Electrical and electronic equipment waste considerations: Case study: Tv sets in Colombia

In Colombia the increasing trend in the consumption habits of electrical and electronic equipment, EEE, is notable, though it is not as high as in developed countries due to the population´s socio-economic and cultural conditions. Those conditions make the reuse as well as storing, a predominant practice. In this paper the question of which conditions influence the shaping of a system for dealing with waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is addressed. The existing literature is reviewed to uncover traditional conditions, and then the results of an empirical study focusing on consumer behavior are presented, including a survey among the population of Bogotá. This study focuses on the Tv sets, the EEE with highest penetration in Colombian households, allowing to find differences in the socio-economical strata, dissimilar to developing Asian or African countries conditions. Currently, in Colombia there exist approximately 19 million of Tv sets and this amount is expected to increase at an annual rate of 20%. If a WEEE system is introduced in 2011 it will be expected to collect 0.2 kg/person/year and would rise up to 0.35 kg/person/year in 2019. Based on consumer behavior analysis and from the physical flow is possible to determine the appropriate operation conditions of a WEEE system for the regio