EACH year, UK businesses and households throw out more than one million tonnes of electrical and electronic goods, ranging from stereo units to computer terminals and printers.
This mountain of equipment represents a huge burden on the country’s waste disposal system, and is estimated to be growing at up to eight per cent a year.
Robin Harper MSP, Green Parliamentary leader and MSP for Lothians, said that Scotland must speed up plans for a new European law on waste electrical goods or risk creating a new Scottish mountain – of TVs and computers.
The warning was issued today by Harper, who attended the launch of an innovative new partnership in the Lothians which aims to prevent computer equipment and other electronic materials being dumped in landfill sites. Scotland currently produces over 40,000 tonnes of such material every year, and when dumped it releases toxic pollutants into the environment.
A new law, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, comes into force this week and sets a one year deadline for compliance. The Scottish Executive is still consulting on what to do about it. The Partnership launched in Dalkeith (called WEEEP (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Partnership)) is a glimmer of hope that Scotland may avoid a similar situation regarding waste fridges which previously resulted in vast quantities of fridges being stored in warehouses awaiting disposal. Robin Harper said: “The new directive will find Scotland as unprepared-as-usual unless we do a lot more – WEEEP are setting a great example, and it is projects like this that industry will need to support when they become responsible for recycling their products at the end of their normal life cycle. The use of computers is more likely to increase than reduce in the near future, so of the three options, reduce, re-use, and recycle, the last two are especially important at present. I am particularly pleased by the opportunities for retraining and learning that this project provides.”
The Partnership, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Partnership (WEEEP), has been formed in Midlothian between Midlothian Advice Resource Centre (MARC), MagicWand, International Waste Management Group( IWMG ), and Moock Environmental Solutions, to provide an innovative recycling, reducing, re-using and IT Training project. Through combining forces MARC and MagicWand came up with the idea of recycling IT equipment and providing low cost systems and training to those living within the socially excluded areas of Midlothian.
Whatever the details of the new regulations, there will be key areas of concern. Ensuring the security of any data on the computer. The Data Protection Act requires that all companies demonstrate they have secured the data in discarded computers. A simple FDISK may not do.
Fortunately, it is relatively straightforward to ensure that the requirements of the law are met. All of these hard disks can be wiped with professional cleaning software. There is software that will be up to the MoD and above standard if data security is an issue.
How do you physically dispose of equipment without sending it to a landfill.
The WEEEP will firstly reduce the amount going into recycling.
Reuse any equipment that is working and teach the local community to fix these system. Richard Vivian, Project Co-coordinator of MARC said “The local community can get access to low cost equipment to help them up skill. Help children with homework and adults with flexible learning”
Robert Wilson, Partner of WEEEP said “By utilising obsolete computers we cam give them a new lease of life, and these PCs can keep going for the next few years. They can be made Internet and Broadband ready for people to use On-line learning and assist children with their home work”
Any non-operating systems will be sent for recycling, in Scotland, keeping jobs in Scotland. We do not want to send any of our equipment overseas for processing, as Scottish people loose out with employment and the Scottish economy will suffer. As seen on the BBC news, children in China are getting killed because of the poisonous fumes as they take off the components from the printed circuit boards. There lungs will be the first to go. In Scotland we can oversee the whole extraction process with no deaths.