Tag: electronics

WEEE in Midi-Pyrénées

From what I know, France’s approach to tackling energy and waste issues is to break the topic down to the regional level, and to involve local stakeholders.

Here is an article on ‘Métabolisme territorial et filières de récupération-recyclage: le cas des déchets d’équipements électriques et électroniques (DEEE) en Midi-Pyrénées’ by Jean-Baptiste Bahers that was published in the journal Développement Durable et Territoires. Vol. 5, n°1 in February 2014.

It discusses the ‘Territorial metabolism and recovery-recycling chain: the example of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in the “Midi-Pyrénées” region and has the following Sankey diagram figure.


Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

WEEE waste streams are in kilo tonnes (kt) in the year 2008. Additionally, recovered energy from waste treatment is shown (in MWh) with orange arrows. The red line delimits the region, so apparently the electronics waste recycling and disposal (élimination) takes place outside the Midi-Pyrénées region. Some flows are labeled with a range (e.g. 6-14 kt), which is obviously difficult to draw as Sankey arrow. My guess is that the median value was used to determine the actual width of the affected arrows. A nice feature are the per capita values (e.g. 2-4 kg/hab), which makes it much easier to grasp and to relate to for the indivdual person living in Midi-Pyrénées.

Study on Computer Waste in Chile

This post on the MFA diagram blog directed me towards a study on computer waste in Chile. The Sankey diagrams featured are for CRT/LCD displays and laptop/desktop computers,

These are the flows of CRT (red) and LCD (blue) in 2010 and expected units in 2020

and the desktop (green) and laptop computers (dark blue) flows in 2010 and expected for 2020 (no. of units).

The full scientific paper can be found here.
(via MFA Diagram blog)