Stichting OPEN benchmark reports the volumes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) that have been disposed of via municipal collection locations. This benchmark provides municipalities with insight into the volumes of WEEE collected per six months. This means that every municipality can immediately see how well their collection is going.
We send the benchmark report to waste policy officers and recycling center managers. For this purpose we use the email addresses known to us. However, we do not have the correct contact information for all municipalities and all relevant employees. If you work for an umbrella organization that provides waste collection for several municipalities, we ask you to pay extra attention to this: so share the benchmark with the right employees of your organization.
The benchmark has been compiled with the utmost care. The calculation used weighing data as well as conversion weights and distribution keys. As a result, the weights in the benchmark may differ from the invoice proposals. The weights described on the invoice proposals are the weights that have been released from a specific collection point, these weights are and will always remain leading for the reimbursement. In some cases, these weights are divided in the benchmark using distribution keys across several municipalities. This is further explained under the heading ‘distribution keys’. Both types of data have been used to provide the most accurate insight possible into the quantities collected. No rights can be derived from the content of this overview. The OPEN Foundation is not responsible for any inaccuracies in the overview and therefore accepts no liability whatsoever for any damage that may result from its use. Furthermore, the weights from the benchmark can never serve as evidence of differences between the weights from the benchmark and the weights from the invoice proposals, nor can they give rise to adjustments thereof.
A number of specific elements of the benchmark are highlighted below.
Collection per inhabitant is central to the benchmark. This is the indicator for collection that can be easily compared between municipalities. The municipality with the highest collection per inhabitant will therefore end up in first place. The municipality with the lowest collection per inhabitant is in last place.
The collection from recycling centers, thrift stores and municipal yards within the municipal boundaries is included in the benchmark. Shops such as electronics stores and hardware stores with a Wecycle collection method are not included in the benchmark. This selection was deliberately chosen for two reasons:
When Door-to-Door routes with separately collected WEEE are registered and are known to us, these are also included in the collection figures. The following type of collection is in any case not included in the benchmark:
The collection data is based on weighing of the material removed from the acceptor. In the case of recycling centers, this is almost always the sorting center where the WEEE containers are registered. The weighing figures have not been corrected for contamination such as residual waste or cardboard that came with the WEEE. When fine-grained collection takes place, it may also happen that individual devices or containers are converted to weights using conversion weights. This only concerns a small part of the collection.
The collected weights are registered per collection point (e.g. recycling centers). However, some recycling centers are accessible to residents from different municipalities. In this case we use distribution keys to distribute the registered volumes among the municipalities involved. We have coordinated these distribution keys with all municipalities. These are sometimes based on visitor numbers, the distribution of inhabitants per municipalities or other estimates. If no response has been received from your municipalities, we have made an estimate of this distribution key, based on the residents of the municipalities that are allowed to donate to the relevant recycling center.
The collection is expressed in collection per inhabitant. This number is easy to compare between the different municipalities. For this we use the collection and population numbers per municipality, as published by Statistics Netherlands.
When WEEE is processed correctly, this results in fewer greenhouse gases. The amount of greenhouse gases avoided can be calculated. By monitoring the avoided carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, trends in environmental benefits can be discovered. The OPEN Foundation has had research conducted into this (Avoided CO2 emissions through e-waste processing). Based on this research, it has been calculated how much CO2 is saved per fraction of WEEE (Solar panels are not included in this study).
The WEEE in residual waste is calculated by multiplying the residual waste of a municipality by the average percentage of WEEE in residual waste. The percentage of WEEE in residual waste is measured in sorting analyzes by Statistics Netherlands. This benchmark is based on the CBS sorting analysis from 2022. This is the most recently published sorting analysis. The percentage of WEEE in residual waste has been set at 1.2%. In the benchmark, this percentage is generic for the whole of the Netherlands. Therefore, no use was made of sorting analyzes specific to each municipality.
CBS Statline annually publishes the amount of residual waste per municipality. This benchmark used the most recent data. If no data are available from Statistics Netherlands on the amount of residual waste in a municipality, an average of all municipalities is used.
The WEEE in PMD is calculated by multiplying the amount of PMD of a municipality by the average percentage of WEEE in PMD. PMD is maintained per municipality by Statistics Netherlands. WEEE in PMD is tracked by our partners in composition analyses. The benchmark uses a generic percentage for the whole of the Netherlands. This has been set at 0.59% for 2023. There is therefore no percentage differentiated per municipality. If no PMD collection data is available from Statistics Netherlands, this is shown in the benchmark as “Not applicable”. This differs from the method for residual waste, because it can also happen that a municipality does not apply source separation and therefore does not have a separate PMD flow.
The compensation included in the benchmark is the municipal compensation for 2024. This compensation is EUR 108.88 per tonne. Municipalities receive this compensation for the actions performed at the recycling centers when collecting WEEE.