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Formal and informal
sector partnership

This section explores how the formal and informal sectors can collaborate within WEEE recycling systems.

Informal sector

Small scale, labour intensive, largely unregulated and unregistered (often without trading licenses), associated with evasion of taxes and low technology processing.

  • E-waste recycling, in low-income countries, is largely dominated by the informal sector.
  • Informal sector is involved in collection, recycling, refurbishment, reuse and disposal of residuals.
  • 80% of today’s e-waste generated globally is managed informally.

More on informal sector

  • Informal collectors usually move from home to home or businesses, searching for WEEE.
  • Collected electronic goods are then sold to the recyclers.
  • These activities often represent basic income for informal collectors. These activities can thus be referred to as ”subsistence activities”.
Although crucial for the subsistence of those workers and their communities, those informal activities can represent big risks on human health and on the environment.

Problem:
Lack of integration of the informal sector

Informal stakeholders are often not considered in legislative processes and remain poorly integrated into existing waste management systems.

Countries taking action to develop legislation to finance formal e-waste management usually do not include informal activities.

This can lead to competition for e-waste between formal and informal stakeholders.

This reduces the efficiency of the overall system and reduces the quantity of recovered materials.

Problem:
Lack of acknowledgement of informal workers

Some approaches tend to ban informal sector activities.

This will lead to underground, hidden activities.

Making them even harder to track.

Those hidden activities could potentially have increased environmental impacts.