Barriers to recycling WEEE in New Zealand

Recycling of WEEE is currently limited in New Zealand. A lot of activities under the banner of recycling actually involve remanufacturing WEEE into its constituent parts, which are then sent for further processing and materials recovery in New Zealand or overseas.

All remanufacturing operations in New Zealand are manual, and therefore labour intensive. This means disassembly activities are economically marginal and are affected by the costs of labour, landfilling and the price available for dismantled materials.

Whiteware and IT equipment are the most common types of equipment remanufactured or recycled because of the value of the components inside the equipment. However, even for these goods, it can be uneconomic for New Zealand companies to disassemble.

There is increasing competition from overseas processors that take whole equipment and use mechanical disassembly and processing. Many of these companies have expanded from the precious metal sector, and there is growth in South East Asia (Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines), India and the USA.


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Last updated:15 March 2011