WEEE-dismantling trial: Investigation on increasing resource efficiency and environmental protection for the recycling of small household electrical and electronic devices

In the frame of the FORCE-project, Aurubis AG and Stadtreinigung Hamburg (the city of Hamburg’s municipal waste management service) carried out a trial to investigate the recycling advantages of manually pre-dismantling small electrical and electronic devices compared to non-dismantled devices. For this purpose, Stadtreinigung Hamburg dismantled a 10 t test charge of waste electrical and electronic devices and separated plastic, iron, nonferrous metal (NF metal), and aluminum to the greatest possible extent. The fractions were sampled, evaluated, and compared with another 10 t test charge of unhandled (mechanically shredded) devices.
Based on the results, the benefits for environmental protection and resource conservation were investigated through an ecological assessment, and an economic efficiency analysis of manual predismantling was carried out as well. Because manual pre-dismantling has proven to be economically inefficient under the current conditions, suggestions for future device design were developed – based on examples of individual product groups – to improve the economic efficiency of manual dismantling
and also possibly enable additional metals to be recovered in a cost-efficient manner in the future.

Overview of the results
- Device-specific – small electrical and electronic devices from collection group 5 (CG 5):
o Breakdown of the different device types
o Manual dismantling process (dismantling time)
o Pollutant content in the electrical and electronic devices
o Assessment of difficulties that arose during manual dismantling
o Non-ferrous metal percentages for the device type at hand

- Charge-specific (manual dismantling vs. mechanical shredding):
o Percentages of the material fractions plastic, iron, NF metal, aluminum, and residual material
(wood, fabric) for both charges (manually dismantled and mechanically shredded)
o Economic efficiency analysis of manual dismantling
o Ecological comparison of manual dismantling and mechanical shredding
o Suggestions for Design for Recycling