Waste electronics collected

Data quality

From the table “Waste electronics collected per category and end-user” in the statistics it appears that relatively low volumes of business waste electronics have been collected when the number of producers dealing in business equipment is compared with the volumes collected from households. Possible explanations for these limited quantities may be:

1) Some commercial businesses import electrical equipment for their own use. These businesses are not subject to producer responsibility in terms of registration and reporting to DPA. Quantities imported for one’s own use will therefore not be included in the statistics for quantities placed on the market. Businesses that import business electronics for own use, however, are still subject to the requirement for environmental treatment of end-of-life electronics, so the producer or the environmentally approved recycling industry is presupposed to report data ((See item 2).

2) Businesses disposing of waste electronics have the right, but not the duty, to deliver these end-of-life electronics to producers of this equipment. By contrast, the producer has the duty, but not the right to receive their end-of-life products, and to secure the environmental treatment of these products. If these business electronics are not delivered to the producer at the end of their service life, but to a recycling facility, these volumes will not be included in DPA’s statistics of collected quantities. It is presupposed that instead these quantities are reported to the Danish Environmental Protection Agency’s Waste Data System.