The company ZEOS, d.o.o. is a national non-profit joint scheme for the management of e-waste, i.e. waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), waste portable batteries and accumulators (WPBA) and waste grave candles (WGC).
It was established in 2005 based on the requirements of the EU Directive on the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment by manufacturers of EE equipment.
With a statute they decided that its operation would be focused on long-term efficient fulfilment of obligations arising from the EU and national legislation. The collection process involves over 50 public service providers, 1000 retailers and 500 enterprises. Annually we carry out over 10,000 takeovers of waste, and submit them for processing via contractors. Over the years, a major part of our activities involved awareness raising activities, which are key for good results in waste collection. As our resources are limited, we are very interested in projects supported by the LIFE foundation. A step forward towards raised awareness and responsiveness of end users was achieved by means of the projects LIFE+ 10/INF/SI/000139 »Slovenian WEEE campaign« and LIFE 14 GIE/SI/000176 »E-waste governance«. Currently we are conducting the third project, “Turn to e-circular LIFE18 GIE/SI/000008«. The results of our activities are reflected in every year’s increase in the quantity of collected waste, as well as in the increasingly efficient organisation of waste collection processes.
Role in the project
As part of the project, ZEOS will prepare a plan and instruction guides for optimizing the collection as well as sorting and separation of appliances containing permanent magnets (PM). For this purpose, we will perform multiple sorting analyzes by capturing different types of devices from the waste stream and determining through the course of the entire project which devices are most optimal for PM extraction.
We will also prepare a plan of elimination of and optimization of the collection of appliances, from which it is possible to obtain PM for reuse.
eliminated devices, extracted magnets, data on the type of extracted magnets from individual devices and data on the suitability of magnets for reuse.
We will also provide our partners (with an emphasis on public utility companies and collectors) with informing and awareness-rasing campaignes on the importance of not removing electric motors, because we have an option to extract critical rare materials from them.
