About the E-waste Race

What is E-waste? 

E-waste stands for electronic waste. At present, slightly more than half of the total amount of electronic waste is not recycled in the Netherlands. This is a huge waste, because it is full of valuable materials. Consider what you may still have at home: an old mobile phone, alarm clock, broken printer or DVD player? Recycling can be improved by making it easier and more fun. We do this with the E-waste Race!

What is the E-waste Race?

During the E-waste Race, students from Years 6, 7 and 8 receive an inspiring and interactive guest lesson. The lesson teaches them about the importance of recycling e-waste. After this guest lesson, the participating groups compete against each other to collect as much e-waste, (small) electronic devices as possible. The group that collects the most per student wins a fantastic school trip for the whole class!

Students will be supported by our website during the race. Local residents can register e-waste on the website and indicate when it can be collected. The participating groups can visit the local residents at the designated time to collect the e-waste. On the website, the students can see daily how much they have collected as well as see how much other schools have already collected.

Recycling

The E-waste Race works together with local municipalities and local waste companies. The e-waste that is collected at schools is properly disposed of and recycled by these parties.

Municipalities where we organise the E-waste Race have a contract with Weee Nederland or Wecycle, who ensure the producer responsibility for taking back and having E-waste recycled is being properly followed. Wecycle and Weee NL ensure that collected e-waste from municipalities ends up correctly at reputable recyclers. High demands are placed on these recyclers.

By working together with Weee Nederland, the local municipalities and the local waste collection service, the E-waste Race ensures that a lot of e-waste is returned to the cycle.

Research by Eindhoven University of Technology has shown that the E-waste Race provides a positive behavioral change and more awareness among students and their immediate environment, such as parents and teachers, with regard to the recycling of electronic waste. Click here for the full research report.

Reuse of Electronics

During the guest lessons that we give, we pay a lot of attention to the reuse of electronic devices. We make the students aware that they can almost always make others happy with their e-waste by taking it to a thrift store, when it still works well, or by giving it to someone else or reselling it. In this way we generate awareness about the importance of reuse.

Repairing Electronics

Another important aspect of our project is repair. By making students aware that electronic devices can often be repaired, even by yourself, devices can last much longer and there is automatically less e-waste.

We can even provide schools with a live disassembly workshop, in which students learn what is inside an electronic device. They learn that repairing a device does not have to be that difficult at all.

Sustainable purchases

We think it is important that people shop consciously and sustainably. We have several partnerships with companies that make durable electronic devices. By providing discount codes from these companies to both the students and the people who offer e-waste through our website, they learn that there are sustainable alternatives to their electronic devices. Through this piece of awareness, we hope that they will shop sustainably from now on.