Waste Electrical And Electronic Equipment
(WEEE) Recycling

As part of the Expanded Producer Responsibility, we established the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling plants in Eskişehir and Bolu in 2014.

By recycling refrigerators in Eskişehir and other white goods and small domestic appliances in Bolu, we minimize the environmental impact of the products throughout their life cycle and contribute to the circular economy.  Arçelik is pioneer in this field with its activities and is also the only company which is both manufacturer and owner of such a plant in its sector in Türkiye.

Our plant in Eskişehir is the first recycling plant in Turkey where chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases, ozone depleting compounds which were used in old refrigerators, are collected in a closed system. Materials such as plastic, iron, copper, and aluminum obtained from recycled WEEEs find their way back to the economy in accordance with resource efficiency policy. WEEEs collected in other categories are sent to our contracted recycling plants that have environmental permits and licenses

In 2014, we launched Turkey 's largest recycling movement under the slogan "Let's return to nature." Through this campaign, we have been replacing the old products of our customers with newer, more efficient Arçelik products, irrespective of their brands, and reassessing the collected WEEEs in the economy thanks to our extensive network of authorized service shops. Each year, we report the number of units replaced with more efficient ones on our Sustainability Reports. For further details, please refer to Arçelik Sustainability Reports.

As a closing the loop example, we separate and recycle plastic parts of waste dishwashers, which are sent to our WEEE recycling plants and use as recycled polypropylene materials in the fan parts of our dishwashers.

Thanks to our WEEE recycling plants in Turkey, we gained TRY 11.2 million in 2020; TRY 42.5 million in 2021; TRY 32.9 million in 2022, and TRY 53.2 million in 2023 by selling scraps (metals, plastics, glasses, etc.) which were obtained by recycling of collected WEEE's from customers.

In Turkey, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK, approx. 11% of the total put on the market product (electrical and electronic equipment, EEE) weight has been collected and/or recycled/reused in 2023.

We comply with the Basel Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention and perform responsible recycling of WEEE in each country. In countries outside Turkey where WEEE is managed by regulation, we work with producer responsibility organizations (PROs) or compliance schemes to comply with local WEEE regulations.