Electronics End of Life

End of life

Introduction

Electronics at end of life can have a big environmental impact if not dealt with in correct manner. PC recycling is essential to reduce the environmental impacts at end-of-life. Recycling of electronic products can be a costly process for our company. The recycling of a product should begin in the design stage, when designing a product we have to consider the following factors to make the product easier to recycle and recover materials at end of life:

    • The selection and use of materials
    • The design of components and product architecture
    • The method used to recycle and recover the materials

At end of life “take back” systems should be put in place for recycling and re-use of materials.

Design for recyclability

Many electronic products are designed for the dump. They have short-life spans, or become obsolete quickly and difficult to recycle. They are often expensive to repair, and sometimes it’s difficult to find parts. Many consumer-grade electronics products are cheaper to replace than to fix. Design for recyclability allows the product and its components to be better suited for re-use or recycling when it has reached its end of life, thus reducing the scale of resources required to create new products.

Use of materials:
When designing a product we should try and reduce as much as possible the amount of materials used to produce it. We should also try to use recyclable materials such as arsenic free glass and high grade aluminium which can be recycled for use in new products. Choosing compatible materials is also important when recycling. Reduced separation times for disassembly can be achieved through the careful selection of materials, some parts may not require disassembly if they are made from the same or similar materials. Where possible make components from the same material and grade.  Where different materials are used clearly mark each part with material identification for ease of sorting.... [continues]

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