December 12, 2011

Weee Disposal introduction:

WEEE recycling has been a practice in European countries since 2004. WEEE is short of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment and in the European community there has been a directive called the WEEE directive that states the proper methods for collecting and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment and devices.

Proper WEEE disposal aims to get rid of the multiple problems brought upon by poor disposal of electronic and electrical items. These items as compared to most things are extremely dangerous for the environment.

A little history about WEEE disposal:

Proper WEEE disposal was the result of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. This directive aims to have the manufacturers of such products to have a system for collecting the equipment from users for at least free of charge and to recycle them for future uses on their other products.

This was a European directive that obliged the 25 EU member states to have provisions placed into their national law be August 13, 2004. Cyprus was the only state that was able to meet this deadline but a year later all other member states was able to establish provisions with the exception of UK but UK had in the least a framework for their regulations.

Finally in the year 2007 UK was able to establish provisions that accepted the WEEE directive. Although it is good to bear in mind that WEEE disposal policies are somewhat different with each EU member state.

The different reasons for proper WEEE disposal:

The first reason is to prevent poisonous substances from these items to harm living organisms. The problem with electrical and electronic equipment is that they have parts that are extremely dangerous to life forms. Although it is obvious that no person in the right mind will eat the parts of these items, the same may not be said in the case for plants.

Chemicals in the batteries of  WEEE are extremely dangerous to plants that the moment any plant absorbs these chemicals they die off in a few weeks at most. Plants will not be able to avoid absorbing such things because

plants are always looking for nutrition to absorb. It is nearly impossible for plants to avoid absorbing such chemicals.

Even if the different elements in the chemicals are naturally occurring, meaning they are found in the environment, when mixed together they form different chemical compounds that may prove harmful.

Another reason for proper WEEE disposal is to decrease the pollution in the environment. As stated before the chemicals in the batteries are extremely dangerous to plants but not only to plants but also to people.

When these chemicals come into contact with a small spark they will most likely erupt in big flames and of course if these items are disposed of poorly the sun will slowly heat up the chemicals and may not actually result to flames but it the reaction may produce smoke that will be poisonous to people.

Another reason is to avoid consuming all the resources available on this planet. It is clearly known to most people that natural resources are not unlimited; in video games they may be but in real life they are not and the truth is these resources are slowly being diminished by man.

If the parts of electrical and electronic equipment are to be recycled there will be no need for the manufacturers to mine more minerals and destroy more forests.

Some people may think that it is impossible to recycle an old CPU chip from a laptop because the laptop is old and that old chip will not be converted into the newer and more powerful chips. This thinking couldn’t be more wrong because circuit boards from the past up to the present were all manufactured using the same ingredients, the only difference was the way it was programmed or the way it was manufactured.

More and more manufacturers are now setting an initiative to join in the WEEE directive. Companies are now producing recyclable parts and are developing systems for collecting these things from users. Other manufacturers are even taking the initiative and are producing parts that are completely safe for the environment.

The best thing that people can do is to join the initiative and make their own efforts. Proper WEEE disposal is an easy thing to do and is also beneficial to everyone.