Future e-Waste: Standardisation for reliable assessment

Abstract

The electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) being consumed today is tomorrow's waste EEE (e-waste or WEEE). Rapid advancement and changes in EEE technology, resulting in faster obsolescence of working products, are escalating the quantum of e-waste. Policies and legislations on e-waste management are evolving to control this global problem of increasing e-waste. In many countries, even the assessment of generation of e-waste is proving to be a challenge. The major constraints in applying available methodologies for e-waste assessment are related to availability, reliability and completeness of data. We analysed certain prevailing e-waste management policies and guidelines and also procedures regarding the procurement of EEE. This paper presents a justification of why a system for managing information related to EEE could facilitate more efficient management of e-waste. The justification relies on the following facts observed: 1) The sector comprising government departments and public establishments is the bulk consumer of the majority of EEE quantity, 2) E-procurement systems exist in government agencies, but are not completely centralised, 3) EEE consumption data is not maintained in a uniform manner across the sector, and 4) consumption data is not linked to e-procurement systems and disposal data. In addition to the justification, the paper identifies mandatory coding (indexing) requirements to facilitate the implementation of such a system. We reason that our proposal, as a proactive measure for future e-waste assessment, would aid the global effort for monitoring of e-waste and policy implementation of e-waste management.