EU policy objectives relevant to REWARD

Implementation of sustainable development measures: It was stated in the ETAP report [1], that " an increasing world-wide demand for natural resources, will cause existing technologies not adequate enough anymore to safeguard a sustainable development." Ferrous and non ferrous metals, polymers and precious metals play an ever increasing role in a wide range of key industries and products. The constant loss of these high value metals and materials from the material chain in Europe, due to the lack of appropriate sorting technologies is of a serious concern.

Energy saving by improved recycling rates

Energy saving will be achieved by raising the recycling and recovery rates of high value metals and materials. The recovery of secondary raw materials saves energy compared to the energy cost of the primary production of raw materials. The non-renewable resources of planet earth are threatened with depletion. With new and innovative techniques obsolete and discarded WEEE is transformed into a renewable resource by improving recycling rates, better separation efficiencies and more optimal and smart size reduction techniques. Europe's dependency on imports is reduced.

The objectives of REWARD are:

• To demonstrate and improve high speed detection, fast computer based sensor sorting, separation and recovery techniques at full scale to increase the quantity of thigh quality engineering polymers and metals from WEEE to allow closure of the materials cycle for at least 95% (based on input). A total of 18 major products will be generated and 12 technologies will be demonstrated sequentially.
• To quantify the environmental improvement of the new processing line compared to the current technology with advanced and proved software.
• To finalize the design of a full scale e-waste processing plant with a high replication potential on the basis of the industrial test unit results.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/etap/pdfs/may07_etap_report.pdf