E-Waste Generation Profile in Brazil: An Analysis of Consumer Behaviour

Abstract

Reaching an annual generation of 45 million tones, e-waste is considered the fastest growing waste category in the world. The potential hazardousness of e-waste lead to the regulations on production and use restrictions of specific substances in Europe. However, it has valuable substances that motivates both formal and informal markets. It is estimated that Brazil was responsible for the generation of 1.5 million tons in 2016, the second largest amount generated among the American countries. Some actions need to be undertaken to reduce impacts and expand the use of secondary raw materials from the management of e-waste. To enhance the economic feasibility of urban mining techniques the reverse logistics must manage significative amounts of e-waste. However, the total amount of e-waste collected is still incipient in most of Latin American countries. Thus, the consumer must be aware about its responsibility in correctly disposing of the post-consume material and products. To address this question, in the present research we proposed a survey to discover the opinion of ewaste consumers in Brazil. Were obtained 1,004 respondents from the 26 Brazilian states and the Federal District, from which was established a profile on the perceived risk, destination options and e-waste categories that are kept in the residences. The previous results suggest that in Brazil there is a retention index of 84% of end-of-use devices and the perception of heavy metal contamination prevails as the perceived risk with 85.3%. The next phase of the project will enable a more detailed analysis, allowing the correlation of consumer profile, purchasing power and volume generated.