Author: siwan smith

Integrating the Supply Chain for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from WEEE Event: Presentations and Photographs

Posted on by siwan smith
On Thursday 15th June, the Critical Raw Material Closed Loop Recovery Project held a conference and exhibition in Manchester, entitled Integrating the Supply Chain for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from WEEE.

 

The event was attended by over 80 delegates and featured 10 exhibitors.

 

Aimed at assessing the barriers to improved recovery and recycling of CRMs throughout the whole supply chain from the logistics of collection to advanced recovery techniques, the event featured a range of speakers including those from:
  • WRAP
  • DHL UK
  • Waste Services North Lincolnshire Council
  • British Heart Foundation
  • Tetronics
  • REPIC
  • Ecodom
  • Enscape
  • TUHH
  • Axion
  • European Commission
  • Asekol
Following the conference delegates had the opportunity to visit Axion’s recycling facilities.

 

We would like to thank all the delegates, exhibitors and speakers that attended as well as Axion for the opportunity to visit their trial site.

 

Presentations and images from the event are available here.

 

 
 
If you would like to sign up for more CRM Recovery project news please click here.

Integrating the Supply Chain for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from WEEE Event: Full Agenda Announced

Posted on by siwan smith

Held on Thursday 15th June in Manchester, UK, the full agenda for the conference has now been announced.

This conference aims to assess the barriers to improved recovery and recycling of CRMs throughout the whole supply chain from the logistics of collection to advanced recovery techniques.

Speakers from;

WRAP
DHL UK
Waste Services North Lincolnshire Council
British Heart Foundation
Tetronics
REPIC
Ecodom
Enscape
TUHH
Axion
European Commission
Asekol

Presentations and panel discussions will provide a key opportunity to discuss the importance of integrating the whole life cycle of reuse and recovery to achieve long term sustainable solutions to the issue of recovery of critical materials from end-of-life products.

Register Now

Integrating the Supply Chain for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from WEEE Event Announced

Posted on by siwan smith

The Conference will be held on Thursday 15th June in Manchester, UK, and will include presentations and panel discussions from industry and academic experts.  Delegates will also have the opportunity to visit Axion’s recycling facilities on the 15th June.

 

Topics to be discussed;

  • Importance of an Integrated Materials Recovery Sector
  • The availability of CRMs in Secondary Raw Materials
  • How can manufacturers support the recovery of CRMs in product design
  • Optimisation of the logistics of collection
  • Extending the life of products to minimise need for new virgin CRMs
  • Advances in the recovery of CRMs

 

Who should attend?

This conference aims to assess the barriers to improved recovery and recycling of CRMs throughout the whole supply chain from the logistics of collection to advanced recovery techniques.  The conference will be of interest to those responsible for the commissioning and delivery of recycling and waste collections, sustainability managers and experts in multiple industry sectors, and researchers offering advanced recovery options for end of life products.  The presentations and panel discussions will provide a key opportunity to discuss the importance of integrating the whole life cycle of reuse and recovery to achieve long term sustainable solutions to the issue of recovery of critical materials from end-of-life products.

 

The CRM Recovery project team are organising the event.  It is EU LIFE funded and attendance to the conference is free.

The event will also have space for a limited number of free exhibition stands.  If you are interested in exhibiting, please contact criticalrawmaterialrecovery@wrap.org.uk

Register for the event >>

Tender open for European collection and recovery trials of critical raw materials from electrical waste

Posted on by siwan smith

A maximum of €90,000 is being invested in trials to identify the link between the methods of collection and the successful recovery of critical raw materials from everyday household waste electrical and electronic products.

These trials aim to challenge current WEEE collection mechanisms and test opportunities for increased recovery of target materials graphite, cobalt, antimony, tantalum, rare earths, silver, gold and platinum group metals.

The tender is open now and the trials will focus on the collection of display, ICT, consumer electronics and small household appliances as these are rich in the target materials for recovery.

Proposals are sought from industry stakeholders with expertise in the collection and recovery of WEEE and the drive to challenge current thinking. Suppliers are encouraged to demonstrate the entire collection, re-use and recovery cycle within their tenders. Collection trials must be delivered either in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, and the recovery trials must happen in an EU member state. Bids from single entities or consortia are equally encouraged.

Similar trials are currently operating in the UK and Italy and are a great chance to gain knowledge and to push innovation to improve the collection rates and increase the amount of recovered critical raw materials in Europe. They will allow us to assess whether we can get more value from the WEEE that is collected and treated across Europe and explore further opportunities for improving the collection of end-of-life products.

The closing date for applications is Monday the 16th January 2017. Full details can be found on our tenders page.

Understanding how (W)EEE Flows Across Europe: Model Completed

Posted on by siwan smith

The Critical Raw Material Recovery project is pleased to announce reaching an important milestone with the completion of a high level European WEEE flows model.

weee-flows-model

The model was developed to support the Critical Raw Material Recovery project in identifying suitable locations for infrastructure development opportunities and to support the development of policy recommendations.

The key objectives of the European (W)EEE flows model project were to:

  • Develop a European WEEE flows model using currently available, country specific, models and data,
  • Enable model interrogation on a country level,
  • Establish a complete dataset using extrapolation and estimation to fill gaps where necessary,
  • Facilitate identification of intervention points for increased collection of WEEE and new collection and recovery infrastructure.

The model developed covers all 28 EU countries and uses two key datasets: EC “Study on Collection Rates of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)” and Eurostat, with a methodology able to fill any data gaps resulting in a comprehensive model.

The model allows data interrogation by a number of “flow points”, e.g. waste collected, re-used or recycled, for a range of product categories at an individual country level or across the whole EU. It also allows comparisons of tonnage of WEEE at different flow points across the whole WEEE journey.

The development of the model was managed by WRAP and delivered by Valpak Consulting.

Going forward, the project will use the model, in combination with data generated from ongoing WEEE collection and recovery trials, to build an European WEEE infrastructure plan and policy recommendations.

Please contact criticalrawmaterialrecovery@wrap.org.uk with any queries.

CRM Recovery Awarded Raw Material Commitment Status by European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials

Posted on by siwan smith

The Critical Raw Material Recovery Project has recently been awarded Raw Material Commitment status by the European Innovation Partnership (EIP), joining 122 other projects from more than 50 different countries.

Playing a central role in the EU’s raw materials policy framework the EIP on Raw Materials brings together representatives from industry, public services, academia and NGOs. With an aim to help raise industry’s contribution to the EU GDP to around 20% by 2020, the EIP’s commitments are essential to achieve the objectives set out in the EIP’s Strategic Implementation Plan. These joint undertakings by several partners commit to carry out activities that will contribute to the EIP’s actions and targets, delivering tangible results such as innovative actions or pilots, strategic documents or knowledge sharing activities.

Over the coming months the Critical Raw Material Recovery Project will be looking to grow the Raw Material Commitment partnership and welcomes any expressions of interest to join the project network.

For a full list of the recognised Raw Materials Commitments, click here.

ISWA World Congress – Novi Sad, Serbia 2016

Posted on by siwan smith

On the 19th of September Keith James (WRAP) presented the Critical Raw Materials project to the ISWA World Congress in Serbia. The presentation encouraged conversations around Intelligent disassembly of PCBs.

The event attracted over 1300 delegates made up of representatives of scientific and expert community, global corporations from this area and political and state officials with over 50 individuals attending the CRM project session.

Electronics Goes Green – Berlin 7th – 9th September

Posted on by siwan smith

On the 7th of September Malcolm Waddell from WRAP shared the aims of the Critical Raw Materials Closed Loop Recovery (CRM) project which aims to explore the opportunities for harvesting critical raw materials and precious metals including gold, silver and platinum group metals, from everyday unwanted electronic products. The presentation started some interesting questions and debate around the data sources and our reference for the calculation of tonnages.

Just fewer than 400 delegates attended the event from 35 different countries, representing a range of sectors.

Understanding how (W)EEE flows across Europe

Posted on by siwan smith

A high level European WEEE flows model is being created to help us understand the potential to increase the collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment and the recovery of critical raw materials (CRMs) from these products.

The model is in the early stages of development and is based on currently available country flow data. When updated, it will map out how (W)EEE moves through Europe, highlighting high concentrations of target CRM rich products.

There is a need for us to understand where in Europe products are entering the waste stream and in what quantities to help us use the trials data and outputs effectively.   The model will allow for recommendations to be made on the most effective collection mechanisms to maximise the opportunity and for the development of an infrastructure plan that effectively locates recovery capacity where it is most viable.

The development of the model will be managed by WRAP and delivered by Valpak Consulting with outputs due Autumn 2016.

Critical Raw Material Recovery Networks at EASME WEEE Cluster Meeting

Posted on by siwan smith

Critical Raw Material Recovery networks at EASME WEEE Cluster MeetingOn 9th June 2016 Lucy Cooper (WRAP) and Susanne Coles (KTN) joined other related EU projects in Brussels to attend an EASME WEEE cluster meeting on harmonising the production and storage of data for WEEE in the urban mine organized by H2020 project ProSUM.

Marco Recchioni (EASME), who introduced the day, was followed by Daniel Cassard (BGRM) leading through the development of the EU-UMKDP and Jaco Huisman (UNU) talking about classifying and characterising the urban mine, work tackled by ProSUM highlighting key issues in developing an INSPIRE compliant knowledge data platform.

Next the LIFE project Critical Raw Material Recovery (Lucy Cooper, WRAP), H2020 project EWIT (Georg Kanitschar, TUW), COST Action ReCreew (Clayton Burger, University of Oldenburg) and H2020 project SMART GROUND (Marco de la Feld, ENCO) shared their approaches and methodologies to characterise EEE, WEEE and waste containing WEEE.

The presentations sparked plenty of discussions between the projects and representatives from DG GROW, DG Env, DG Connect and DG RTD covering aspects such as uniform adaption and long term provision of a single database system and its value to end-users. Several actions were agreed to pave the way for increased collaboration between related projects and with the EC.

If you are interested to find out more please contact susanne.coles@ktn-uk.org.