From pioneer to leader of the electrorecycling industry. Interview with Grzegorz Skrzypczak, President of the Management Board of ElektroEko

The company will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary. How much has the appliance recycling market developed in Poland during this period?

ElektroEko was established in 2006, after the EU WEEE Directive came into force. ElektroEko’s task is to support producers and importers of electrical and electronic equipment in fulfilling their statutory obligations. The company finances, organises and manages the entire process related to collection, management and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment.

When ElektroEko commenced its operations in the domestic market, public awareness of waste appliance management and its importance for the economy and environmental protection was negligible. The current data indicates that almost half of Poles already have at least some knowledge in this regard. However, there is still a lot to be done in this area. Full success, on the other hand, cannot be achieved without a simultaneous streamlining of legal regulations.

Since your foundation, you have remained the largest electrical and electronic equipment recovery organisation. Is this purely the result of hard work and professionalism or is it due to the weakness of the competition?

Over the years, we have created a formula that has allowed us to safeguard the interests of producers and eliminate the risk of large penalties for them. We have organised and financed the collection of more than 1.5 million tonnes of waste equipment. This is a result that no recovery organisation in Poland can claim.

As a recovery market leader, we have initiated a great number of different legal, but also organisational solutions. Today we can say that processing plants, also thanks to us, have decided to make large investments, which are visible on a European scale. Together we have significantly increased the quality of WEEE recovery, which is a great added value, as it has a huge impact on saving raw materials. Together with us, there are eight organisations with a similar profile in Poland, but ElektroEko is by far the largest.

How did the idea of establishing ElektroEko come about? When did you first become professionally involved in this problem?

In principle, the problem has always been noticeable, but it was only the WEEE Directive of 2002 which introduced a legal framework allowing for the formalisation of waste equipment management. It forced the work on the WEEE Act, which was enacted on 29 July 2005 and initiated the establishment of the first recovery organisations, as it imposed an obligation on producers to collect and process electro-waste.

The WEEE industry has been struggling for years with the lack of understanding and passivity of public authorities on the issue of recovery. Do you see opportunities for change in this respect?

Lack of effective enforcement of legal solutions, non-compliance with business and ethical standards, has led to a total misrepresentation of environmental ideas. No legal system has been created to optimise equipment collection and processing procedures; instead, mechanisms have been created, which are very inflationary.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act states that recovery organisations are established by producers in order to fulfil their obligations. Today, apart from us, no other recovery organisation fulfils this condition. If someone introduces three computers to the market in order to register a recovery organisation, and is responsible for thousands of tonnes of obligations, such a company can hardly be called a recovery organisation.

The situation may be stabilised by changes in the law postulated by those who want to eliminate the existing systemic problems. Above all, there is a need to introduce regulations which would apply not to all electrical and electronic products together – as is currently the case – but to groups of equipment with similar life cycles.

How is the popularity of your services progressing? The amount of household appliances being produced is steadily increasing, is interest in recovery growing just as fast?

The number of electrical and electronic appliances in households is increasing year on year. There are already an average of around 30 units per one – from washing machines, fridges, TVs, computers, small domestic appliances, power tools. More than 10 years ago, the number was even half that. Today, the restitution demand for electrical and electronic equipment, associated with the replacement of old equipment, amounts to about 80 per cent, the primary demand, resulting from the need to purchase the first appliances of a given category in the household – 20 per cent. To this we must add completely new functional and technological devices (e.g. photovoltaic panels, heat pumps, drones, etc.).

You are the only ‘non-profit’ organisation operating in this segment. How do you finance your activities?

True, we are the only organisation operating in this formula. ElektroEko charges its founders a fee for every kilogram of equipment that manufacturers put on the market. This money is used to implement the process of collecting, recovering and recycling electro-waste. We cooperate with municipalities, equipment collectors and processing plants in this regard. Our customers are equipment manufacturers and importers. In our opinion, a recovery organisation should have the status of a public trust organisation, but unfortunately we are alone in this view.

Do you think that legislation forcing producers to recover waste equipment is the right way to go? Perhaps it is better to use incentives rather than penalties?

If there were no obligations imposed by the Act, and earlier by the Directive, on producers and importers, the market would certainly not be as organised as it is today. The relevant question is therefore not “whether to regulate or not” but “how to regulate”. The whole formula of collecting waste electrical and electronic equipment in Polish conditions was and is very difficult. No matter how many years we look back and at which moment of building the system we would be, it is inefficient, unpredictable and burdened with many legal defects. It is also increasingly costly, a process that could be reduced. At the root of the problem for years has been a flawed law-making process.

You run extensive education and awareness campaigns. What needs to change for recovery of waste equipment to become the norm?

The law stipulates that recovery organisations must spend 5% of their revenues on educational purposes. This is a prerequisite for the company to have an effective impact on the market and broadly defined pro-environmental attitudes. No other organisation has allocated such funds for educational activities. Our programmes such as “My city without electro-waste” or “International Day without electro-waste” are now of gigantic scale and are the most recognisable in the market.

Spreading awareness among children and young people is important for the future of society as a whole. Currently, most such electro-waste is being collected from the homes of the older generations. I think the easiest way to reach them is through their children and grandchildren, who are starting to become more environmentally aware.

Last year, the company also opened the Electro-Ecology Centre in Warsaw, intended mainly for young people. Within the centre, we carry out educational activities related to the proper handling of waste electrical and electronic equipment, and implement environmental projects in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Grzegorz Skrzypczak – President of the Management Board, ElektroEko – Electrical and Electronic Equipment Recovery Organisation

Member of the ElektroEko Management Board since 2006. Previously held the position of Commercial Director at Fastrack (2000-2005) – a representative of the British company Kenwood and the American company Remington. Between 1991 and 1999, he was General Manager at Brabork – a representative office of Philips and Whirlpool. He was also an Economic Consultant for the Italian company Merloni Polska and for the Greek company Klimatechniki. He is a Management graduate of the University of Warsaw and a former student at the University of Michigan in the United States.

Last Updated on August 1, 2024 by Anastazja Lach