What does the recycling fee consist of?

The recycling fee consists of the collection, transport, recycling and processing of waste equipment.

All urban settlements should have local collection points, and in total, there should be at least 450 of them. Waste equipment is also collected at about 1,800 stores.

Logistics and the long transport distances in Fin-land account for a significant part of the collection costs. In addition, waste equipment must be collected according to the type of processing required by the waste equipment. For this reason, the fees cannot be the same for all equipment.

SERTY has 500 containers and 100 open platforms, changed and emptied on a daily basis by 10 combination vehicles. The average length of a route is 465km.

New WEEE classification in force

The new equipment classification (Open Scope), specified in the Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, entered into force on 15/08/2018. The members of SERTY began reporting according to the new equipment classification as of January 2019.

The transition into the new six-point WEEE classification has gone well for our member companies. If necessary, we can give more detailed information about reporting.

Return B2B products for free

The members of SERTY can now return B2B products to appropriate collection points for free, keeping in mind the size limitations set out in the Directive. Follow a link to a list of collection points from our start page: www.serty.fi (in Finnish only).

If a location generates large quantities of waste equipment, or if the member company has large quantities of it in their storage or maintenance facilities, the member company can negotiate direct pick-ups. If necessary, SERTY can provide permanent collection equipment. If this applies to your company, please contact Managing Director Arto Puumalainen: 050 438 2635 / arto.puumalainen @ serty.fi.

Small quantities can also be returned to consumer product collection points. Their addresses and opening hours can be found on www.kierratys.info (‘electrical equipment’).

Information on quantities for 2018

In 2018, the member companies of SERTY put almost 40,000 tons of new electrical and electronic equipment on the market.

We collected and recycled 5,750 tons of refrigeration equipment, 7,450 tons of large household appliances, 3,750 tons of small household appliances, and 3,000 tons of monitors and televisions. This means that a total of 20,000 tons of waste equipment was recycled and processed through SERTY.

Recycling data equipment through the Seiffi service

Seiffi is a service for safely processing all equipment containing data, developed by the SER-kierrätys, Posti postal service, and Kuusankoski Oy. You can follow the journey of your equipment from the collection point to being processed. Once the data has been destroyed, you get a verification message to your email address.

After this, the materials will be separated and sent to be recycled for industrial use. For example, 99 percent of the materials of a laptop can be recycled.

For further information and instructions, go to www.seiffi.fi (in Finnish only).

Consumer survey 2018

SERTY has analysed consumer awareness of recycling electrical and electronic waste equipment in 2010, 2016, and December 2018. The surveys were conducted by Taloustutkimus.

Over the years, the consumer awareness of recycling electrical and electronic waste equipment has steadily increased: in 2018, 90% of the respondents said they knew where to return electrical and electronic waste equipment, compared to the 79% in 2010.

The use of collection and recycling services for electrical and electronic waste equipment has also increased since the last survey. More than 70% of the respondents had used these services in the past two years.

Awareness of the options for returning electrical and electronic waste equipment was highest among people living in rural areas, people who were highly educated, and especially people over the age of fifty. People over the age of fifty are also the most diligent when it comes to using collection and recycling services for electrical and electronic waste equipment.