Up to date, with the ever-increasing variety and quantity of small household appliances and consumer electronics in the market, the recycling processing for small household appliances in Taiwan still heavily relies on hand-dissembling by private collectors and recyclers. It is indeed economically discouraging for collectors to process small household appliances due the high cost of human power and limited returned values. In addition, the pollution control from the hand-processing process is another issue. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a long-term solution for the recycling operation of small household appliances and consumer electronics. This project discusses the feasibility of mechanical processing on small household appliances with the assessment focused on the treatment efficiency, sorting of secondary materials and derived waste, as well as the environmental and economic benefits. Moreover, this project compares the assessment results with traditional hand-processing to propose a feasible standard operation procedure. From this project, we got the results including: 1.Based on the survey on the business of waste small household appliances and the information regarding the scopes in the European Union and Japan, we suggest referring to the standard classification goods of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and defining the “small household appliances” as the electrical products with voltage below 250V and power consumption below 1650W. 2.By the survey on the recycling and disposal status of small household appliances, we found that electronic parts are dismantled by informal processing plants then delivered to plastic and iron to recycling plants. It is estimated about 72,200 to 75,500 tons per year of small household appliances are recycled in Taiwan. 3.About the mechanical processing efficiency: the rate of mass balance is 95.3%; resource recycling rate is 73.4% (including miscellaneous materials); metal sorting purity is over 90%; plastic recycling rate is over 75%. Additionally, by the cost-benefit analysis of mechanical processing, the net benefit is -NT$3.65 per kilogram, and the traditional manual dismantling is NT$0.32 per kilogram. 4.About recycling management, if there is no recycling and disposal pipeline or improper treatment of waste small household appliances, according to Article 5, Paragraph 6 of the Waste Disposal Act, small household appliances can be regulated as the general waste recycling items. If there is no pollution from the disposal of waste small household appliances, according to Article 14, Paragraph 2, the small household appliances can be regulated following the designated general waste disposal methods. If there are many producers but without a recycling organization, the Article 15 can be adopted to regulate the small household appliances as the recyclable waste.

Small home appliances, e-waste, mechanical processing, recycling cost-benefit analysis, mandatory recycling waste management policy