Transport

In Sweden, the capillary collection network which includes on-site, local and mobile WEEE recycling points is managed by the municipalities. El-Kretsen collects waste from municipalities, shops and stores, industrial battery collection points and the just under 5,000 battery bins we are responsible for. Our specialised carriers transport the waste they have collected from these bins and recycling stations to one of our recycling facilities.

Weighing and Registering

The carrier weighs and registers the WEEE crate’s unique ID number to ensure that the waste is delivered to the correct facility.

Climate Impact

The single largest environmental aspect of El-Kretsen’s operations that we can influence is transportation. The transportation of WEEE and batteries from our collection points to different recycling facilities is undertaken by 15 transport companies. Their services are procured through invitations to tender. In addition to price and quality, we require the companies we work with to produce environmental reports that include aspects such as distance covered, type of fuel used and vehicle category rating according to the Euro emissions standard. Every year, we have meetings with our transport companies to ensure that their internal environmental work is going according to plan as well as to evaluate our collaboration and look at how we can improve and optimise our transport solutions. These discussions have for example led to us introducing new services in our systems and apps.

Another important aspect to reduce our transportation impact on the environment is driving as few tonne-kilometres as possible. This is achieved through efficient route planning and loading the lorries as full as possible. Working actively to maximise the filling ratio of the containers we collect and loading as many containers as possible on each lorry has a positive financial and environmental impact.

The transporting we do emits around 3,300 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. This should, however, be seen in relation to the carbon monoxide savings our recycling results in. When we extract and dispose of the freons found in old fridges and freezers, this alone corresponds to 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.