Recycling electric equipment

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The recycling of waste electric and electronic goods starts at the sorting site. Latvia has more then 50 sorting sites for waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE). It is important to remember that recyclable waste electric equipment may not be dismantled, e.g. refrigerators need to have the compressor, TV-sets – the television tube, computers – the mother board, etc.

Latvijas Zaļais punkts cooperates with the WEEE recycling plant EMP Recycling in Lithuania. Refrigerators are processed on a separate processing line where the wires and the compressors are removed, followed by the removal of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from the cooling system. The cooling system contains only 1/3 of CFCs, the rest of CFCs is located in the refrigerators’ walls. To extract the rest of the CFCs the refrigerators are ground in a closed container, the CFCs gas is pumped out and cooled down in liquid nitrogen. Plastic and metal parts are also removed and recycled. Up to 90% of a refrigerator can be recycled.

TV-sets can also be almost fully recycled: the television tube is removed and recycled into new television tubes, the wood parts are burned but plastic parts are recycled into new plastic items. Microchips and wires are also removed and recycled. Wires are cut into pieces of 5cm and separated into plastic sheath and Copper and Aluminium threads.