Small appliances

The largest recycling fraction is “Small appliances”. This category includes small and medium-sized household products like television sets, vacuum cleaners, toys and mobile phones. Every year, we collect some 80,000 tonnes of small appliances, which corresponds to more than half of all the WEEE. These products are collected and pre-treated in many locations all over Sweden in order to minimise transportation. Many of these modern products contain more plastic and less metal than they used to. The fraction “Small appliances” has grown as a result of people using and discarding more and more electrical and electronic products. The current trend is that we collect a growing number of products which at the same are getting lighter and lighter.

  1. The products arrive at the facility in crates or containers to be weighed and registered.
  2. Television sets and monitors require special treatment and are disassembled and pre-treated manually.
  3. The crates are emptied onto a large conveyor belt for initial manual rough sorting. Circuit boards and other components which contain rare metals are removed to be recycled separately. Hazardous waste and batteries are removed for separate handling.
  4. The remaining materials are then sorted manually into the correct material category. The next step is crushing and shredding the material to enable the filtering out of different metals and plastics before being forwarded for recycling.