“Control-Alt-Delete”: Rebooting Solutions for the E-Waste Problem

A number of efforts have been launched to solve the global electronic waste (e-waste) problem. The efficiency of e-waste recycling is subject to variable national legislation, technical capacity, consumer participation, and even detoxification. E-waste management activities result in procedural irregularities and risk disparities across national boundaries. We review these variables to reveal opportunities for research and policy to reduce the risks from accumulating e-waste and ineffective recycling. Full regulation and consumer participation should be controlled and reinforced to improve local e-waste system. Aiming at standardizing best practice, we alter and identify modular recycling process and infrastructure in eco-industrial parks that will be expectantly effective in countries and regions to handle the similar e-waste stream. Toxicity can be deleted through material substitution and detoxification during the life cycle of electronics. Based on the idea of "Control-Alt-Delete", four patterns of the way forward for global e-waste recycling are proposed to meet a variety of local situations

"Control-alt-delete": rebooting solutions for the E-waste problem.

A number of efforts have been launched to solve the global electronic waste (e-waste) problem. The efficiency of e-waste recycling is subject to variable national legislation, technical capacity, consumer participation, and even detoxification. E-waste management activities result in procedural irregularities and risk disparities across national boundaries. We review these variables to reveal opportunities for research and policy to reduce the risks from accumulating e-waste and ineffective recycling. Full regulation and consumer participation should be controlled and reinforced to improve local e-waste system. Aiming at standardizing best practice, we alter and identify modular recycling process and infrastructure in eco-industrial parks that will be expectantly effective in countries and regions to handle the similar e-waste stream. Toxicity can be deleted through material substitution and detoxification during the life cycle of electronics. Based on the idea of "Control-Alt-Delete", four patterns of the way forward for global e-waste recycling are proposed to meet a variety of local situations

Environmental Benchmarking of Medium-sized TVs Sold in North America, Europe and Asia (China)

This paper was presented at the 2003 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment. It is published by IEEE Computer Society and the published version can be found at the IEEE Xplore Digital Library (DOI: 10.1109/ISEE.2003.1208104). © IEEE.The environmental benchmarking procedure as developed by the Design for Sustainability Lab of Delft University of Technology and the Environmental Competence Centre of Philips Consumer Electronics has been applied to TVs sold in the market in three continents: North America (USA), Europe and Asia (China). For each region three or four products of different brands have been considered. In total some fifty parameters, which are relevant for the environmental performance have been measured. These measurements allow making calculation of 2002 another project was completed in life cycle performance of the products (based on the Eco Indicator 95 system). The results show big differences in all categories; no brand scores consistently best in all focal areas. It will be concluded that although TVs are seemingly a mature product, different design tradition, different supplier base and difference in speed of latest technology make that in practice differences up to 50% in life cycle performance have been found. Also between products sold in the three regions of the world clear differences were found (although not as big as between best and worst brand performances.) Only partly this observation can be explained by differences in for instance environmental legislation. It will be speculated to what extent the structure of the value chain is responsible. It will be concluded that environmental benchmarking is a powerful tool to systematically track down design improvements and to check on supplier relationships.Philips Consumer Electronic