I got some strange looks on the train when fellow passengers overhead me talking about a sculpture I was making out of WEEE. I guess someone has somewhere, but it’s not the type flushed down the lavatory. WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and it’s the fastest growing waste stream in Europe - growing up to 8% per year.

The WEEE Man

Each year in the UK alone, we throw away around one million tonnes of electronic waste. This includes everything from TVs and hairdryers to vacuum cleaners radios and computer games. Over 90% of this of goes straight to landfill. This is another example of our profligate use of the earth’s natural resources particularly when many of the products still work, and most of the materials have some value for recycling. This is a system of production and consumption that is simply not sustainable.

From July 2007 manufactures and retailers became responsible for recycling this waste under new EU legislation called the WEEE (Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment) Directive. To raise awareness of this environmental problem we built the WEEE man. Designed by Paul Bonomini, it is a huge robotic figure made of scrap electrical and electronic equipment. It weighs 3.3 tonnes and stands seven meters tall – representing the average amount of e-products every single one of us throws away over a lifetime. This sculpture launched by London’s Tower Bridge in April 2006 set out to transform the public’s perception of waste from out of sight, out of mind to visible, thought-provoking and behaviour changing.

WEEE Directive

The WEEE Directive is a piece of EU law that aims to increase the amount of WEEE reused and recycled. The law came into force in July this year - over 20 months later than most of our European partners! Manufacturers, importers and retailers of electronic kit covered by the Directive now have a legal obligation to finance the recycling at the end of its life. This means that when you come to buy a new toaster or other electronic gadget you can take your old one back to the shop. Electrical retail giants Dixons and Currys have an in-store take-back service. Other stores will simply tell you the nearest place to take your electrical gadgets for recycling. So, it’s now easy to make sure your old products don’t go in the bin but get recycled.

Your responsibility

It is estimated that over half of the 93 million electrical gadgets we through away each year in the UK end up in the black sack in our kitchens. Why? Because they fit. It’s much easier to put an electric toothbrush in the bin than take it back to the shop of the local recycling centre.

So, you should take your old products to one of three places:

1) back to the shop you bought it from.
2) to the local council site – so called civic amenity site.
3) consider giving old products such as PC’s to a social enterprise or charity.

The obvious thing to do is to make sure your products get recycled. The legal framework for this to happen is now in place. My concern is that the amount of waste we are generating is increasing so much as new technologies become adopted. Consider the LCD TV. In 2004 about 9 million LCD TV’s were sold. This is expected to rise to 55 million sets being sold in 2008. Will we ever change our desire to own more stuff?

Are Vibrator’s WEEE?

Everyday on Dumped a new delivery of waste arrived every day. Our volunteers had to sort this waste to see if it could either enhance their quality of life on the dump or be sold to scrap man Ray for recycling. To their amusement one delivery contained dildo’s and vibrators. Are these items WEEE? The answer? Some are, some aren’t. Some required batteries to work. This means they are theoretically covered under the Directive. However, do they need batteries to perform their basic function (You know what I mean!)? This isn’t as trivial as you might think. For companies that can make a case for their products not being covered by the WEEE Directive it can save them literally millions of pounds.

Whatever the outcome, no matter what items you use, you should think carefully about what happens to them at the end of their lives.

Beyond WEEE?

In my last Blog, I dealt with the concept of the Hidden Rucksack – the other material waste generated throughout a product’s lifecycle. The 3.3 tons of electronic waste in the WEEE Man is only the weight of physical waste we discard in one lifetime. In reality the burden is much higher. The actual amount of waste generated in producing the WEEE Man is a staggering 1350 tons! That’s 432 times the weight of end of life waste.

The WEEE Directive deals with a major waste issue. However, every product we consume generates more waste throughout the processes of extraction, manufacture, distribution and use. This process not only generates physical waste but also global warming gasses – the other material that is wasted throughout the products lifecycle.

Next time you buy a new computer, you should consider the cost to the environment of the faster and more powerful chip in the box. A study by the United Nations University has found that, weight for weight, the average computer chip does more harm to the environment than the car. The manufacture of the tiny, wafer-thin slivers of silicon leaves behind a mountain of waste. In order to produce one memory chip that weighs two grams, the total amount of materials and fossil fuels required to make that chip is 1,400 grams. That's 700 times the weight of the original chip.

Not enough has been talked about the broader environmental impact of the products we consume on a daily basis. It’s hard to think of any product which does not have an environmental impact. The more aware we are of how the things we buy and services we use effect the ecosystem, the more we will be able to make informed choices about how to spend our money in the greenest way possible.