End-of-Life Recovery and Recycling Technologies in White Goods Sector

Start - Finish:

2004-2007

Research Conducted by:

M. Abu-Baker, S. Rahimifard

Keywords:

Product Recovery, Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, Waste Management, Recycling of Consumer Electronic Products

Aims & Objectives:

This research aims to investigate the various end-of-life options for electrical and electronic equipment which are targeted by WEEE Directive and to develop a decision support system to identify the most appropriate end-of-life option for particular electrical and electronic equipment. It is argued that this will facilitate the wide adoption of recovery and recycling technologies in these industrial sectors and thus, resulting in more effective end-of-life management of electrical and electronic equipment

Brief Description

The production of electrical and electronic equipment is increasing due to technological innovation, market expansion, shorter product life cycles and improvements in economy. Parallel to this development, environmental degradation has become a big concern and governments are formulating “producer responsibility” laws to put pressure on companies to manufacture products having minimum eco-burden. It had been predicted that 7.3 million tonnes of electronic waste was produced in Europe in 2002 with growth rates of 3 – 5%. Although proportion of this waste (mainly white goods) has been recycled, a large proportion of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) which contains potentially recyclable material is being sent to landfill. The consumption of scarce materials in the manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment and its disposal to scarce landfill sites along with environmental problems caused by electrical and electronic waste has caused concerns among the governments, environmentalists, manufacturers and consumers.

As a result European Commission issued a “Proposal for a directive on waste from electrical and electronic equipment” (European Commission 2000) that makes the producers of electrical and electronic equipment responsible for take-back and end-of-life management of their products. The directive also specifies collection targets for local authorities as well as recovery and recycling targets for the manufacturers to be met by the given deadlines. Such laws have been enacted in Japan and are actively debated at the Federal and State levels in USA. This has prompted many firms to become environmentally responsible and embrace end-of-life management in their business models.Despite the technological advances in manufacturing, product recovery and recycling still remains a cost/time bottleneck. Due to this reason, it is seen that recovery of end-of-life products is not carried out in the most economical and environment friendly way. This provides impetus for this research project to focus on recovery and recycling technologies as improvements would lead to a more effective end-of-life management of electrical and electronic equipment.

For More information please contact Prof. S. Rahimifard:

S.Rahimifard@lboro.ac.uk