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About the WEEE Man
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The WEEE man is made from electrical and electronic waste, such as washing machines, TVs, microwaves, vacuum cleaners and mobile phones. He represents the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) the average British person throws away in their lifetime – over 3 tonnes per person.
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What is the WEEE Man made of
In order to establish what the WEEE Man is made from we took the percentage of each household WEEE arising in the UK* by weight under each of the 10 categories covered by the WEEE Directive, and aggregated this across the 3.3 tonnes of the WEEE Man.
For instance – 69% of Household WEEE arising by weight in the UK comes from Large Household Appliances – cookers, washing machines etc. Therefore the predominant weight of WEEE in the WEEE Man is large household appliances. Consumer Equipment (i.e. Hi Fi ) accounts for 13%, 8% Small Household appliances such as vacuum cleaners, 7% IT & telecommunications (mobile phones) and so on.
However, due to the varied nature of WEEE that we own, along with a bit of artistic license we decided to construct the WEEE man from the following WEEE:
| FRIDGES |
5 |
WASHING MACHINES |
3 |
| COOKER & HOB |
1 |
MICROWAVE |
6 |
| KETTLES |
12 |
FOOD MIXERS |
2 |
| WHISKS |
3 |
TOASTERS |
8 |
| VACUUM CLEANERS |
7 |
IRONS |
8 |
| SEWING MACHINES |
1 |
ELECTRIC KNIVES |
3 |
| SEWING MACHINES |
1 |
ELECTRIC KNIVES |
3 |
| SANDWICH TOASTERS |
5 |
LAWN MOWERS |
4 |
| ELCTRIC HEATERS |
6 |
FANS |
5 |
| PC SCREENS |
7 |
CPU'S |
8 |
| KEYBOARDS |
4 |
KEYBOARD MICE |
23 |
| TV’S |
6 |
STEREO |
2 |
| PLAYSTATION |
1 |
PRINTERS |
15 |
| RADIOS |
5 |
MOBILES |
35 |
| STRIMMER |
1 |
DVD |
1 |
| VIDEO RECORDERS |
3 |
SATELLITE DISHES |
3 |
| DRILL |
1 |
SANDER |
1 |
| AIR FILTER |
1 |
* Statisitcs based on ICER - Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling
WEEE Man calculations
To establish the weight of the WEEE Man:*
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Annual UK household WEEE generated 1 million tons |
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Divided by the UK population 60 million |
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Multiplied by UK citizen average life span 77 years
*Figures from ICER:Industry Council for Electronic Recycling
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If we take a 21 year old in 2003 living
until 2059, anticipating a WEEE growth
rate of 4% they would produce 3.3 tons
of WEEE in their lifetime.
A person born in 2003 and living until
2080, would generate 8 tons of WEEE in
their lifetime. This means the WEEE Man
would be more than twice the size!
The future of e-waste
It’s difficult to predict the future of WEEE – especially how future products will change in form, weight, size and distribution. However, what is certain is that the amount of products we consume is growing with global sales of consumer electronics are
expected to increase by 11% in 2005*. At some stage all these products will become WEEE. So, although our WEEE is growing at around 4%, the strong growth in the number of products we buy could mean the future WEEE Man may be even larger.
* Source: www.itfacts.biz
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