CIRCULAR PLACE
Lucas González Sánchez | Director of Innovation at AMBIWASTE
Lucas González Sánchez | Director of Innovation at AMBIWASTE
€2,860,000,000: this is the overall European figure for the value of unsold products in the electrical and electronic equipment sector. This enormous quantity of electrical and electronic devices would encircle the globe twice if we lined them up in their corresponding containers. This gives us an idea of the magnitude of the environmental problem and of the economic value lost every time this surplus stock is destroyed by recycling. Naturally, this figure has not gone unnoticed by the European Commission and in the European Green Pact of March 2020, indications were set out to move towards a ban on the destruction of surplus stocks.
Recently, the proposal on the ecological design of sustainable products includes the enforceable ban on the destruction of unsold products from the textile and electrical and electronic equipment sectors applicable to producers and distributors, in all member states. In Spain, we have anticipated this Regulation, and the Ley de Residuos para una Economía Circular (Law on Waste for a Circular Economy) of April 2022, includes, in its Article 18, the ban on destruction or elimination via landfill of this type of unsold products, prioritising the donation or reuse of the same. This milestone puts us in the vanguard of prevention in Europe, and represents a real challenge for producers.
It was at this point, in early 2022, that the CIRCULAR PLACE idea arose. This is a donation marketplace that puts non-profit organisations into contact with producers and distributors who have surplus stock or unsold returns of electrical and electronic equipment. In this way, social economy projects are supported, at the same time helping to reduce the digital gap in our country. This is accompanied by a firm intention on the part of manufacturers to move forward in waste prevention in line with the waste hierarchy model.
CIRCULAR PLACE is an initiative launched by the EPRCSs Ambilamp, Ecoasimelec, Ecofimática, Ecolec, Ecolum, ECOTIC, ECO-RAEE’S and European Recycling Platform, whose main aims are:
One of the pillars of CIRCULAR PLACE is the community of non-profit organisations that participate in the platform. All these entities are verified by an independent third party to ensure that the donations are addressed to appropriate social and environmental causes, avoiding resale of the products in all cases. Thus, a verified and secure donation environment is created for producers participating in CIRCULAR PLACE. Non-profit organizations may be both NGOs who promote social projects for fighting energy poverty and the digital divide, and training organizations that carry out very important work training future professionals and therefore often need products and components to be used in training said students, who, are sometimes in situations of potential social exclusion.
Solidarity, trust, responsibility and commitment are the pillars on which the CIRCULAR PLACE project is built. Solidarity, by making brand new products available to non-profit organisations for use in their projects. Trust, by creating a donation community where NGOs are verified by an independent third party and producers ensure the donated products are in perfect condition.
Responsibility, as it is the producer itself who ultimately validates whether the donation is made. And finally, commitment, as all participants in the platform ensure that the products are put to good use and are in perfect condition.
In just one year in existence, CIRCULAR PLACE has managed to carry out 406 donations, in which 27,000 units of products have been donated that amount to over 34,000 kg that would otherwise have been turned into waste. We are very proud of these results, but we are confident that in 2023 we will end up with even higher numbers.
The idea, its initial results and the strong support for the project and its participants in preventing waste and in the donation of their unsold products have led to CIRCULAR PLACE being recognised as a Best Practice in the Circular Economy by prestigious organisations and initiatives such as the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, the CEOE, the Club for Excellence in Sustainability and the #ForTheClimate Community.
At CIRCULAR PLACE, the best waste is waste that isn’t generated. More information at www.circularplace.org.
