Page 41 - Implementation of ITU-T international standards for sustainable management of waste electrical and electronic equipment: The path to a circular economy in Costa Rica

Implementation of ITU-T international standards for sustainable management of waste
electrical and electronic equipment: The path to a circular economy in Costa Rica

Applying the process described in Figure 14, subheadings accumulating 80 per cent of EEE
weight in Costa Rica and meet the above criteria are placed in the column “Subheading HS6
that make up the tracer”. As can be seen, there are a total of 26 subheadings grouped under
eleven tracers. This represents 12.5 per cent of the total number of EEE subheadings used in
Costa Rica.
In some cases, the tracer includes the entire HS group shown in column 2; in others, it does not.
This information is found in the column headed “Includes the whole HS Group”. Equipment with
low levels of imports, and with environmental and health impacts not significant compared to
the selected equipment, were excluded.

Finally, the last two columns show the EEE categories according to EU-6 and UNU-KEYs of WEEE
used in the studies led by UNU on this matter.

3 2 3 Geographic scope

The project geographical scope is the whole country, considering the following factors:

– The country does not manufacture EEE.
– EEE consumed in Costa Rica are imported and distributed throughout the country.
– Import databases have a national scope. No information is available at the regional or
provincial level.
– Existing databases do not identify importers by regions or smaller geographical units
(provinces).
– In 2021 there are 32 WEEE managers registered with the Ministry of Health who meet
the criteria to participate in the study (Ministry of Health, 2021). They receive waste from
different geographical areas according to their client portfolio, not necessarily linked to
their geographical location.

3 2 4 Timeframe

The timeframe from 2005 to 2020 was considered in tracers’ definition, which is the period for
which the Directorate General of Customs collected records. This allowed us to analyse imports
behaviour and apply the process explained in Figure 14.

The reference year used for the flow analysis is 2020 since it was considered that information
for managers and importers would be more easily traceable.

3.3 Methodology for WEEE estimation

Recommendation ITU-T L.1031 includes two methodologies to develop the WEEE inventory.
A comparison of the methodologies is presented in Figure 16. In the study, a mix of market
supply methodology and consumption-based methodology was applied to gather information
and to estimate EEE and WEEE.

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