Responding to an increasingly complex market landscape, SERI commissioned research into the challenges and opportunities emerging in the e-plastics market. Electronics reuse and recycling industry stakeholders are invited to share input on the research to help the industry chart a path toward compliant and environmentally sustainable management of these challenging materials.  

The global trade regime for plastic scrap from electronics has been changing rapidly in recent years, driven by import-export restrictions added to the Basel Convention. These Basel updates, which first went into effect in January 2021, add controls on the trade of mixtures of polymers, including those derived from electronics. 

Called Y48 plastics (named after the classification added to Annex II of the Basel Convention), these mixtures of scrap plastic are now subject to special consideration. Basel Convention party countries approved this classification over concerns that contaminants in Y48 plastics could end up as pollution, particularly in developing countries.  

What the special consideration means for R2-certified facilities varies depending on the countries involved. Some need to obtain advance permission from exporting and importing countries’ governments before they can ship cargo. For others, shipments will be outright prohibited.  

Recognizing the continuing challenges these changes to international law have presented for R2-certified facilities worldwide, in the fall of 2023 SERI commissioned an e-plastics survey sent to approximately 370 electronics recycling companies certified to Appendix E of the R2 Standard, as well as follow-up research to help better understand the e-plastics landscape. The report is based on a small sampling of the total market and does not present a statistically representative snapshot of the global industry.

To make the report more robust and inspiring for all our readers, SERI supplemented the report with reactions, additional insight, feedback, and other input from industry stakeholders. Our goal was to gather input that help inform global approaches to address the challenges presented. SERI and R2 did not usher in these regulatory changes, but we want to help inform approaches that the whole value chain can pursue to help the electronics recycling industry navigate them.

With the feedback period now closed, SERI has compiled the constructive feedback anonymously into an appendix to the report, a final version is now available for download.