Background:
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) offer great opportunities for sustainable development but also constitute one of the fastest-growing streams of physical waste in today's global environment. This is because more people are using EEE, and because of the rapid pace of change in technologies, shorter product lifecycles, and designs that do not support repair or reuse. In addition, more people are using ICTs. A lot of e-waste, such as phones, laptops, TVs, power tools, and fridges, is not always recycled and treated in an environmentally sound manner and can end up in dumpsites. This can pose considerable risks to human health and the environment, and result in a loss of valuable resources such as gold and rare earth materials.
To counter this, data and comparable overviews on e-waste are essential in all stages of the policy cycle, to evaluate developments over time, elaborate national and international policies and limit e-waste generation, prevent illegal dumping, promote recycling, and create jobs in the recycling sectors. However, only a very limited number of countries collect internationally comparable e-waste statistics and comparable overviews on e-waste management at the regional and national levels. This limitation is also found in the countries of the Western Balkans.
Project:
To counter this challenge, ITU Office for Europe and the Environment and Emergency Telecommunications Division, UNEP Regional Office for Europe and Vienna Programme Office, and UNITAR-SCYCLE Programme joined forces under the 'ITU-UNEP-UNITAR E-Waste Monitor for the Western Balkans' project. This project is implemented within the framework of the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership.
This project targets five countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, and seeks to be implemented in close cooperation with the respective governments and national statistical offices.
The project aims to:
i) Train on how to make and collect e-waste statistics,
ii) Make an assessment of e-waste statistics, e-waste management practice and e-waste legislation landscape in the Western Balkans;
iii) Produce the Regional E-waste Monitor Report for the Western Balkans, in order to analyse trends in the transboundary movement of e-waste, inform policymakers, industries, and businesses about regional e-waste data, and support the development of national and regional counter-measures through policies, regulations, awareness-raising, and industrial response.
Overall, this project will build foundations for making digitization and digitalization processes green and sustainable.
This initiative contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 12, to 'Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns', where e-waste has a sub-indicator under SDG 12.4.2, 'Hazardous waste management', and SDG 12.5.1 on 'National recycling rate'.
To achieve its objective, the project follows five main milestones:
Prior to the kick-off of the project implementation, a regional briefing was held on 15 December intending to introduce the topic at the regional level laying the basis for engagement at the national level. Learn more here.
- Project kick-off: The kick-off meeting with National Focal Points was held on 16 March 2022 and provided a platform to meet all identified country focal points in the project, give an overview of the main steps of the project and expected outcomes and present the expected roles of the national focal points. This also marked the beginning of the development of the questionnaire to collect data at the national level and desktop study.
- Online training: The pieces of training will be held on 4-5-6 May and aim to enhance the understanding and interpretation of national and regional e-waste data; as well as support the production and collection of e-waste data, thus also supporting the completion of the questionnaire.
- Research, data collection, and interviews (April-June 2022): Together with the questionnaire circulated to national focal points, the complementary interviews and research will aim to assess the status of e-waste legislation, statistics, and e-waste management.
- Data validation (July-October 2022): Validation of the country profiles with the national focal points.
- Regional e-waste monitor and awareness campaign (October 2022 -July 2023): This milestone will be constituted of (i) a promotional campaign, (ii) a regional launching event of the Report, and (iii) a series of national awareness-raising workshops.
Learn more about the project and its objectives by reading the concept note.
