Unauthorised collections ‘a growing problem’ for Ireland

Ireland – Over recent years, more than 16 000 tonnes of Ireland’s electrical waste has been disappearing annually into the hands of unlicensed operators as a result of unauthorised door-to-door collections, according to the WEEE Ireland compliance scheme for electrical and battery recycling.

Roughly 20% of Ireland’s electrical waste is diverted from authorised recycling channels each year to unauthorised operators looking to profit from the strong scrap metals market, says WEEE Ireland’s ceo Leo Donovan. This type of ‘haphazard’ collection and dismantling has the potential to damage Ireland’s compliance with EU recycling targets and could result in significant fines, he adds.

Noting a trend towards containers full of metals and parts leaving for the UK, Europe and Africa, Donovan believes that Irish nationals as well as international players are involved in the illicit undertaking which he describes as ‘a growing problem’.

Unauthorised operators generally extract valuable components from an item and discard the rest – with sometimes serious environmental consequences, he warns. ‘They might be after a small fraction of copper but in the process they will break up a sealed unit and potentially release hazardous chemicals into the environment,’ Donovan explains.

Meanwhile, WEEE Ireland notes that it collected and recycled more than 25 000 tonnes of e-scrap and 472 tonnes of batteries in 2012. Despite the above-mentioned concerns, the recycling organisation still aims to recover 65% of the country’s e-scrap by 2019.

For more information, visit: www.recyclefree.ie