Reaping what WEEE sow: The potential for harvesting spare parts for repair and refurbishment

A Circular Economy (CE) calls for the value of materials and products to be maintained and recovered through narrowing, closing, and slowing loops. However, there remain challenges in moving up the waste hierarchy and not only recycling materials from products, but also capturing value through reuse of components in refurbished and repaired products. In this paper, we examine the practice of “harvesting” spare parts from discarded white goods and consumer electronics in Norway, Sweden and California. Through literature review and interviews, we examine the sources of WEEE and potential spare parts, the use and markets for harvested spare parts, and the harvesting process itself. We identify key conditions, actors, and barriers and discuss how spare part harvesting could be upscaled to support increasing repair and refurbishment activities, which can increase product lifetimes and reduce waste

Product lifetime, right to repair, and repair cafes

Achieving a more circular production and consumption pattern will require consumers to make proactive choices regarding practices such as repair and product life extension. However, galvanizing such choices and practices may not be left alone up to consumers because their behaviors are driven not only by internal factors (e.g., attitude and motivation), but also by external (e.g., economic, social, and political) factors. Having a clear understanding of these factors in play will help to set expectations for behavioral change from consumers’ side and to plan behavioural interventions that are effective in terms of the expected results, efficient in terms of the cost of implementation, and feasible in terms of social and political acceptance. This paper explores these behavioral and non-behavioral elements affecting the decision to participate in circular practices. It takes the repair case of electrical and electronic products at public repair events to document factors governing the facilitation of repair practices. A questionnaire survey was conducted among nearly a thousand volunteer repairers with experience in repairing two product groups: small electrical appliances (e.g., vacuum cleaner, mixer, and coffee maker) and small electronic equipment (e.g., smartphone, laptop, and tablet)