International Association of Electronic Waste Producer Responsibility Organisations
Tackling the e-waste challenge
Practical guidelines for local waste collection systems
Leading players seek overhaul of e-waste policy approach
WEEE Forum calls for increased role of all actors in order to meet WEEE targets
127 organisations worldwide raise the profile of the global e-waste issue on the third International E-Waste Day
Webinar: WEEE Flows – An enhanced vision of Extended Producer Responsibility – 24 November
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
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. 127 organisations from 51 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 Flows report and WEEE Forum's vision paper
After nearly two decades since the creation of EU legislation on WEEE and despite huge effort and advancement, most Member States have not reached the WEEE collection targets.
The United Nations Institute for Training and Research highlights in its latest study the factors that impede formal/official collection and concludes that, in order to achieve the minimum collection rate, Member States have to divert a high proportion of WEEE that currently goes unreported. In its vision paper, based on UNITAR's report, the WEEE Forum lays out four vital steps that need to be taken to ensure the system is fair and achievable and conveys its vision for the future of Extended Producer Responsibility.
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.