Europe, in search of the single charger: how much your 'drawer of forgotten cables' costs the planet

• GUILLERMO DEL PALACIO

Updated on Wednesday, December 12021-01: 32

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As the consumption and production of electronic devices increases, so does the waste with all those that are broken or become obsolete. The traditional drawer of cables and chargers that are in each house becomes a piece of furniture of enormous dimensions worldwide. A few weeks ago, on the occasion of International Electronic Waste Day, the WEEE Forum made an estimate: by the end of 2021,

will have been generated

worldwide. That is, the equivalent of almost 5,700 Eiffel Towers.

This quantity grows at a rate of approximately two million tons per year, so it is estimated that in 2030 it could be around 75 million. The problem is that the percentage of this garbage that is not recycled - due to ignorance or accumulation - is still very high. According to data from the Global Electronic Waste Monitor, in European households there are an average of

that are not used.

In Spain, the resolution of the General Directorate of quality and environmental evaluation that regulates the minimum collection objectives by producers established, for example, that in 2021 they should receive 29.2 million kilos of screens, 3.2 million of lamps or 66.9 million small electrical appliances (that is, smaller than 50 centimeters). Large devices (184.3 million) and small computers and telecommunications devices (the section that includes phones and tablets, 17.7 million) also have ambitious objectives that allow an idea of ​​the amount of electronic waste that is generated in the country.

With regard to chargers, the annual expenditure is above 2,400 million euros and the waste related to the component would be equivalent to something more than one of the Parisian towers; 11,000 tons for the 10,100 of the monument.

A partial response to this global tangle of cables is the proposal by the Vice-President of the European Commission

and Commissioner

that within three or four years there will be a standard charger for small electronic devices, regardless of their brand , function or operating system. If successful, the now considerably ubiquitous USB-C - the charger used by most Android phones - would become the 'official' one. This, in addition, would allow manufacturers to save transformers or the cable itself, since it would be assumed that the customer would have one at home.

"The news is positive," says

, Ecolec's communication director. "Everything that is standardizing an essential accessory to be able to make a mobile phone work seems fundamental to us," he points out. The reason, again, is the drawer: "It makes it easy for them not to fill up with chargers with which we don't really know what to do either and they spend years and years there."

According to Serrano, currently in Spain approximately

of domestic product are put on the market (about 1,000 million if the professional environment is also taken into account). Between 55 and 60 of them are recycled "through the collective systems of extended producer responsibility (SCRAP), which is where the different manufacturers registered in the Ministry of Industry register are brought together." The legal minimum set by Spanish regulations is 65%, so we would be close, but "that small step would be missing."

In this sense, the manager considers that in Spain "there is awareness" from the social point of view. "Another thing is that it is easier to leave the microwave in all the islands of different waste and believe in the good faith of the system itself and that the garbage truck will take it where it belongs," he argues. In other words, although the citizen knows what to do in theory, it is not always easy in practice. "If we put many impediments, people are discouraged," he sums up, "but it would separate environmental awareness, which I think we do have as citizens, from the facilities we need to be able to properly manage waste."

On the other hand, he explains, there is a lack of information.

"More than 15 years have passed since the regulatory application and people do not know that you can go to a point of sale of electrical appliances and

", argues Serrano, who also remembers that this management is the responsibility of the distributor.

The latest WEEE report, with data corresponding to the year 2019, details some of the characteristics of the country.

According to their data, there is a 34% e-waste collection rate, which is equivalent to 5.8 kilos per inhabitant, 10.3 below what is necessary to reach the 85% target.

One of the main reasons for this low rate, explains the document, is that "large amounts" of this waste are managed by

(0.9 kilos per inhabitant) and due to ignorance (causing the appearance of a kilo of products electronics per inhabitant in ordinary trash).

In any case, the organization values ​​that the collection of electronic waste "has increased consistently in recent years."

One factor that could explain this is the end of the 2012 economic crisis, which increased the number of devices on the market and their degree of replacement.

Lost resources

To this must be added something as human as resisting to consider an electronic device for dead, which makes the drawer at the same time a cemetery and a refuge.

"That 'just in case the new is broken, I keep the old' is present in the older population, also because it has lived through other times and circumstances," Serrano details.

At least, since 2005 (with the transposition of the community directives a few years before), both the accumulation and the absence of recycling have not had such harmful consequences - without ceasing to be negative - since many highly polluting materials were banned or directly dangerous.

Cadmium, for example, is no longer present, although heavy metals remain.

"I always see it with a positive nuance: I prefer to talk about resources that are lost," "explains Serrano." Copper, aluminum, iron or plastics that could be introduced again in the production process so as not to have to resort to oil and activate a manufacturing process from raw material ", he sums up.

WEEE contextualizes this loss of resources: for every million phones that are not recycled, the possibility of recovering

is lost

.

"Electronic waste is a real 'urban mine'", they compare.

And, in addition, it is a richer one, since there is 100 times more gold in a ton of telephones than in a ton of ore of this metal.

Anyway, Serrano believes that the human component - "our way of being and that tendency that we carry inside of hoarding" - will make it difficult to reach 100% recycled products: "Maybe it will be smaller, but I don't think that this drawer disappear. "

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