There are one hundred organizations that, from over forty countries around the world, will take part in the International E-Waste Day, which will be held on October 14th, 2019, with numerous local events and activities. Among the participants there are also the Ecodom and Remedia consortia. The event, organized by the WEEE Forum – an international association that brings together the most important Collective Systems operating in the WEEE sector – and by its associates, aims to promote the correct WEEE disposal in order to encourage the correct re-use and recycling. Among the partners, for the first time, there will be also the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency responsible for Information and Communication Technologies, which will make it possible to amplify the importance of this initiative globally. It is estimated that 50 million tonnes of e-waste will be generated globally in 2019. Half of this is personal devices such as computers, screens, smartphones, tablets and TVs, with the remainder being larger household appliances and heating and cooling equipment. Only 20% of global e-waste is recycled each year, which means that 40 million tonnes of e-waste are either placed in landfill, burned or illegally traded and treated in a sub-standard way and this is despite 66% of the world’s population being covered by e-waste legislation. This results in the huge loss of valuable and critical raw materials from the supply chain and causes serious health, environmental and societal issues through illegal shipments of waste to developing countries.
On the occasion of the International E-Waste Day the participating organizations will promote activities aimed at raising consumers’ awareness on the topic of recycling, encouraging them to properly dispose of their broken or obsolete technological equipment. In particular, in Italy Ecodom will present in Rome the results of a survey carried out in collaboration with Altroconsumo, to understand along which roads the WEEE leaving the homes of Italians go: this survey will allow to understand, by observing the data, the reasons why Italy is so far from the WEEE collection targets set by the European Community. Instead, Remedia has developed an “educational” communication campaign aimed at all citizens to encourage good WEEE collection and recycling practices. The heart of the initiative is the video “WEEE, your rights that save the environment”, which shows the opportunities and free services available to consumers to contribute positively to safeguarding the planet.
