International Association of Electronic Waste Producer Responsibility Organisations
Tackling the e-waste challenge
WEEE Forum and ITU join forces to highlight the invisible infrastructure behind our connected devices
WEEE Forum calls for action on WEEE in metal scrap
Internet Waste: thought paper and webinar for International E-Waste Day
International E-Waste Day to focus on education amid Covid-19
WEEE Forum supports EU’s quest for resilience in supply of raw materials
I4R platform allows EEE producers to comply with article 15 of the WEEE Directive
Meet the new Board of the WEEE Forum!
Characterisation of fires caused by batteries in WEEE
WEEE Forum position on the Study on quality Standards for the treatment of WEEE
WEEE Forum joins the Circular Plastics Alliance
International E-Waste Day
In 2019 only 17,4% of global e-waste was collected and properly recycled, which means that 44,3 million metric tonnes of e-waste, valued at US $57 billion, was either placed in landfill, burned or illegally traded and treated in a sub-standard way, and this is despite 71% of the world’s population being covered by e-waste legislation.
International E-Waste Day has been developed by the WEEE Forum to help to address this huge issue and promote global e-waste recycling. 126 organisations from 52 countries across the world got involved in this year's International E-Waste Day by arranging their own activities to unite in tackling the e-waste challenge.
The last edition took place on 14 October 2020.
WEEE Forum International Conference 2020
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Board of the WEEE Forum has decided to postpone the International WEEE Forum conference, originally scheduled for 27-28 May 2020 in Lucerne, Switzerland, to the second quarter of 2021. The new date will be announced later in the year and online/physical workshops will be scheduled in the last quarter of 2020 to share some of the research which has been carried out in view of the original conference.
Digital Circular Economy as Climate Change Policy
This year, the WEEE Forum, the voice of forty electronic waste producer responsibility organisations across the world, will celebrate 18 years of excellence as a leader in the sector. To mark this occasion, the WEEE Forum holds an international conference on 27-28 May 2020 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Switzerland has been chosen as the perfect location for the celebrations, for the country has the longest track record of e-waste management in the whole world. SENS eRecycling, one of the founders of the WEEE Forum, will be the conference host.
In sync with the European Commission’s vision of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, the conference will zoom in on what the e-waste sector is doing to mitigate the climate crisis and how digitalisation across the e-value chain will play a key role in establishing a Circular Economy. The WEEE Forum will unveil a brand-new study on the Roadmap towards Digital Circular Economy in the E-Waste Sector. This research has been commissioned exclusively for the conference.
Manufacturers, producer responsibility organisations, recyclers, retailers, consumers, academia and NGOs will explain how they are contributing to a Circular Society.
And finally, the conference will reveal a ground-breaking UN study on WEEE Flows, which will inform the revision of e-waste legislation.
The WEEE Forum will welcome in excess of 220 delegates from all parts of the sector to engage in interactive discussions with senior officials, captains of industry and other prominent stakeholders.
Our members
There are currently 40 members of the WEEE Forum. These members are not-for-profit WEEE producer responsibility organisations (or ‘producer compliance schemes’) mainly in Europe, but we have recently expanded globally and are now pleased to include members from Africa, Asia, Australasia and North America.
Our members represent electrical and electronic equipment manufacturers covering the whole spectrum of production from small electronic devices, such as cellphones, through to large household appliances like refrigerators and other large items, for example photovoltaic panels.
Collected WEEE
Since their foundation, the producer responsibility organisations of the WEEE Forum have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use 21.4 million tonnes of WEEE, 2.4 million tonnes of this was collected in 2018, which was almost two thirds of WEEE collected in Europe during that year.
In addition, our members operate over 114,000 WEEE collection points and two thirds of them are market leaders in their countries.