Evaluation of Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipments generation from households: proposal of method and application to the City of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Evaluation of the generation of Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is fundamental to waste management. Discard of household flow is complex because is associated to technologic, economic and behavioral factors. This paper presents a method to estimate household-originated WEEE: stock of equipment in use, stored and discarded, as well as potential generation of waste. The proposed method applied to the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, resulted in the total amount of 71.9 million EEE, 8.8 million of which (12.2%) are out of service. Average values were estimated: 18.2 EEE per household and 5.3 EEE per inhabitant. Average discharge per capita resulted in 4.8 kg. inhabitant(-1).year(-1). Potential of generated waste based on out-of-service EEE varies from 2.9 to 6.0 kg. inhabitant(-1).year(-1) depending on the adopted scenario. The method added quality to the estimates of important indicators for WEEE management.