Page 59 - Implementation of the ITU-T International Standards for the Sustainable Management of Electrical and Electronic Equipment: On the road to a circular economy in Argentina

Implementation of the ITU-T International Standards for the Sustainable Management of
Electrical and Electronic Equipment: On the road to a circular economy in Argentina

Table 8: Ratio between refunctionalized WEEE and managed WEEE and apparent
consumption in 2019

Source: Own elaboration, 2021.

Figure 21 shows, in tons, the known aggregated flows of the EEE tracers and WEEE in 2019. As
the same level of information is not available for all tracers, it is not possible to obtain a mass
balance for the "Domestic Producers and International Trade" processes. This is reflected in
the fact that it is not known how almost 78 000 tons of EEE out of the estimated 156 000 tons
consumed reach the market, i.e., around 50 per cent.

Of the EEE known to reach the market, 51.3 per cent goes to wholesalers, 35.3 per cent to
retailers, and 13.4 per cent to other consumer groups. The consumption flows of households,
public institutions, and corporate users, which are supposed to get their products from
distributors or direct import, are unknown.

3 6 3 Coarse and fine fractions managed

Based on the information sources available for the study, the estimated amount of WEEE
fractions managed in the country in 2019 was 9 107 tons (Figure 22). The largest fractions
correspond to plastic-coated electrical cables (55.1%), copper (22.1%), aluminum components
(9.0%), and non-recyclable plastic (8.2%). No management of rare materials, gold, and silver
was reported.

36