Minerals and Materials Processing Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM), 30 Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305–350, Korea.
*Corresponding author. Tel. & FAX. +82-42-868-3705, E-mail: maniskrjha@gmail.com, mkjha@kis.kigam.re (M.K. Jha, Invited Scientist)
Worldwide, the production of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is one of the fastest growing areas. Particularly in Korea due to the rapid economical growth and continuous changes in equipment's features and capabilities cause tremendous increase in sale of new electrical EEE. This development has resulted in an increase of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The paper deals with the review of the trend of generation and recycling of WEEE mainly waste of electrical home appliances, PCs and mobile phones. However Korea has adopted and enforced the extended producer responsibility (EPR) system in the year 2003, the recycling of waste PCs particularly the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and mobile phones is found not satisfactory in comparison to the estimated obsolete generated in Korea. As the enormous amount of WEEE are being generated every year, the mandatory recycling amount of WEEE keeps rising and the target items subject to mandatory recycling increases at the same time. The Govt. of Korea is making consistent efforts to improve the recycling rate to the standards indicated in the EU directives for WEEE. The resources-deficient country Korea may survive as an industrial country, if it could make sustained efforts to develop eco-friendly and energy-saving technologies for the recycling of WEEE as secondary resources for recovering metal values.
Waste, WEEE recycling
