Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) collection rate (Indicator)

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) contains dangerous substances that pose risks to the environment and human health. In 2022, the WEEE collection rate was 40.6%, which is still lower than the 65% target set by the WEEE Directive. Electrical and electronic equipment is placed on the market faster than WEEE is collected, which reflects Member States’ struggle to reach collection targets and ensure that it does not reach the environment.

by European Environment Agency

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world (see RMIS — E-waste). Due to the presence of harmful additives and dangerous substances, inadequate WEEE management can pose substantial risks to both the environment and human health.

Furthermore, WEEE is an important source of secondary raw materials, containing many precious, critical and strategic materials, and other base metals. Recycling WEEE avoids the significant pollution linked to mining these metals.

In Europe, most WEEE is regulated by the WEEE Directive (EU, 2012). Its formal collection usually falls under the requirements of national legislation, in which WEEE is collected by designated organisations, producers and/or the public authorities. This happens via retailers, municipal collection points and/or pick-up services (Eurostat, 2023).

The EU-wide WEEE collection rate increased 10 percent points, from 38.6% in 2014 to 48.6% in 2019. After this, collection rates started to decrease, dropping almost 9 percent points between 2019 and 2022. The 2022 collection rate, 40.6%,  is lower than the 2019 target defined in the WEEE Directive: 65% for the separate collection of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) placed on the market.

The decreasing trend in the WEEE collection rate in 2022 is related to a faster increase of EEE placed on the market in previous years than WEEE collected: EEE placed on the market has grown 80% since 2015, moving from 18 to 28 kg/capita, while WEEE collected has grown 54.7% over the same period. This confirms the observation that EU Member States struggle to reach their collection targets. The European Commission is currently evaluating the EU WEEE Directive in order to determine if a review is needed.

The main bottlenecks in reaching the targets are the mixing of WEEE with metal scrap, its disposal in residual waste, unreported export out of the EU, recycling under non-compliant conditions and export for reuse. Another important bottleneck is the large stock of used EEE and WEEE stored or hoarded in households, businesses and organisations before being discarded (Baldé et al., 2021). Indeed, according to a survey conducted in more than 8,000 European households, 13% of them keep their WEEE because of ‘emotional attachment’ (WEEE Forum, 2022) to e.g. headphones, remote controls, clocks and phones.

More info
The WEEE collection rate is calculated as the weight of WEEE collected in the reference year relative to the average weight of EEE placed on the market in the 3 preceding years. Raw data on the weight of WEEE collected and the weight of EEE placed on the market were retrieved from Eurostat. Eurostat aggregated data for the EU-27 were used. The EEE categories used for this dataset are in line with the categories set out in the WEEE Directive. Data on WEEE are reported by the EU Member States for monitoring compliance and establishing data formats for the purposes of Directive 2012/19/EU. The data are available from the reference year (2005) onwards.

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published: , 3|2025
Keywords: Collection, WEEE - Batteries, Methods, Analyses, Data, EU