Case Study: REPIC
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Eco-I North West helps to quantify the carbon benefits of REPIC’s electrical waste recycling
Businesses and organisations involved in the manufacture, import, sale or disposal of electrical and electronic equipment, have to adhere to strict laws, producer responsibility regulations, which aim to reduce the end-of-life environmental impact of waste electricals.
REPIC, headquartered in Bury, operates an Environment Agency approved not-for-profit producer compliance scheme for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), arranging for the collection, treatment, recycling and recovery of end-of-life products on behalf of producer members which include many leading household electrical brands.
WEEE is collected from local authorities,retailers, producers and many other organisations and treated and recycled at authorised facilities to ensure that the producers meet their compliance obligations, whilst also contributing to an improved circular economy.
REPIC was launched in 2004 by three leading trade associations in the electricals sector, to help its members achieve the mandatory obligations under producer responsibility legislation.
Its member companies include many leading household appliance brands such as Hoover, Panasonic, Whirlpool, LG and BEKO, and REPIC is responsible for funding the collection and treatment of c.50% of the UK’s household WEEE.
With the support of Eco-I North West, led by Lancaster University and funded by the European Regional Development Fund, REPIC has been able to better quantify its downstream carbon footprint.
The Challenge
Every year around 0.5 million tonnes of WEEE is collected and recycled in the UK. This includes products discarded by households and businesses such as large household appliances, fridges, small household appliances like toasters, kettles and hairdryers, IT and telecommunications equipment, TVs, consumer equipment such as stereos, lighting, tools, toys and medical devices.
Measuring the carbon footprint of collection and recycling of WEEE is complex. There is a national network of hundreds of local authority household waste recycling centres (HWRCs), in addition to many other privately run activities, and the WEEE collected from these sites is transported to Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities (AATFs) from all over the country. WEEE contains a mixture of materials, including plastics, metals, and precious metals, which are extracted and sent on for further reprocessing into new materials and products.
REPIC wanted to understand and quantify the carbon footprint of the collection and recycling of WEEE so it could share this intelligence with its members, and look at ways it could reduce and report emissions from its activities.
Lacking the specialist in-house capability to undertake the research and analysis and modelling required, REPIC began working with Eco-I North West.
Through the programme Lancaster University Master’s student Matthew Bond, supervised by Professor Dr Burak Boyaci, took on the 12-month project.
The Solution
The project started with two main focuses: data collection and analysis of the carbon footprint of REPIC’s business operations over a year; then building a model to investigate optimisation of collection routes and recycling facility allocation.
As the project developed it became apparent that transport impacts were relatively small and that routing was approaching optimal. It was decided that REPIC and its members would gain the most value out of establishing the best possible baseline carbon footprint.
The study, conducted between 2020 and 2021, analysed data from REPIC’s supply chain from 2019. Using primary data from REPIC and from questionnaires sent to transporters and AATFs, Matthew was able to create a model representing REPIC’s collection and recycling activities and quantifying the carbon impact of each stage and for the different streams of WEEE collected and treated.
The overall carbon footprint findings from the study showed that for every tonne of WEEE that REPIC organised treatment of in 2019, there are greenhouse gas emissions of 0.9 tonnes (t) of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent (e) from collection and processing, but avoided emissions of 2.9 tCO2e from the recycled and reused materials, yielding a net emissions benefit of 2 tCO2e per tonne of WEEE.
Analysis showed that transport is responsible for less than 10% of the carbon footprint of the WEEE system, with final material recycling and energy-from-waste processes responsible for 88%. Transport’s small impact relative to the recycling benefits means that the recycling would still be worthwhile in terms of greenhouse gas emissions if WEEE was transported 25x further within the UK, or shipped 100x further around the world, equating to 10 times around the world)..
Recycled steel was found to be responsible for most of the emissions benefit, while recycled circuitry has a disproportionately large contribution to the emissions benefit due to the extremely high emissions of producing the metals that it replaces; as high as 48,000 tCO2e for a tonne of gold.
The vehicle routing optimisation found that up to a 22% improvement in collection carbon footprint was possible for some journeys, but that others were already approaching optimal routing. The recycling facility optimisation showed that if facilities have a greater recovery rate of material from WEEE it leads to improved net emissions, even if transport distances increase.
The Outcome
The key outcome was that REPIC has an estimate of the carbon footprint of the WEEE which is managed on behalf of its members and has a model and a methodology to continue to improve on this estimate year on year.
REPIC has been working on updating and improving the data and the model to allow for continued future use.
Sarah Downes, Environmental Affairs Manager at REPIC said: “People are often sceptical about the benefit of waste recycling compared with the emissions related to collecting it. Whilst the results of the study were estimates, this research demonstrates that the benefits of recycling WEEE properly far outweigh the impact of transportation. Of course where there are opportunities to reduce transport impacts further, these should be explored further.
“We are now developing a programme of work to update the data and the modules in the model which currently reflect activity in 2019, and taking forward the recommendations for improvements in the model and the data which Matthew made in his thesis.
“We have been delighted with the partnership with Lancaster University. To get a student dedicated for 12 months for a focused R&D project directed to addressing our challenges, and underpinned by academic support and access to appropriate software and Life Cycle Inventories has been invaluable .
“We were hugely impressed with Matthew, including the speed with which he picked up how the industry worked and the way he applied himself to the project.”
REPIC continues to work with Matthew, who since finishing the project, has taken up a role as a sustainability consultant with Small World Consulting.
Matthew said: “Getting a funded master’s degree, securing full time employment, and retaining REPIC as a client for further research has been a win-win situation.
“The Eco-I North West projects have been an excellent opportunity for both the students and the businesses involved. For this project, combining REPIC’s business contacts and data with Lancaster University’s access to academic journals, teaching and databases led to a more useful academic and business output than either would easily achieve independently.”
“My undergraduate degree was in Natural Sciences and Business Management, and while I pursued modules in environmental studies where possible, it wasn’t the focus of my degree. This project led me to study about the specific methods of quantifying supply chain carbon footprint, and how logistics optimisation can help reduce this. The academic support and business facing aspects of the project allowed me to develop a range of practical skills, which I have taken forward into my subsequent career.”
“I've learnt a lot from working with REPIC, and from my four academic supervisors. I’ve had the best of both; work experience and academic learning.”
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