Eco-efficiency considerations on the end-of-life of consumer electronic products

In order to improve the eco-efficiency at the end-of-life phase of consumer electronic products, comprehensive assessments should be made. To aim at minimal end-of-life treatment costs against maximal environmental recovery, within the technical limits of current and future recycling infrastructures, all relevant technical, economical and environmental aspects should be addressed. In this article a newly developed eco-efficiency concept is presented which makes it possible to execute ecoefficiency calculations on a range of technical, logistic, economical and policy issues, like the settings for shredding and separation processes, disassembly depth for products, and logistic changes at the collection stage. From this, it is shown that environmental recovery and economic recovery often go hand in hand. The example of cellular phone processing shows for instance that the "eco-efficiency over the product chain" can be improved, within the technical limitations of current recycling infrastructures, by separate collection, adjusted shredding and separation technology and selected design adaptations.

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