Description
OBJECTIVE: The project wiII contribute to reduce Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (W.E.E.E.) Iandfilling & pollution, increasing at the same time social & work integration for dissadvantaged people. Its main goal is to achieve a sustainable recycling and recovery of WEEE in order to reduce disposal and to contribute to the efficient use of resources. The implementation of the project will increase the competitiveness of AFF toward "Realization of business opportunities of greening the European economy". JUSTIFICATION: AFF's mission for social and professional integration of people in need is carried out through recycling of computers by assembling functional parts from waste computers. However, its activity results with a considerable amount of computer parts which cannot be reused and considered as waste. That contains valuable recyclable materials like copper, rare earths, precious metals etc. Recycling of e-waste regenerated at AFF by extracting these valuable metals complies well with EU's waste management policy.
Summary of project results
The project led to improvement of the material efficiency and waste management through the development of new green products based on recycled e-waste at Ateliere Fara Frontiere. A more efficient and responsible use of natural resources and the retrieval of valuable secondary materials have been achieved within the project. The project consisted in developing a chemical analysis of computer parts for identification of critical raw materials (a literature review and a report have been delivered by the Norwegian partner SINTEF). Two procedures were proposed to recover critical raw materials as defined by the EU directives. The valuable secondary materials recovered using the new procedures have been transformed into 2 new green products (earth elements and tantalum) which gained economic value and could be sold by the organization as raw materials. The project was implemented in an Work Integration Social Enterprise and produced not only economic but also social benefits. 4 new green jobs have been created for persons from disadvantaged groups. The persons were hired on the dismantling activity.
Summary of bilateral results
The 2 partners worked very closely together and Ateliere Fara Frontiere benefited from various areas of expertise that helped the NGO understand the market and improve the production capacity: - SINTEF completed a report on recovering of critical elements from e-waste generated at AFF. Based on these data, two processes for recovering two critical elements (tantalum and rare earth elements) were established. - AFF and SINTEF implemented the new equipment that allow the working station to be much more efficient, and the set of procedures that will make the work more productive, to improve the quality and the quantity of the outcome - After the equipment and tools were put in place, SINTEF staff performed training of the AFF disadvantaged workers on removal of Ta capacitors and dismantling of HDDs. They learned to recognize Ta capacitors from various types of PCBs and how to efficiently remove and collect them. The partners had a formal collaboration for the whole duration of the project, exchanged ideas and worked closely together to implement the procedures on the equipment selected to be analysed.