NEW!!

CWIT final conference in 25&26 June 2015. Save the date!

The CWIT project officially comes to the end in August 2015. To present the Consortium’s findings and policy recommendations, a final conference is scheduled to take place at INTERPOL Headquarters in Lyon (France) in 25 and 26 June 2015. A new section on the CWIT website was set up to keep you informed on the latest developments. Registrations will be soon available.

CWIT Questionnaire

One of the CWIT project’s main goals is to map the WEEE flows at European level and identify informal activities leading to WEEE illegal trade. Thanks to contributions and intensive desk research the project has already collected a fair amount of data that is being analysed. It is now the time for fine-tuning the first results of this analysis, and for this  some complementary information is needed.

All actors interested in CWIT may have some information to provide. They are invited to answer a short questionnaire by January 15th 2015.

Estimated time for completing the questionnaire: 15 min.
Please find the questionnaire here.

About CWIT

CWIT (Countering WEEE Illegal Trade) is a two-year security research project, funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Commission, which aims to provide a set of recommendations to support the EC, law enforcement authorities, and customs organisations countering the illegal trade of waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in Europe.

In 2010, 11.5 million tons of electrical and electronic equipment were placed on the market in the 27 member states of the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland. The quantity of WEEE ‘arising’ in that same year is estimated to be approximately 7.9 million tons. Not even half of that quantity, 3.1 million tons, is officially collected, treated and reported to the authorities. WEEE contains valuable metals, such as gold or copper and critical raw materials, like palladium, that need the best available treatment techniques for their recovery. These valuable materials are found next to hazardous substances, for example mercury, requiring specialist handling and treatment in order to avoid environmental pollution and exposure to health and safety risks.

In many cases costs associated with high quality and safe recycling are recovered through the sale of extracted materials. Problems arise when individuals or actors working for criminal organisations acquire WEEE from various sources, illegally ship it outside Europe (often as mixed batches of partly functional used EEE and partly WEEE), rip up the valuable fractions contained in it and process or abandon the rest to careless practices that are harmful for the environment and human health. This activity is often physically carried out in poor countries (non-OECD countries), where WEEE generated in Europe and other rich nations is exported.

CECED participates in CWIT Project as a member of the High-Level advisory Board. The High Level Advisory board are representatives across the various stakeholder groups including the WEEE industry, Governments/Regulators, Academia and Environmental crime experts.

The CWIT project, through intensive data collection, information gathering process, and an intelligence-based approach, aims to:

• analyse the involvement of organized crime in the global distribution of WEEE;
• analyse criminal activity and crime types associated with illegal WEEE shipments, draw on other work being carried out targeting illegal e-waste exports on an international scale;
• estimate the true volume of WEEE generated and the amounts inappropriately disposed of;
• assess the typology of companies (and brokers) involved in the export market and identifying those with a criminal history; and
• develop detailed understanding of the destinations and routes used to carry illegal shipments, to possibly enable contacts with regulators and enforcers in destination countries.

The outputs of CWIT will comprise a set of recommendations related to the European legal framework, future research directions to undertake, and new technologies to develop in order to counter this criminal activity. These recommendations will be addressed to both: the end-users community (WEEE treatment and electronics industry), which could improve the response to the illegal trade in WEEE, and the European Commission (and its member states). To facilitate the elaboration of those recommendations, the CWIT project will establish a multi-layer platform for information exchange among the various actors potentially involved in countering WEEE illegal trade: law enforcement authorities, customs organisations, and policy makers.

For more details, please refer to the CWIT Project website : http://www.cwitproject.eu/

The CWIT LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/CWIT-Project-6525661