Record year for Irish e-waste recycling but outdated EU rules fail to capture the full picture
June 18, 2026
Consumers recycled a record 21.1 million electronic and electrical waste items in Ireland in 2025, up from 18.8 million in 2024, new data shows.
But despite the record performance, the country’s largest e-waste recycling scheme warned that the European measurement system fails to capture the full picture of the nation’s recycling progress.
Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Ireland said that by measuring recycling as a percentage of sales, the system does not properly reflect longer product lifespans or emerging waste streams.
The organisation’s Annual Environmental Report 2025 published this week, details progress in its 20th year of operation, showed that close to 39,000 tonnes of e-waste were collected nationwide last year – or 7,425 truckloads.
The report also revealed that 84 per cent of counties increased their WEEE recycling rates year-on-year, while an average 82 per cent of materials collected were recovered for reuse in manufacturing, exceeding EU recovery requirement of 80 per cent.
The e-waste haul included 18.5 million small appliances, 1.9 million lighting products, 278,222 TVs and monitors and 123,060 fridge-freezers.
WEEE Ireland CEO Leo Donovan said the current system measures e-waste collection against the volume of new electrical goods placed onto the market over the previous 3 year period, with Ireland falling short of Europe’s 65 per cent collection target.
In 2025, Irish producers placed 25kg of household electrical equipment per person on the market.
“Ireland is recycling more electrical waste than ever before and consumers are making a real effort to do the right thing. But Europe’s current measurement system was designed for a very different market,” said Mr Donovan.
“Current collection rate targets do not adequately reflect modern consumption patterns, long product lifespans, or emerging technologies such as solar PV systems and heat pumps.
“These products may not enter the recycling stream for decades, yet they are already included in today’s sales-based targets.
“With the re-evaluation of the WEEE Directive in progress, WEEE Ireland supports a more modern approach to measuring the effectiveness of national recycling systems.”
Mr Donovan said “quality recovery” is becoming just as important as collection volumes as Europe seeks to secure critical raw materials needed for renewable energy systems and future manufacturing technologies.
“Europe is moving towards a model where circular economy performance will matter just as much as collection volumes,” he said.
“The focus now has to move beyond simply collecting waste to ensuring valuable materials including lithium, copper, cobalt and aluminium are recovered to strict standards and kept within the circular economy.”
“Ireland is well positioned to respond to those changes due to sustained investment in our recycling infrastructure, compliance systems and public awareness campaigns over the past two decades.”
1,284 tonnes of portable waste batteries were collected last year, achieving the EU’s 45 per cent battery collection target. Lithium battery collection more than doubled in five years, while more than 1.4 million vape devices were recycled through WEEE Ireland’s national takeback scheme.
Consumers are encouraged to recycle old and broken electricals, and waste batteries free of charge through local authority civic amenity centres, participating retailers and WEEE Ireland collection events nationwide.