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| Title: |
End-of-Life
Recovery and Recycling Technologies in White Goods Sector |
| Duration: |
2004
– 2007 |
| Keyword(s): |
Product
Recovery, Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, Waste Management,
Recycling of Consumer Electronic Products |
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| Aim&
Objectives |
| This
research project aims to investigate the various End-of-Life options
for Electrical and Electronic Equipment which are targeted by
WEEE and to realize a Decision Support System to identify most
appropriate End-of-Life option for particular equipment.
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| Fig
1, Objective Snapshot |
| Brief
Description |
| The
production of electrical and electronic equipment is increasing
due to technological innovation, market expansion, shorter product
life cycles and improvements in economy. Parallel to this development,
environmental degradation has become a big concern and governments
are formulating “producer responsibility” laws to
put pressure on companies to manufacture products having minimum
eco-burden. It had been predicted that 7.3 million tonnes of electronic
waste was produced in Europe in 2002 with growth rates of 3 –
5%. Although proportion of this waste (mainly white goods) has
been recycled, a large proportion of waste from electrical and
electronic equipment (WEEE) which contains potentially recyclable
material is being sent to landfill. The consumption of scarce
materials in the manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment
and its disposal to scarce landfill sites along with environmental
problems caused by electrical and electronic waste has caused
concerns among the governments, environmentalists, manufacturers
and consumers.
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| Fig
2, Waste from Elecrical and Electronic Equipment |
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a result European Commission issued a “Proposal for a directive
on waste from electrical and electronic equipment” (European
Commission 2000) that makes the producers of electrical and electronic
equipment responsible for take-back and end-of-life management
of their products. The directive also specifies collection targets
for local authorities as well as recovery and recycling targets
for the manufacturers to be met by the given deadlines. Such laws
have been enacted in Japan and are actively debated at the Federal
and State levels in USA. This has prompted many firms to become
environmentally responsible and embrace end-of-life management
in their business models.Despite the technological advances in
manufacturing, product recovery and recycling still remains a
cost/time bottleneck. Due to this reason, it is seen that recovery
of end-of-life products is not carried out in the most economical
and environment friendly way. This provides impetus for this research
project to focus on recovery and recycling technologies as improvements
would lead to a more effective end-of-life management of electrical
and electronic equipment. |
| For
further information contact: Abu
Bakar |
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