Back to: SRI Online Training on E-Waste Management

Financing recycling operations

Section 4.4 explores the costs, mechanisms, and global models used to finance effective e-waste recycling systems.

Economics of e-waste processing

The main aspect when talking of business in e-waste management value chain is the net cost of all activities carried out by the different actors along the value chain.

Costs can be divided in 4 groups

Access to waste

Costs to get the waste form the consumer.

Collection

Costs of hiring, purchasing items for collection infrastructure.

Transport

Costs to transport the waste.

Treatment

Cost for sorting and recycling plants. Includes labour, energy, and cost related to capital investment.

Costs of accessing

In most high income countries consumers dispose of their e-waste either for free or they have to pay.
In low income countries, the consumer usually expects to be paid in exchange of giving away his/her e-waste.
Access to e-waste is thus considered a cost (or a revenue in some countries).

Costs of collection

Collect of e-waste requires hiring collectors and paying them salaries, and purchasing items such as containers, cages, bins, etc.

Costs of transport

Transporting e-waste generates a cost. From the collection point or from the consumers house to the treatment plants, all transport needs infrastructure (car, truck) and labour (driver, transporter).

Costs of treatment

Treatment plants are subject to costs such as labour, energy, capital investment depreciation and functioning of the plant itself.
After dismantling and sorting of the fractions, some resulting fractions represent a revenue (having a positive value) as others represent a cost (having a negative value).
Cost of treatment plant is based on a good economic balance between all costs and benefits.

In many cases the costs of proper collection and recycling e-waste exceeds the revenues generated from the recovered materials. So, a proper financing mechanism, tailored on the societal context of the country need to be defined first and enforced afterwards.
Typical WEEE streams and priority settings are shown in the table below:

An example of a cost-benefit analyses for an African country (in 2019).