End-of-life electric and electronic equipment management towards the 21st century

Abstract

With the rapid growth of the electronics industry and an ever‐growing environmental awareness world‐wide, an environmentally sound and economically viable management system for end‐of‐life (EOL) electric and electronic equipment (EEE) is of great importance for sustainable development. Traditional recycling and processing of EOL electronics directed towards the recovery of copper and precious metals, will be faced with many challenges in the future. It has been recognized by the EOL EEE recycling industry that a new strategy for EOL EEE must be developed. In this paper, current status and future trends in EOL EEE management are presented. Selective dismantling of valuable and hazardous components is evaluated in terms of a grade‐recovery (GR) concept. It is concluded that selective dismantling and mechanical processing must be coordinated in such a way as to produce suitable materials for subsequent handling at the lowest cost. Furthermore, new developments in mechanical and thermal processing of EOL EEE are also discussed, which involve water table and eddy current separation techniques and reduction of dioxins and furans during combustion of the plastics containing halogenated flame retardants. In addition, the challenges and perspectives associated with EOL management of plastics and cathode ray tubes (CRTs) encountered in EOL EEE are highlighted in this paper. It is predicted that EEE, being designed for recycling in the 21st century, will be processed and recycled economically and ecologically on becoming obsolete.

High-Stiffness, Lock-and-Key Heat-Reversible Locator-Snap Systems for the Design for Disassembly

“…In addition, due to the large variance in the objective function evaluation times, some processors may still be overworked leading to slight load imbalance between processors. [136]. In the USA, California's electronic waste recycling act [137] considered the following devices hazardous and cannot be discarded in the regular trash.…”

Reverse logistics system planning for recycling computers hardware: A case study

“…Many researchers have discussed reverse logistics system planning for EOL consumer products disposition (Yoshida et al, 1999;Zhang et al, 2000). System planning should consider several aspects to establish a good EOL disposition system: collection, disassembly, recycle, market for reclaimed materials, and final disposal.…”

A new model of repulsive force in eddy current separation for recovering waste toner cartridges

“…ECS was used to separate aluminum from the plastic of crushed waste TC. ECS has been an effective separation technology in resource recycling industries such as recycling light metals from end-of-life vehicles [8][9][10][11]. It is also a good recovery technology for e-waste such as discarded PC, end-of-life household appliances, etc.…”