“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

Chemisches Recycling von Polyethylenterephthalat und Polymethylmethacrylat

Different processes for chemical recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and the pyrolysis of aluminium hydroxide filled poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) were investigated in this thesis. The main focus was the use of the Hamburg fluidized bed process at temperatures between 400 C and 730 C.SIGLEAvailable from: http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/disse/970/dissertation.pdf / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

The price of resource consumption using the Ecopoint concept under consideration of regional differences

Abstract The Ecopoint concept was developed to control the worldwide resource consumption. Resource shares are distributed to the world’s population and freely traded among individuals. The number of shares limit the amount of resources that can be used. In this work, the question is investigated how plastic production is affected by such a system under special consideration of local difference in the energy generation and way of goods transportation. The polymerization of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) was modelled using a combination of the databases Ecoinvent 3.4 and Exiobase 2.2 for different feedstocks: fossil fuel in Brazil, the USA, and Germany; sugar cane in Brazil and India; maize in the USA; and grass in Switzerland. As a result, regional conditions have a strong impact on the resource consumption and the Ecopoint price. Using mainly fossil fuels for energy production increases the Ecopoint price by 30%. The combination of renewable energy and biomass as feedstock can significantly reduce the resource consumption. The resource consumption of the combination of fossil fuel for energy production and biomass as feedstock for HDPE is comparable to the use of renewable energy and fossil fuel as a feedstock. An Ecopoint price of 0.07 to 0.12 US$ would make HDPE from biomass competitive to such from fossil fuel.</jats:p