PMID- 32645852
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
LR  - 20201023
IS  - 2305-6304 (Electronic)
IS  - 2305-6304 (Linking)
VI  - 8
IP  - 3
DP  - 2020 Jul 7
TI  - Recycling Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Management of 
      Its Toxic Substances in Taiwan-A Case Study.
LID - 10.3390/toxics8030048 [doi]
LID - 48
AB  - In the past two decades, the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) 
      management has become an important environmental issue internationally because it 
      contained hazardous substances like heavy metals and brominated flame retardants. 
      Moreover, some valuable substances were used in the electrical and electronic 
      products, thus representing a circular industry for recycling of WEEE. Therefore, 
      the Taiwan government formulated a legal WEEE recycling system since 1998 in 
      response to the international trends of sustainable waste management and extended 
      producer responsibility (EPR). This article adopted the national statistics in 
      Taiwan regarding the online reporting amounts of collected WEEE since it has been 
      officially designated as one of the mandatory recyclable wastes. Furthermore, the 
      regulatory measures were addressed to update the status and subsidiary fee rates 
      of WEEE recycling in Taiwan. In addition, this article also put emphasis on the 
      regulations governing the toxic chemical substances contained in the WEEE. It 
      showed that the average annual recycling amounts of home electronic appliances, 
      information technology products and lighting in Taiwan during the 2017-2018 were 
      around 117,000, 18,000 and 4500 metric tons, respectively. It was also indicated 
      that the current WEEE recycling market in Taiwan has become saturated, reflecting 
      the regulatory promulgation and promotional measures successfully. In response to 
      the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and the Minamata 
      Convention on Mercury, the Taiwan government declared some brominated flame 
      retardants and heavy metals (i.e., mercury and cadmium) as a "toxic chemical 
      substance" under the Toxic and Concerned Chemical Substance Control Act (TCCSCA), 
      which shall be prohibited to use in the preparation of electrical and electronic 
      equipment (EEE) since 1 January 2016. Through the central governing authority, 
      local governments, and private recyclers in Taiwan, the successful WEEE recycling 
      system not only reduce the pressure on sanitary disposal systems, but also 
      prevent the chemical hazards from solid waste incineration systems. More 
      significantly, the WEEE recycling in Taiwan echoed the United Nations (UN) Agenda 
      2030 for sustainable development goals.
FAU - Tsai, Wen-Tien
AU  - Tsai WT
AD  - Graduate Institute of Bioresources, National Pingtung University of Science and 
      Technology, Pingtung 912, Taiwan.
LA  - eng
PT  - Case Reports
DEP - 20200707
PL  - Switzerland
TA  - Toxics
JT  - Toxics
JID - 101639637
PMC - PMC7560359
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Taiwan
OT  - recycling
OT  - regulation
OT  - toxic substance
OT  - waste electrical and electronic equipment
COIS- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
EDAT- 2020/07/11 06:00
MHDA- 2020/07/11 06:01
PMCR- 2020/07/07
CRDT- 2020/07/11 06:00
PHST- 2020/06/02 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2020/06/25 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2020/07/01 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2020/07/11 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2020/07/11 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2020/07/11 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2020/07/07 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - toxics8030048 [pii]
AID - toxics-08-00048 [pii]
AID - 10.3390/toxics8030048 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Toxics. 2020 Jul 7;8(3):48. doi: 10.3390/toxics8030048.