Identified Risks at Swedish Recycling Centres during Handling of Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment

Waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is the most rapidly growing waste stream. Further, producer responsibility was enforced in EU member countries during 2005. Most of the WEEE in Sweden is collected at manned recycling centres, which have a key role for the downstream handling in order to ensure high collection rates of WEEE and a proper initial sorting. The Swedish concept for collection of WEEE is based on manual work which creates risks for the employees. This paper have identified a number of risks in the work environment at recycling centres during handling of WEEE, particularly frequent heavy manual lifting of televisions, white goods and net cages. The personnel especially suffer from ache or pain from the back, and they show a high number of occupational accidents.