Tracking e-waste

Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform (ANZRP) has noted with concern the recent reports in the media which found practices of likely illegal dumping of Australia’s e-waste in southeast Asia. The report (GPS trackers in e-waste from Australia reveal ‘likely’ illegal exports to South-East Asia – ABC News), which was based on a GPS tracking exercise conducted by the Basel Action Network (BAN), found that there had been instances where non-reusable e-waste which had been generated and disposed of in Australia, had ended up in southeast Asian countries in likely contravention of the laws that govern such practices.

BAN installed GPS tracking devices in 35 LCD computer monitors and printers, which were then dropped off at recycling locations in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney in February 2025. Nearly a year on, the organisation found that twenty-eight trackers were still in Australia and “in motion”, and seven devices had been exported to countries in South-East Asia. ANZRP is disturbed by these findings and fully supports efforts to strengthen transparency, compliance, enforcement and trust across Australia’s e-waste recycling system.

What ANZRP does to manage risk and drive compliance

As a co-regulatory arrangement under the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) since its inception, ANZRP operates a robust audit and compliance framework across its entire e-waste supply chain, including independent audits, recycler certification requirements and the use of GPS tracking for additional assurance. This includes third party certification and independent audits of recycling partners, regular audits of collection, transport and recycling partners, and ongoing verification of downstream material flows to ensure alignment with regulatory and environmental requirements and to confirm material recovery rates. Read more about the ANZRP approach to compliance here.

As part of this framework, ANZRP has also been running a GPS tracker program for four years, deploying trackers in selected e-waste loads to provide additional assurance that material collected under its arrangements is transported to approved recyclers and processed as intended. This program complements ANZRP’s broader compliance, audit and reporting controls.

Driving improvements to the NTCRS

ANZRP recognises there are gaps in the current NTCRS that limit consistent oversight across the sector, which is why ANZRP is actively working with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to strengthen recycler engagement requirements and introduce more consistent, auditable material recovery reporting. ANZRP has developed a paper outlining a range of improvements that can be made and we hope to meet with the minister to outline these recommendations.