and insufficient processing capacity. According to the UN’s 2022 Monitor, 5.1 Mt or less than 10% of the global e-waste crossed country borders in 2019. Of this, 1.8 Mt was “shipped in a controlled manner” and 3.3 Mt was “shipped in an uncontrolled manner”. Notably, 33% to 70% of uncontrolled e-waste shipments may consist of e-waste declared of as used or secondhand goods rather than as waste, according to the UN’s 2024 Monitor. (This is done to circumvent export rules under the Basel Convention.)
🌱 How much European e-waste is exported?
According to the UN’s 2022 Monitor, between 2 and 17 kt of e-waste from the EU were estimated to have been seized as illegal exports in 2019. The real scope of the illegal flow of e-waste out of the EU is however assumed to be much larger than this. According to the Countering WEEE Illegal Trade report from 2015, merely a third of the e-waste produced in Europe annually “is reported as collected”. The remaining two-thirds are “unaccounted for or ends up in illegal shipments to other parts of the world”, disposed of improperly, or illegally dumped. Notably, the report found that the volume of the e-waste mismanaged within Europe has 10 times the volume of the e-waste that is exported out of Europe in an undocumented manner. This amounts to around 4.7 million tonnes. The total costs created by the avoidance or non-compliance with EU regulations was estimated to amount to between 150 to 600 million euros annually.
Read more about e-waste exports here:
- https://www.unodc.org/documents/bmb/environmental-crime/FINAL_for_printing_-_Turning_the_tide.pdf
- https://ewastemonitor.info/the-global-e-waste-monitor-2024/