What is the best way to recycle e-scrap? Check out I4R

Global – In response to recyclers’ quest for information about the presence of materials and components in electronic waste that require separate treatment, European electronics producers and producer responsibility organisations have teamed up to create ‘the Information for Recyclers Platform’, or I4R.

Heralded as ‘a unique one-stop source’, I4R aims to provide a whole range of information and guidance on how to handle e-scrap. The initiative is being headed by DIGITALEUROPE and the European Committee of Domestic Equipment Manufacturers (CECED), together with the WEEE Forum.

I4R will allow recyclers to access information about the presence and location of materials and components that need separate treatment.

‘We wish to drive solutions to this problem, and the I4R platform is key to better inform managers in the recycling industry and to train workers on safety issues,’ explains DIGITALEUROPE’s director general Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl. ‘By providing information at product group level, the I4R platform will help recyclers to optimise sorting where applicable.’

According to CECED’s director general Paolo Falcioni, the added value of the I4R platform will not only benefit recyclers and the industry but also all European citizens. ‘It is another example of industries working together to contribute to a circular society, this time by supporting recycling and secondary raw material recovery,’ he says.

‘The I4R platform is a major step forward in improving treatment processes, and of compliance in general,’ adds Pascal Leroy, secretary general of the WEEE Forum which will host and maintain the platform. ‘Easily-accessible information about the presence of batteries, printed circuit boards or plastics containing brominated flame retardants in e-waste is what recyclers require.’