Post by account_disabled on Mar 13, 2024 4:29:41 GMT -5
Both Spain and the European Union need a paradigm shift to advance the energy and ecological transition. In this context, recycling is postulated as one of the only options that can help achieve greater self-sufficiency and strategic security. By RAFAEL SERRANO 4683 readings AUTHOR RAFAEL SERRANO 08-29-2023 TAGS WEEE At a time when we are experiencing an energy transition, the electric and digital car, rare earths are at the center of the global geopolitical chessboard . Since the end of the Second World War, industrial development, and the subsequent globalization, has led to an eightfold increase in metal consumption. When talking about rare earths we are talking about, among others, platinum, palladium, rhodium, cobalt or beryllium. Unknown to the general public, but essential in our daily lives, for example, on our mobile phone. China, according to the US Geological Survey, controls 60% of the world's rare earths. In addition, China imports between 25 and 30% of all world production of raw materials and represents 35% of the world supply of manufactured goods. Currently, the European Union depends enormously on the import of these materials. In the case of cobalt, 86% (especially from the Congo), or even 100%, as is the case of lithium or rare earths (supplied almost exclusively by China). This high dependence on the outside of essential elements for the energy and digital transition poses a risk in that it responds to the fluctuations of international trade.
The European Commission recognizes that, due to the EU's geological constraints, future demand for key raw materials will continue to be largely met by imports, both in the medium and long term. For this reason, both in Spain and in the rest of the European Union, a paradigm shift is needed if Europe wants to develop new sources of local supply with high environmental and social CZ Leads protections. EU demand for primary metals will peak around 2040. Thereafter, recycling is posited as one of the only options that can help achieve greater self-sufficiency and strategic security. The recycling of WEEE would allow the raw materials that make it up to be recovered to manufacture new devices and thus promote the Circular Economy model. The main objective is to promote, definitively, a circular use of the resources that exist or have already entered Europe and that will oblige all actors, generalizing processes in which the Ecolec Foundation has been working since its foundation in 2004: recycling and reuse, in addition to reducing and repairing, the famous 4Rs. In a consumer society like the one we live in, the waste we generate is a capital issue , both because of what it is as waste, obviously, and because it is a resource.
For example, in the field of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), according to the United Nations Global E-Waste Monitor 2020 study, in 2019 the world record of electronic waste generation was reached with 53.6 million tons, 21% more in just five years and with generation growth greater than the planet's population. According to the aforementioned study, in 2019 only 17.4% of WEEE was managed worldwide ; It is not only the pollution and the clogging of landfills that this mismanagement generates, but also the loss of resources: estimates indicate that around 57 billion dollars in recoverable materials were lost, approximately the annual GDP of Lithuania. In a consumer society like the one we live in, the waste we generate is a capital issue, both because of what it is as waste, obviously, and because it is a resource. Faced with this reality are the numbers of the Ecolec Foundation: in 2022 it managed almost 120,000 tons of this type of waste in Spain, being able to use iron, copper and aluminum, among other metals. It is the only SCRAP (Collective System of Extended Producer Responsibility) that manages to exceed 100,000 tons for six consecutive years. The shortage of raw materials, the lack of materials to manufacture new electronic devices and the intensive use of technology come together in a new global context. In this scenario, Fundación Ecolec has managed to convey to citizens and social agents, through its activity and various initiatives (#GreenWeek, #GreenLeague), the importance of the correct management of WEEE as a sustainable alternative to recover valuable metals.
