ERP Collaborates with Ecosinergias, a RAEE Andalucía and FAEL Initiative to Raise the Public's Awareness About WEEE Recycling.

• In this context, RAEE Andalucía and FAEL will visit 300 businesses and more than 30 town councils in order to promote the correct management of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Andalusia.

Over the coming months, the Ecosinergias initiative will visit a total of 300 small and medium businesses and more than 30 municipalities with the aim of promoting the correct management of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) among citizens by means of cooperation between local entities and businesses.

The RAEE Andalucía brand has arisen and is framed within the framework agreement signed in 2015 between the Regional Ministry for the Environment and Spatial Planning with the Andalusian Federation of Municipalities, Provinces (FAMP) and the extended responsibility of the producer systems (SCRAP) which has involved an improvement in waste management and has brought efforts together to increase collection and recycling rates. Since said agreement was signed, these collection figures have duplicated and surpassed 35 million kilos thanks to the coordination between all of the involved agents and the development of citizen awareness and information initiatives. Ecosinergias aims to widen this area of action to also include the sector that markets these products, the Andalusian Federation of Domestic Appliances and Other Home Equipment (FAEL) and the special collaboration of Ecoasimelec, Ecolec and ERP.

In terms of the initiative, over the coming months FAEL technicians will undertake technical visits both to traders and municipal staff in which they will advise of the existence of this agreement, and the advantages of subscribing to it, as well as the need of informing citizens of the different WEEE recycling points. As it stands, there are more than 1,500 of these points throughout Andalusia, made up of municipal recycling points and business establishments, these can be found on the website: www.raeeandalucia.es

During these visits, the advantages of the collaboration between traders and local entities for the correct WEEE management will be brought up. Broadcasting material will also be handed over, such as posters, leaflets aimed at citizens and a guide for the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment edited by RAEE Andalucía for the municipal technicians.

Where Can You Take Waste To?

There are various options available to citizens to dispose of their old electronic or electrical equipment. Apart from the options offered by Local Entities through fixed or mobile recycling points that users can access to dispose of their WEEE, another novel alternative that current legislation offers is to access the points of sales of the Electrical and Electronic equipment. Distributors are obliged to collect the WEEE, regardless of the size of the sales area, when users acquire new electronic or electrical domestic equipment that is equivalent to that which they are handing over. Should distributors have a sales area for electrical and electronic equipment that is larger than 400 square meters, they are obliged to accept the collection of small electrical and electronic equipment (with no dimension greater than 25 centimetres) free of charge for users without the need for them to acquire equivalent electronic or electrical equipment.

WEEE Management in Andalusia

The framework agreement for WEEE management in Andalusia establishes a series of commitments in order to improve the legal aims of selective collection, reusing, recycling and recovering and in order to promote the development of selective collection systems, carrying out transfer operations in order to achieve greater reuse, decontamination and recycling. This framework has two aims: on the one hand, to minimise the pollution that this equipment generates if it is not treated adequately at the end of its useful life; and on the other hand, to increase the economic activity of the sector, which in Andalusia employees 23,000 people and has a turnover of around 2.2 billion euros.

Electrical and electronic equipment is defined as that which needs an electronic current or electromagnetic field to work, and the equipment that is necessary to generate, transmit and measure said currents and fields that are aimed to be used with a rated voltage no higher than 1,000 volts (in alternating current) and 1,500 volts (in direct current). In the moment where the owner decides to dispose of this equipment, it becomes Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). The obligation of specially treating this waste is stated in Royal Decree 110/2015, which outlines the obligations and responsibilities of all the agents involved, which includes the product suppliers, traders, administrations (local, regional and national) and users.