TNO 2022 P10846_Kenya Project Report WP3 and 4_vs1
This sub-report presents the results for activity 3 and 4. The aim of these activities is to identify practices for value retention processes (circular processes) and for system structures from other countries. These best practices give input to give recommendations for handling LHHA’s in Kenya. The value retention practices are clustered in three groups: reuse, repair/refurbishment and recycling. The practice identified for re-use focuses on online platforms where households sell or offer LHHA’s for free or low price to other households. Through such platforms a high level of interaction is reached, which also indicates the value of second-hand LHHA’s. Repair activities are important for extending the lifetime of appliances and provides vivid economic activity in a country: many profitable initiatives are set up around repair worldwide. In France, Italy and Norway companies can be found that collect spare parts or whole appliances via online platforms and use this to repair LHHA’s. After being repaired/refurbished, the appliances are sold or given back to the household that asked for repair and warranties can be given with this. Initiatives in Nigeria and Ghana focus on communicating how households can safely dismantle and repair their appliances by themselves, and if necessary, information on where the appliances can be handed in is provided. For recycling there are several common practices/technologies existing. In general treatment consists of the following steps:
(1) pre-treatment, separation of components, often done manually;
(2) automated treatment, shredding and further separation per material type. Proper treatment of cooling appliances and refrigerators is in particular important due to the ozone depletion potential and high greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) coming from those appliances. A step that needs to be added for cooling appliances is the recovery of refrigerants, the refrigerants have to be sucked out to prevent hazardous emissions of the gases into the environment. This step comes between step 1 and 2.
