Page 47 - 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

consumers of EEE placed on the market. Every person, regardless of their role, generates WEEE.
This information is key to developing WEEE system charts and mass flows.

If possible, it is recommended to break up importers' information into the groups considered
relevant in the trading chain. This allows the differentiation of EEE streams in the national flow
and movements between actors. In addition, EEE movements and quantities associated with
imports for trading can be identified to apply EPR. This information is key to developing WEEE
system charts and the mass flow.

In the case of Costa Rica, there is an autonomous institution that imports and trades cell phones.
It is the only State institution that imports EEE for commercialization. Other types of imported
EEE by autonomous institutions such as electricity meters or routers are lent for use but remain
the property of the importer.

3 4 1 Selection of actors

3.4.1.1 EEE importers

Once tracer selection criteria were applied, importers were selected to participate in the survey.
No statistical criteria were used to select the sample; they were selected using the following
criteria:
– They should be within the 80 per cent of weight for the selected tracers.
– They did import in 2020, and there was evidence that they had imported in earlier years
– They belonged to one of the three largest national Compliance Units (CU). In this case,
it should be pointed out that there were companies among these that accounted for 80
per cent in terms of weight. This means that by themselves they were considered as a CU.
Therefore these entities were selected too.
The application of these criteria resulted in 31 importers of new EEE and 12 of used EEE. Of
these twelve, 11 also import new EEE, so they are included in the 31 mentioned. All this leads
to a total number of 32 importers with which to work.

3.4.1.2 WEEE managers

The criteria applied to select managers were as follows:

– To be registered in the Ministry of Health database as authorized managers.
– To have implemented one or more WEEE management stages of interest for the project.
The stages considered are preparation for recovery, recovery, export for recovery,
treatment, and refurbishment for sale as second-hand equipment

The application of these criteria enabled 32 WEEE managers to be selected.

3.5 Data collection: surveys of EEE importers and WEEE managers

Surveys enable information on movements of EEE and WEEE between actors in the value chain
to be obtained, as well as the quantities moved. With this information, material flows and related
mass balances are built, as shown in section 3.6 “Evaluation of the material flows in Costa Rica”.
At the same time, it enables assessing the national WEEE system and to propose improvements.

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