In recent months, the International Electrotechnical Commission began a process to develop a global e-scrap management standard. Last October, the IEC, a Geneva-based nonprofit membership organization focused on industry standards in electrical and electronic goods, published an article on the idea, which was still being researched at the time.

Environmental Standardization

The standard is being developed by Technical Committee 111 of the International Electrotechnical Commission, which is responsible for “environmental standardization for electrical and electronic goods and systems.” In recent years, the group has started work on a number of electronics sustainability problems. It includes tasks such as providing “advice on material circularity concerns in environmentally aware design,” developing a “general technique for measuring the amount of reused components in products,” and more.

The technical committee went past the research stage in January, circulating a proposal to work on “sustainable management of discarded electrical and electronic equipment (e-waste).” According to committee papers, the proposal comes after the committee convened a “workshop on a new global e-waste standard” last July.

The committee voted 20-2 in May 2021 to carry the project forward, with representatives from China and Japan voting no. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which coordinates the US delegation, voted in favor.

According to the IEC database, the committee is anticipated to prepare a draft of the standard for publication in March 2022. Finally, the standard is expected to be published in March 2024.

A Global Effort

The British Standards Institution, the United Kingdom’s national standards organization, gave some further information regarding the project.

The British Standards Institution wrote that the standard “aims to facilitate the systematic, sustainable management of waste electrical and electronic equipment,” and that it would help prevent shipments of e-scrap to “operators whose operations fail to comply with this normative document or a comparable set of requirements,” among other benefits.

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