With more than 15 years’ experience and know-how in this area, Veolia extracts and reclaims waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) to create reusable raw materials for manufacturers.
A new life for used electrical appliances
Those old smartphones “hibernating” in their users’ drawers still have value – and contain resources. Like all end-of-life electrical appliances, they are essentially deposits of raw materials waiting to be recovered and reused. Without the appropriate processing, some components in these appliances, known as waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), can cause harmful emissions.
Veolia is able to offer high-level performance and large-scale production capacity for WEEE management, from collection and decontamination to sorting materials for redirection into ad hoc streams. This helps prolong the lifespan of common materials such as plastic, and also precious or rare resources present in these electronic components, such as gold, silver and lanthanum.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES
• In Angers, FRANCE, Veolia operates the country’s largest WEEE sorting and reclamation center, processing 80,000 metric tons of household and business WEEE annually.
• Also in FRANCE, along with SEB and Eco-systèmes, the Group has created a circular economy loop for small household appliances: WEEE is collected, reclaimed and reused to manufacture new appliances.
Over 80%
of WEEE resources can be recycled
1 minute
only to dismantle a flatscreen TV using the procedure developed by Veolia
71,297 metric tons
of CO2 emissions avoided annually thanks to WEEE recovered by Veolia at our Angers site
A multifaceted performance
creating high-impact solutions for all
Ecological transformation also means looking beyond economic and financial performance alone to work on environmental, social, commercial and human resources performance. Multifaceted performance means achieving the perfect balance between all these factors, which for us form an indivisible whole.
Our human resources
performance
Business expertise and developing know-how
Our social
performance
Creating local jobs; access to employment, especially for people with disabilities and those re-entering employment
Our environmental
performance
Protecting rare/precious resources and minerals; prolonging the lifespan of materials; avoiding CO2 emissions
Our commercial
performance
Cost control; remaining competitive; reduced impact on natural resources
Our economic and financial
performance
Revenue growth and increased investment capacity
