Mayo people recycled 9.1kg of e-waste per person last year

Mayo people recycled 9.1kg of electronic and electrical waste per person last year, beating the 9kg average in the counties covered by Ireland’s largest e waste recycling scheme.

Across Ireland 21.1 million e-waste items were saved from landfill in 2025 - the most ever since Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Ireland began collecting e-waste 20 years ago.

But despite the record performance, the organisation warned that the European measurement system fails to capture the full picture of the nation’s recycling progress.

WEEE Ireland said that by measuring recycling as a percentage of sales, the system does not properly reflect longer product lifespans or emerging waste streams.

Its annual report, detailing progress in its 20th year of operation, showed that close to 39,000 tonnes of e-waste were collected nationwide last year - or 7,425 truckloads.

The report also revealed that 84 per cent of counties increased their e-waste recycling rates year-on-year, while an average 82 per-cent of materials collected were recovered for reuse in manufacturing, exceeding EU recovery requirement of 80 per-cent.

The haul included 18.5 million small appliances, 1.9 million lighting products, 278,222 TV’s and monitors, and 123,060 fridge-freezers.

WEEE Ireland CEO Leo Donovan said the current system measures e-waste collection against the volume of new electrical goods placed onto the market over the previous 3 year period, with Ireland falling short of Europe’s 65 per-cent collection target.

In 2025, Irish producers placed 25kg of household electrical equipment per person on the market.

“Mayo people are making a real effort to do the right thing but Europe’s current measurement system was designed for a very different market,” said Mr. Donovan.

“Current collection rate targets do not adequately reflect modern consumption patterns, long product lifespans, or emerging technologies such as solar PV systems and heat pumps. These products may not enter the recycling stream for decades, yet they are already included in today’s sales-based targets.

“With the re-evaluation of the WEEE Directive in progress, WEEE Ireland supports a more modern approach to measuring the effectiveness of national recycling systems.”

Mr. Donovan said ‘quality recovery’ is becoming just as important as collection volumes as Europe seeks to secure critical raw materials needed for renewable energy systems and future manufacturing technologies.

“Europe is moving towards a model where circular economy performance will matter just as much as collection volumes,” he said.

“The focus now has to move beyond simply collecting waste to ensuring valuable materials including lithium, copper, cobalt and aluminium are recovered to strict standards and kept within the circular economy.”

“Ireland is well positioned to respond to those changes due to sustained investment in our recycling infrastructure, compliance systems and public awareness campaigns over the past two decades.”

A total of 1,284 tonnes of portable waste batteries were collected last year, achieving the EU’s 45 per cent battery collection target. Lithium battery collection more than doubled in five years, while more than 1.4 million vape devices were recycled through WEEE Ireland’s national takeback scheme.

Consumers are encouraged to recycle old and broken electricals and waste batteries free of charge through local authority civic amenity centres, participating retailers and WEEE Ireland collection events nationwide.

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