10 07 29 Master thesis Juliana Leon - e-Waste. This guide

A pilot project conducted in Bogotá in April 2008 by the Ministry of Communication,
the MAVDT, and CPE achieved the collection of more than 15 tons of computers and
peripherals in four take-back points located in hypermarkets. After the collection,
CPE technicians completed the sorting in order to evaluate which computers or parts
were suitable to be refurbished, used in robotics kits or recycled. The results of this
pilot project are shown in Table 11.
Table 11: Final destination of CPUs and monitors collected from users in Bogotá’s CPE pilot
project (Source: Ministerio de Comunicaciones et al., 2008). This information is used for the
estimation of the average computer refurbishment rate in Colombia.
Suitable for CPU Monitors
Refurbishment 29.1% 35.6%
Dismantling 70.4% 35.3%
Parts for robotics platforms 12.4% 0%
Parts for refurbishment/maintenance 6.4% 0.9%
Material recycling 44.6% 23.3%
Non recyclable (disposal or storage) 7.0% 11.1%
Robotics platforms (entire equipments) - 29.1%
Computer museum 0.5% -
Total reused (without robotics) 35.5% 36.5%
Counting the “refurbishment” line with the “parts for refurbishment/maintenance” line
of Table 11 gives the potential of reuse that is around 35.5% for a CPU and 36.5%
for a CRT-monitor. This percentage is significantly higher if we take into account the
recuperation of computer waste for the construction of educational robotics platforms
performed by CPE.
Based on these figures, the commercial refurbishment rate (as defined in Figure 11)
has been taken between 20 and 40% depending of the MFA scenario. This rate
signifies that from the flows arriving to the informal sector 20 to 40% are still useful
(either as entire devices or as components) and can be reused or repaired. They
then re-enter a reverse supply chain.
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