Europe Is Not Recycling Its E-Waste – It Is Exporting the Problem

by Kilian Kaminski, on Feb 20, 2026

Germany and Europe like to talk about the circular economy. About responsibility. And yet it has been a decade of empty promises. Former Federal Chancellor Scholz worked closely with the Alliance for Transformation, whose policy paper states that Germany could assume a pioneering role (Federal Government, 2024). Since 2025, there has been little progress here; under Merz, impulses to truly advance the circular economy have been lacking.

And in one area, there is particularly great silence: electronic waste. Because e-waste is not just a recycling problem. It is a consumption problem, a governance problem, and ultimately a responsibility problem that Europe quietly and hypocritically outsources. Not in statistics, not in political speeches – but in containers. And to countries that neither benefited from the original value creation nor have the means to safely manage the consequences.

And while these volumes continue to rise, only 42.8 percent of Europe’s e-waste is officially documented, collected, and recycled (E-Waste Monitor, 2025). That amounts to just 26.5 million tonnes. In 2025, 14.4 million tonnes of electronic equipment were sold in the EU – an increase of 89% since 2012 – which in countries such as Germany, France, Austria, and Italy translates into per capita consumption of 33–45 kg. And yet only 5.2 million tonnes of e-waste were collected and routed through official recycling channels (European Environmental Bureau, 2025).

Co-founder Kilian Kaminski

The ‘Blind Spots’ of Europe’s Self-Description

Europe generates more electronic waste per capita than any other world region (E-Waste Monitor, 2025). And yet the notion persists that the problem is “under control” as long as citizens bring devices to the correct collection points or make use of initiatives such as the repair bonus. The symbolic act – proper disposal – becomes moral relief for consumers and policymakers.

But this is precisely where the real discomfort begins: A significant share of what is considered “treated” in Europe is not processed within Europe. It is exported – often declared as “used goods” (Right to Repair, 2020). According to the Basel Action Network, which regulates global waste trade as part of the UN Basel Convention, the so-called “Repairables Loophole” is the biggest problem here. This loophole makes it possible for scrap to be declared as used goods. In 2017, the Basel Action Network published a report on the European export of electronic waste, in which it tracked certain exports using GPS trackers – and the results not only show the complexity of recycling routes but further expose this loophole: Even though recycling and export are not the problem in theory, the key issue is that waste is declared as repairable goods. Even if logical and correct considerations originally formed the basis here, it leads to massive amounts of electronic waste being shipped to the Global South.

And even though the numbers are known, their consequences are suppressed: The most recent United Nations Global E-Waste Monitor estimates global e-waste generation in 2022 at 62 million tonnes (E-Waste Monitor, 2025) – the fastest-growing waste stream worldwide, three times faster than household waste. 62 million tonnes weigh roughly as much as 390 Cologne Cathedrals or 520 Allianz Arenas and disappear into informal structures, onto landfills, or into export chains that do not solve the problem but merely relocate it. This scale is not truly understood by most consumers – but it is by policymakers. I ask myself how that is possible. And the answer is regrettable: Because policymakers do not look closely, tolerate grey areas, enforce no consequences for serious misconduct, and can still derive economic advantages from it. This is not a technical glitch. It is a political and societal pattern: growth at any cost; growth that is blind to consequences. And consumption that is unrestrained and possible without any direct consequences for us in Central Europe.

Together with my colleagues from EUREFAS, the European Refurbishment Association, I recently also worked on the Waste Shipment Regulation – with the aim that electronic products are not declared as waste – because once they are considered waste, it becomes enormously bureaucratic and administratively complex to be allowed to further treat them (e.g., refurbish them). This is where the problem already begins. For this, refurbishers would, for example, need their own licenses to comply with special requirements. In addition, once products are labeled as waste, they are no longer handled carefully. This means that transport and sorting damage them to such an extent that further processing is no longer possible. This clearly runs counter to the circular economy. EUREFAS’ goal here is to ensure that these goods remain in Europe – in order to enable the European circular economy, strengthen independence in terms of resources, and reduce the negative impact on the environment and especially on people in the Global South. But the picture remains complicated.

We as consumers learn from an early age to separate waste – and yet the Global South becomes Europe’s dumping ground – despite ongoing attempts to tackle the problem further at its root.

The Wrong Debate: It’s Not Just About Smartphones

Electronic waste is still often reduced in public discourse to mobile phones and laptops. In reality, the largest share consists of a much less visible stream: household appliances, toys, tools, chargers, cables, smart small devices – in short: the electronic background noise of our everyday lives (E-Waste Monitor, 2025).

Many of these products are not built for longevity. They are difficult to repair, often glued instead of screwed, spare parts are missing or expensive (Right to Repair, 2025). The result is a culture of rapid replacement – and a recycling system that has never kept pace with the reality of product design. The EU-wide “Right to Repair” must be implemented into German law by mid-year. From then on, it will require that electronic devices remain reasonably repairable even outside the statutory warranty period. A thoroughly good approach – no longer just “nice to have,” but binding. What is decisive now is that the German federal government transposes the EU directive fully, ambitiously, and without loopholes into national law.

West Africa Is Not an Outlier, but a Mirror

One of the best-known sites for electronic waste is the Agbogbloshie waste zone in Ghana: it covers nearly 1,600 hectares – 2,200 football fields – and vividly demonstrates that the problem is not that “Africa” cannot recycle. The site shows what happens when European overproduction, short product lifecycles, and deliberately created regulatory grey areas for weak export controls meet global inequality (United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, n.d.). According to the Center for International Environmental Law, this grey area, or “loophole,” consists in the fact that actual electronic waste can easily be declared and exported as second-hand goods – under the guise of the repairability of these devices (GHScientific, n.d.).

When cables are burned in informal recycling structures and dumpsites in Ghana in order to extract copper (Environmental Health News, 2024), this is often framed in European debates as a local problem: lack of infrastructure, insufficient regulation, informal labor. But this narrative is convenient because it reverses cause and effect.

Informal recycling structures in the Global South are not weaknesses, but an economic response to a global material flow (African Center, Dr. Mao Amis & Kennedy Simango, n.d.), whose value Europe extracts while the toxic costs land elsewhere. The images of dumpsites are familiar – and often serve to shift responsibility. Yet creative, efficient solutions have long emerged: upcycling, repair, reuse. Not out of comfort, but out of necessity – as a consequence of Western consumption patterns. Initiatives such as those of GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation, n.d.) or NGOs and impact companies are important. But as long as consumption in the Northern Hemisphere does not change, it remains a matter of treating symptoms.

Recycling as a Moral Alibi

The container becomes a symbol: what is collected is considered solved. For Europeans, it is: “Out of sight, out of mind.” We see, however, that the problem only truly begins at that point. The EU has a clear waste hierarchy: prevention, reduction, reuse, repair (BMUV, 2017) – and only once the full higher-value potential of a product has been exhausted: recycling. In practice, however, e-waste is treated almost exclusively as an end-of-life problem. As a question of collection rates.

But this is a fallacy. A policy that increases recycling targets without changing production and product design produces primarily one thing: good PR while the material flood remains unchanged. It allows Europe to stage itself as sustainable while relocating the uncomfortable parts of the value chain out of sight. What is needed are solutions that are economically viable – for the EU as well as for the Global South. How much longer will it take before European consumers understand that their governments are not recycling, but shipping?

Europe’s Prosperity Has a Material Side

Electronic waste reveals a deeper tension in Europe’s sustainability project. An economic system based on ever shorter product cycles cannot be repaired at the end of the chain. And a continent that preaches global standards loses credibility when it exports the consequences of its consumption.

As long as prevention, durability, and reduced consumption remain politically uncomfortable, recycling becomes a moral excuse: Europe can preserve its self-image – and the material consequences appear elsewhere.

This is not a failure of technology. It is a failure of honesty. As long as we believe that the waste problem can be solved technically without questioning our lifestyle, any rhetoric of progress remains self-deception. What is needed are clear and binding rules for manufacturers, companies, and exports – and a new perspective on our everyday products: smartphones, laptops, household appliances are not disposable goods, but resources for a time. Europe has the size, the intellectual leadership strength, and the talent to tackle these problems and assume a pioneering global role in reducing electronic waste. But the claim to leadership is not proven in strategy papers, but in behavior. Only when we reduce our consumption, repair products, keep them in circulation, refurbish them, and at the very end recycle them properly can Europe credibly speak of progress in the circular economy.

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