First e-waste container leaves the WEEE Centre (Kenya) for Antwerp

In December 2011, the first shipment of circuit boards left the WEEE Centre in Nairobi, bound for final processing at Umicore in Belgium.

WorldLoop’s container was one of the first containers of e-waste to be directly imported from East Africa for processing by Umicore. This reverse flow of e-waste is what WorldLoop’s baseline, ‘Changing the e-waste cycle’ is all about.

As a premier, the process for the shipment proved to be challenging to navigate through all the paperwork required from all countries involved. However, with this key learning under our belt we expected future shipments to go much smoother. The processing results of the first container also allowed us to validate the financial feasibility of the ‘best of both worlds’ model. The second container from the WEEE Centre is expected to ship in the second half of 2012.