The Directive states 90% of all electrical waste must be reclaimed and 75% of all electrical waste must be recycled. The new technology will be sold to compliance schemes and manufacturers that fall within the bracket of producer under the producer responsibility element of the Directive.
The new technology, developed by the same firm which developed fridge reprocessing technology for M Baker, will avoid the need to for manual disassembly and de-pollution which would be especially necessary in most, especially as parts of WEEE waste components contain hazardous elements and therefore require special treatment. However, DARP claims the technology it is developing will be able to meet these needs without the need for manual de-pollution.
In addition to this the firm is looking into recycling or reprocessing much of the mixed plastics that are recovered from the process will also be either recycled or made into pellets, providing what the firm say will be a complete “closed loop system”.
The firm is looking into developing markets for these recovered or recycled plastics.
“Recycling plastics could be difficult because much of it is mixed plastics and can compose anything between 10 to 70% of the waste goods. We will also look at how to crack it into its components – this technically is not hard but economically it is not the best option.
“we are attempting at this stage to ‘crack’ the product in a sustainable way. If we can’t, then that will mean we’ll recycle the plastic into pellets instead,” said DARP’s managing director, Lorie Randall.
DARP received funding in the region of 45,000 from DTI Smart award which funds new and innovative projects that do not currently exist in the marketplace.
DARP says it hopes to patent the technology, and provide a solution that enables producers to purchase all of the technology at around 2.5 million or purchase pars of the technology as well as providing training on how to use it. The technology should be available by the middle of next year, which says DARP will leave enough time before the implementation of WEEE Directive.
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