El-Kretsen

In Sweden, the WEEE directive was preceded and a regulation on producer responsibility for electrical products was created as early as 2001. Overnight, the responsibility went to transport and recycle everything that is collected around the country from the municipalities to the producers. Various industry organizations quickly realized the value of creating a common system for producers and therefore formed El-Kretsen. To finance the collection, a first step was to contact producers and let them join and pay environmental fees.

In the first years, the collection only meant costs, but after a couple of years, increased material prices on the world market, refined recycling processes and the fact that El-Kretsen became a player with large amounts of electrical waste made us see a positive value for the collected material. World market prices for metals and plastics can fluctuate sharply over a year, but roughly sold materials account for about 50 percent of our revenues, while producers' environmental taxes cover the rest.

A milestone in El-Kretsen's history was in 2006 when we established an analysis facility, which meant that we could have access to our own statistics on what is collected. The statistics from the analysis facility have since been our basis for procurements with the recyclers because it gave us both knowledge about the value of the collection but also about the cost of handling, for example how many products have built-in batteries that must be removed.

In 2009, a producer responsibility for batteries was added and, unlike electrical products, it is the producers who are also responsible for the fine-mesh collection here. From one day to the next we had 10,000 battery cases to administer and empty. Since 2015, we have worked with collection systems for industrial batteries and thus solve the producer responsibility for these battery manufacturers.

Like other companies, El-Kretsen has gone from fax and excel to digital portals. Today, we are an IT-heavy company that handles large amounts of data via the portals used by municipalities, carriers and producers. The services have been gradually expanded to save administration and increase quality.

The material that was previously buried is today disassembled into the smallest component for decontamination and recycling, but the development does not stop here. Together with our producers and recyclers, we look ahead and work for even more resource-efficient recycling. It is to create environmental benefits.