Ipsos-Erion WEEE analysis: as knowledge levels increase, WEEE management behaviors also improve: the average number of improper deliveries over the past year has decreased from 15 percent to 13 percent
Both the knowledge levels of Italians and their behaviors in the separate collection of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) are improving: this is what emerges one year after the latest analysis of the WEEE Knowledge Observatory carried out by Ipsos for Erion WEEE, the Erion System Consortium dedicated to WEEE management.
According to the study, conducted on a sample of 1,000 Italian citizens to which is added a specific focus on 500 young people aged 18 to 26, familiarity with the term WEEE is increasing from 44 percent to 55 percent over the past year, with an even more noticeable improvement in the case of gen Z, where the percentage of those who have heard the acronym mentioned has almost doubled from 26 percent in 2022 to 50 percent in 2023.
At the territorial level, it is the northern regions of the country that show the greatest increase (from 47 percent to 60 percent), followed by those in the Center (from 46 percent to 57 percent) and in the South (from 37 percent to 47 percent).By contrast, the incidence of those who, in addition to the acronym, also know how to correctly explain the meaning of the word WEEE remains substantially stable, which, at the national level, rises from 38 percent to 39 percent, with a decidedly greater increase among young people where the figure reaches 36 percent, up ten percentage points from last year.
As knowledge levels increase, behaviors related to WEEE management also improve:
the average number of incorrect conferrals over the past year has decreased from 15% to 13%.
Also decreasing is the percentage of those who would dispose of a WEEE in the wrong way: compared to 14 types of products offered (ranging from PCs and smartphones to pedometers and electric toothbrushes) 41 percent of Italians would choose to throw at least one in the plastic or undifferentiated waste container (compared to 45 percent in the previous survey); sharper the decrease in southern regions (from 56 to 48 percent) and among young people (from 57 to 50 percent).
