Advances towards circular economy policies in the EU : the new Ecodesign regulation of enterprise servers

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MAltres ajuts: Beatriu de Pinós; The Environmental Footprint and Material Efficiency Support for Product Policy (European Commission - Directorate General for Environment)Administrative Arrangement 070307/2012/ENV.C1/635340The concept of a circular economy has been widely accepted by governments and industries. In Europe, the European Commission adopted the Circular Economy package in 2015. The Ecodesign Directive has been identified as one of the most suitable legislative tools for achieving some of the objectives in the package because it has the potential to translate the circular economy principles into specific product material efficiency requirements. This paper applies the Ecodesign policy process to "enterprise servers" to illustrate how circular economy strategies can be implemented by European product policies. Indeed, the paper introduces a potential novel approach to "operationalize" circular economy principles in product policies. The evolution of the material efficiency requirements for a more circular economy is described up to their final formulation, which is the one in the published Ecodesign regulation. This legal act includes requirements on design for disassembly, firmware availability, data deletion, and presence of critical raw materials. The process for enterprise servers has been successful as the early discussions between stakeholders, policymakers and experts, supported by appropriate metrics along an iterative debate, comes to the publications of material efficiency requirements in a regulation. This study represents a 'first-of-a-kind' experience, and sets precedents for the development of similar requirements for other product groups

Investigating a repair workshop: the reuse of washing machines in Barcelona

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICUnidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MThe reuse and repair of products are often good strategies from a holistic resource conservation perspective. Many organizations active in reuse concentrate in cities where a greater share of wasted electrical and electronic equipment is generated. The number of companies active in the reuse of these products is still limited, and information about the procedures and, more importantly, about the equipment effectively reused is not publicly available yet in many cases. This leads to imprecise knowledge about reuse in these organizations and unreliable data about the progress to a circular economy in cities and regions. The release of new standards on material efficiency represents a big step towards the harmonization of methods and indicators to monitor reuse and repair of products, but its use is challenging for existing workshops. This study examines the reuse of washing machines (WMs) at a local workshop with the objective of understanding the internal procedures for repair and reuse and defining indicators suitable to monitor these activities. The assessment at the company level shows that in 2018, approximately 77% of the WMs collected were recycled, 10% were repaired (80% of these needed multiple parts) and 2% were refurbished. At the product level, the proportion of reused components varies greatly from 4% to 14% when calculated by number on products to 60% when considering number balance. An economic analysis shows that using spare parts from wasted WMs increases the economic benefits up to 3-fold. In conclusion, the indicators proposed are useful to understand the performance of these workshops and potentially useful to quantify reuse at the city and regional scales

Examining the feasibility of the urban mining of hard disk drives

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Altres ajuts: Beatriu de Pinós 2016 BP 00132Cities are becoming one of the greatest generators of waste and thus a potential source of secondary materials. One of the most attractive waste streams in cities is waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as they contain many valuable metals, mainly in the printed circuit board (PCB), with a high risk of a disruption in their supply. Many of the PCBs contained in small WEEE are separated by destructive operations, as the economic feasibility of their separation using non-destructive operations remains unclear. This paper examines the feasibility of separating the PCB and the permanent magnets (PMs) contained in hard disk drives (HDD) using non-destructive operations. The economic cost of separating these parts is evaluated by the disassembly sequences, the disassembly schemes, and using the 'ease of Disassembly Metric' (eDiM). In HDD, the economic cost for the non-destructive separation of the PCB is €0.05 while the cost to harvest the PCB as well as the PMs is €0.39. In both cases, such cost is well below the estimated economic value of the gold, silver, and palladium contained in the PCB (€0.85). As a result, the paper concludes that the separation of the PCB and the PMs of HDDs is economically profitable. Measures for promoting the non-destructive separation of the PCBs and the PM of HDDs should be further promoted, as they could help improve the supply of secondary raw materials

Accounting for the environmental benefits of remanufactured products : method and application

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Although the importance of reusing products has been stated frequently, both in legislation and by academics, the scientific literature does not provide comprehensive and systematic methods of assessing the reuse of a generic product from an environmental point of view. Moreover, the definitions of reuse provided in the literature and legislation are not always consistent. This article introduces an original classification of different types of reuse, including some suggested definitions. It then focuses on remanufacturing, a type of reuse in which a used product (or its components) is returned to at least its original performance level. The article describes the development of a method for assessing, from a life-cycle perspective, the potential environmental benefits of remanufacturing energy-related products. The method includes several novel aspects: it helps to analyse possible trade-offs between potential environmental impacts and energy efficiency; it allows the independent modelling of some parameters that influence product reuse; and it can be applied even at the early stages of the design process, when some specifications may not yet have been defined. The environmental impacts of a product's life-cycle stages are used as input parameters for the assessment. The method is then applied to an enterprise server, a case-study product for which remanufacturing is a current market practice. A sensitivity analysis is included to check how uncertainties could affect the overall results. The results of the case study show that remanufactured servers, even those that are less energy efficient, can have lower environmental impacts than new ones. For example, reusing some components (e.g. hard disk drives and memory cards) is environmentally beneficial even if the remanufactured server consumes up to 7% more energy than a newly manufactured server. The case study also demonstrates how the method proposed could be used in the context of product policy discussions

Prospects on end of life electric vehicle batteries through 2050 in Catalonia

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MAltres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICAs electric mobility gains prominence, the demand for electric vehicle batteries is rapidly rising. Although the amount of these batteries reaching their end of life is presently negligible, studies to quantify their flows and stocks will progressively gain importance as they have a high potential for reuse and contain some economic valuable materials. This study aims at forecasting the number of batteries due to be collected yearly from 2020 to 2050 in Catalonia (Northeast Spain). Product flow analyses are developed considering two different future electric vehicle sales, and two lifespan scenarios for batteries, assuming they follow a Weibull lifetime probability distribution. The volume of batteries reaching their first-use end of life will not reach significance until 2050, however strategies to optimise their use can be placed earlier to get prepared to the coming influxes. If future electric vehicle sales are to meet the Spanish Climate Change Law, influxes of batteries can increase up to 25-fold in 2030 and 72-fold in 2040. Under the extended battery service scenarios, the storage capacity is estimated to be 4 to 5 times larger than in scenarios where batteries are recycled earlier. The potential supply of secondary materials from end of life batteries will increase up to 80% of cobalt, copper and nickel, and 60% of lithium in 2050. The results urge to place proper management strategies for batteries in the coming years to help optimising their use and their potential recovery

Measuring the symbiotic performance of single entities within networks using an LCA approach

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABUnidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MThis research was funded by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas-CONICET, Argentina.This paper introduces the Symbiotic Performance Indicator, a novel indicator aiming to quantify the environmental benefits generated by by-product exchanges in an industrial symbiosis network. Despite the significant advancements in assessing industrial symbiosis, the lack of indicators for individual entities involved in by-product exchanges hinders a comprehensive understanding of its environmental benefits. This indicator accounts for resource use and greenhouse gas emissions using a life cycle perspective. The resource use is measured using the Cumulative Exergy Extraction from the Natural Environment method, while greenhouse gas emissions are evaluated using the IPCC 2013 Global Warming Potential (100a) method. The use of this indicator is illustrated in a real case study where plastic waste is exchanged among three entities in Mendoza (Argentina). The overall results show that resource use and greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 19% and 15%, respectively. Full and partial allocation methods are proposed within the formulation of the Symbiotic Performance Indicator. The indicator results show that the exchange of materials may seem less attractive when using full allocation methods, as one entity gets 100% of the benefits from the by-product exchange compared to the other. Partial allocations make the by-product exchange convenient for both entities which may encourage collaboration. In conclusion, the proposed indicator helps account more precisely for individual environmental benefits behind by-product exchanges, and thus enables better decision-making to set up an industrial symbiosis network

Why energy models should integrate social and environmental factors : Assessing user needs, omission impacts, and real-word accuracy in the European Union

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MEnergy models are used to inform and support decisions within the transition to climate neutrality. In recent years, such models have been criticised for being overly techno-centred and ignoring environmental and social factors of the energy transition. Here, we explore and illustrate the impact of ignoring such factors by comparing model results to model user needs and real-world observations. We firstly identify concrete user needs for better representation of environmental and social factors in energy modelling via interviews, a survey and a workshop. Secondly, we explore and illustrate the effects of omitting non-techno-economic factors in modelling by contrasting policy-targeted scenarios with reality in four EU case study examples. We show that by neglecting environmental and social factors, models risk generating overly optimistic and potentially misleading results, for example by suggesting transition speeds far exceeding any speeds observed, or pathways facing hard-to-overcome resource constraints. As such, modelled energy transition pathways that ignore such factors may be neither desirable nor feasible from an environmental and social perspective, and scenarios may be irrelevant in practice. Finally, we discuss a sample of recent energy modelling innovations and call for continued and increased efforts for improved approaches that better represent environmental and social factors in energy modelling and increase the relevance of energy models for informing policymaking

Characterization of protons accelerated from a 3 TW table-top laser system

[EN] We report on benchmark tests of a 3 TW/50 fs, table-top laser system specifically developed for proton acceleration with an intrinsic pump rate up to 100 Hz. In two series of single-shot measurements differing in pulse energy and contrast the successful operation of the diode pumped laser is demonstrated. Protons have been accelerated up to 1.6 MeV in interactions of laser pulses focused on aluminium and mylar foils between 0.8 and 25 mu m thickness. Their spectral distributions and maximum energies are consistent with former experiments under similar conditions. These results show the suitability of our system and provide a reference for studies of laser targets at high repetition rate and possible applications.This project has been funded by Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnologico Industrial (CDTI, Spain) within the INNPRONTA program, grant no. IPT-20111027, by EUROSTARS project E9113, and by the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness within the Retos-Colaboracion 2015 initiative, ref. RTC-2015-3278-1.Bellido-Millán, PJ.; Lera, R.; Seimetz, M.; Ruiz-De La Cruz, A.; Torres Peiró, S.; Galán, M.; Mur, P.... (2017). Characterization of protons accelerated from a 3 TW table-top laser system. Journal of Instrumentation. 12:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/12/05/T05001S11212Daido, H., Nishiuchi, M., & Pirozhkov, A. S. (2012). Review of laser-driven ion sources and their applications. Reports on Progress in Physics, 75(5), 056401. doi:10.1088/0034-4885/75/5/056401Macchi, A., Borghesi, M., & Passoni, M. (2013). Ion acceleration by superintense laser-plasma interaction. Reviews of Modern Physics, 85(2), 751-793. doi:10.1103/revmodphys.85.751Ledingham, K., Bolton, P., Shikazono, N., & Ma, C.-M. (2014). Towards Laser Driven Hadron Cancer Radiotherapy: A Review of Progress. 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H., Cha, Y.-H., Lee, Y. W., Kim, K. N., & Jeong, Y. U. (2011). Dominant front-side acceleration of energetic proton beams from plastic targets irradiated by an ultraintense laser pulse. Physics of Plasmas, 18(1), 013101. doi:10.1063/1.3496058OKIHARA, S., SENTOKU, Y., SUEDA, K., SHIMIZU, S., SATO, F., MIYANAGA, N., … SAKABE, S. (2002). Energetic Proton Generation in a Thin Plastic Foil Irradiated by Intense Femtosecond Lasers. Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 39(1), 1-5. doi:10.1080/18811248.2002.9715150McKenna, P., Ledingham, K. W. D., Spencer, I., McCany, T., Singhal, R. P., Ziener, C., … Clark, E. L. (2002). Characterization of multiterawatt laser-solid interactions for proton acceleration. Review of Scientific Instruments, 73(12), 4176-4184. doi:10.1063/1.1516855Spencer, I., Ledingham, K. W. D., McKenna, P., McCanny, T., Singhal, R. P., Foster, P. S., … Davies, J. R. (2003). 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Revealing the management of municipal textile waste and citizen practices:The case of Catalonia

Although the number of studies assessing the textile sector is increasing, only a few focus on its waste management. This study aims to shed light on current textile waste disposal practices and account for their environmental impact. To do so, a combination of citizen surveying and environmental quantitative tools, such as material flow analysis and life cycle assessment, are used to assess municipal textile waste in Catalonia in 2020. The results show that only approximately 10 % of municipal textile waste is separately collected, while 90 % is landfilled/incinerated. Of the 10 % of textiles collected separately, almost 40 % are prepared for reuse and recycled in Catalonia and Spain, approximately 40 % are exported for reuse and recycling in Asia, Africa and the rest of Europe, and the remaining 20 % are incinerated or landfilled, stocked or treated as improper waste. The carbon footprint generated by 1 t of textile waste managed by unseparated collection is 353 kg CO2 eq, which almost double that of 1 t of textile waste collected separately: 207 kg CO2 eq. The results also show that the emissions of textiles collected separately could be considerably reduced by minimizing their exports. The conclusions indicate that a proper course of action includes raising awareness about textile waste management and secondhand buying habits among citizens while investing in better sorting and local recycling technologies to reduce exports. Identifying the existing limitations to creating a local reuse and recycling textile sector is crucial to reduce its carbon footprint.</p