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Home Courses Designing Electronics for Recycling in a Circular Economy Course materials Readings 1.2.3 Plastics in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

1.2.3 Plastics in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Course subject(s) Module 1 Design for Recycling at a Systems Level

This course focuses on EEE on a product level and on the recycling of plastics on a material level. Currently, 20 to 30% of WEEE consists of plastics. This means that approximately 2,4 to 3,6 Mt of plastics can be found in the European e-waste stream. The figure below illustrates the lifecycle of plastics in the Netherlands.

Our collective demand for plastics presents us with three interrelated challenges:

- A high dependence on non-renewable resources (i.e. oil and gas);
- A lack of circular treatment of plastic waste that is collected; and
- Leakage of uncollected waste plastics into the environment.

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