In November 2023, as part of a four-day study tour, representatives from Bolivia and Tunisia visited three waste management treatment sites in Madrid and Zaragoza in Spain. Their objective was to learn more about best practices in environmentally sound management (ESM) for electric and electronic waste, which includes lighting waste, and meeting the requirements of national extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations – an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s lifecycle. The study tour also included visits to a logistics centre and battery plant which provided insights into the logistics required for large scale collection schemes and the challenges with handling difficult fractions of the waste stream such as batteries.

The study tour was organized as part of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded, Delivering the Transition to Energy Efficient Lighting, project in Bolivia. The project aim is to accelerate the transition to energy-efficient lighting technologies in Bolivia through the development of a national efficient lighting policy and practical innovative interventions that will ensure success of the transition. A key part of the strategy to achieve a sustainable transition is the adoption of a national environmentally sound management regulatory and operational framework to implement a waste lighting collection and recycling scheme to ensure the sustainable end-of-life treatment of spent lamps.

Stakeholders from Bolivia attending the study tour included representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and Water (MMAyA), four waste recycling companies (Axtreza Energea, Mekatronika, Tropiflor and Recumet) and municipality representatives from the cities of Sacaba and Warnes. MMAya is the Ministry responsible for EPR in Bolivia, including defining and implementing the regulations. Other stakeholders as municipalities and private recycling companies also play a fundamental role in establishing and operating the system.

The Leapfrogging Tunisia’s Lighting Market to High Efficiency Technologies project is also funded by the GEF and includes a similar objective to implement an operational framework to ensure the sustainable end of life treatment of spent lamps, including the implementation of a EPR system. An invitation was therefore extended to stakeholders from Tunisia to attend the study tour alongside their Bolivian counterparts. These stakeholders included representatives from the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Finance, and the national agencies for waste management and energy conservation.

Spain was chosen as the location of the study tour as legislation governing the recovery of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) has been in place there since 2005. The country therefore has broad experience in the implementation of EPR measures and outstanding examples of waste treatment facilities and infrastructure for the recovery of WEEE, including lamps. The facilities visited during the study tour were selected to provide a broad overview of the different types of waste recovery facility and a logistics centre. They were:

• Recyberica Ambiental – for their lamp recycling expertise, although the facility manages other types of waste, including batteries, cathode ray tube televisions, flat screen televisions and room air conditioners.
• Derichebourg – who specialize in cooling appliances such as domestic and commercial refrigerators, water heaters and washing machines, and have a specific cold equipment treatment plant where refrigerants CFC and pentane are recovered
• WIREC, part of the VIREC enterprise – a general WEEE recycling facility, with special know how on electric board recovery and recycling.
• Envirobat – a battery treatment centre, covering from small alkaline batteries to large car batteries.
• Ecoquímica – a dangerous goods logistics operator which manages different types of WEEE such as cooling appliances, electric motors, computers, televisions, printers and batteries.

The visits to the various facilities allowed the participants to see firsthand the scale and type of equipment and infrastructure required and to hear about the processes, challenges and experiences from some of the main stakeholders involved in the implementation of the EPR system in Spain. In each case, the participants received:

• An overview of the company and the technology used in the facility.
• Information on the WEEE reception system, space dedicated to storage, personnel at the plant, WEEE traceability systems, reception of WEEE (upstream), final destination of the output fractions (downstream), flow of WEEE within the plant, overall recommendations.
• Details of the control systems in place, such as continuous monitoring of mercury emissions, emission filtrations systems, particle aspiration systems in the workplace
• Information on the permits and the management system required.
• Details of the economic aspects involved in the treatment facilities, such as infrastructure investments and running costs.
• A description of any particular challenges presented by the waste being treated and in the disposal of specific fractions of the recovered materials.

These visits were complemented by a theory session on EPR delivered by U4E´s ESM expert Ignacio Duque Oliart. This provided:

• An introduction to the EPR methodology for waste management of electrical and electronic equipment, describing its main advantages and why it is considered as a good solution for the correct WEEE management.
• The role and responsibilities of the different stakeholders throughout the EPR chain (product companies and sellers, recyclers, logistic/transport companies, end users).
• An overview of the implementation and development of management systems, including collection infrastructure and the key criteria to guarantee a high level of WEEE collection. This included detailed information relating to waste lamp management.

A further presentation by AMBILAMP – a non-profit association that was created for the collection and final disposal of spent lamps, bringing together the main lighting companies with the aim of developing a system for the collection and treatment of waste lamps and luminaires – provided a practical example of a collection scheme for lamps.

Throughout the study tour, there was keen interest from all the stakeholders. Those from the public sector were particularly interested in how the implementation of the EPR system can replicated in their home country, and the insights offered on establishing stakeholder working groups and on research and development. The private sector participants were especially interested in the recycling process and technologies.

For further information on the study tour contact U4E’s Soledad Garcia at soledad.garcia@un.org.