Environmental Impact Evaluation of Mobile Phone via Life Cycle Assessment

This research evaluated levels of environmental impacts of mobile phones throughout its life cycle from cradle to gate using LCA software SimaPro Version7.3.3 and expressed with the ecoindicator'99 life cycle impact assessment method, ecoinvent 2.1 database. By disassembling mobile phone, there are main components 4 parts (mobile phone casing, charger casing, charger, battery). By comparing the impacts of each individual part, charger has higher environment impacts than other parts. The result from the method in mid-point categories by normalization found that environmental impact from mineral extraction has highest impact. The result of Ecoindicator’99 points (Pt) from the method in endpoint categories found that resources (minerals and fossil fuel) depletion is the highest environment impacts. The composition of mobile phone is metal, plastic, rubber and paper. The main composition is metal (50%) and plastic (46%). High percentage of metal and plastic in mobile phone present high potential to be recycle but product re-design and waste collection system are needed to reduce or minimize the impacts from mobile phone.