A preliminary study on e-waste generation from households in Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to estimate waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) generation from households in Malaysia. Secondary data from various reports and literature were adopted and eight common electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) were selected as research subjects, with seven of them are the targeted EEE under voluntary e-waste collection program in Malaysia. There are various e-waste estimation methods available in the literature. By evaluating with current data availability in Malaysia and data requirement of each e-waste estimation method, this study found that the only suitable estimation method of e-waste is consumption and use method. This is due to fact that there is lack of inventory data at national level especially on domestic sales of EEE in Malaysia. Using consumption and use method, the e-waste generation in Malaysia was estimated and compared. The discussion was based on analysis results, and further recommendation to improve estimation of e-waste generation in Malaysia was proposed.