E-waste is defined as any component or item with a plug or battery.¹ With this definition in mind, a stocktake of an enterprise-scale company’s monitors, computers, servers, sensors, tools, and more reveals the scale of the issue. Even well-intentioned purchases, such as photovoltaics and heat pumps, can end up in the e-waste pile if not carefully managed.

At the smaller end of this stocktake, handsets and monitoring devices contain rare earth elements and have historically had a short shelf life. At the larger end, screens and HVAC equipment have longer lifespans but are bulkier and more complex to recycle.

Addressing the issue means looking not only at the component parts but also the product lifecycle. This is why the Singtel Group runs customer and employee e-waste collection schemes to prevent devices from ending up in landfill. 

NCS runs an e-waste collection day for employees and makes the collection bins available in the office at all times. In just one day 424kg of personal e-waste items were collected. At Singtel stores and customer touchpoints, 49.5 tonnes of e-waste was collected and diverted from landfill.

Empowering customers and employees to take an active role in reducing e-waste enhances the company’s impact and lowers the costs of running year-round schemes.

For Singaporean companies subject to the National Environmental Agency’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, these easy-to-deploy projects ensure compliance and help avoid associated penalties.²

Just 12% of e-waste in Asia is recycled despite 18 countries enacting a national e-waste policy, legislation or regulation.³

Part of this slowness is due to the cost of recycling e-waste, both the cost to recycle and the environmental impact of additional processing. However, companies that break down this cost forecast over the entire product lifecycle often find that the cost of producing the same item far outweighs the cost of recycling. 

Redefining recycling as a potential profit source rather than a sunk cost also creates new revenue opportunities for companies willing to engage in refurbishing or recycling devices. A notable success story in Singapore is Reebelo, a sustainable tech marketplace that launched in 2019 and reported a six-fold revenue increase by its third year of operation.⁴ The company has already removed 5 tonnes of e-waste from circulation and aims to create an entirely circular economy for technology.

Another company finding success from this strategy is the Carousell Group, a marketplace that partners with large-scale companies to create e-commerce channels for refurbished and recycled items that would otherwise become e-waste. The company is expanding its focus from small devices to larger items such as e-bikes.⁵

These buy-back, e-waste collection and reselling schemes offer companies a second revenue stream for once-paid-for items as well as increasing the product's value by prolonging its lifecycle.