Economic and environmental opportunities in electronics industry

Abstract

Due to industrial development and technological innovation, many problems arise from the increasing number of electronics devices that need to be managed at end of life. The two main market failures related to waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are economic loss and environmental externalities. Incomplete recovery of materials in waste mobile phones results in a great amount of economic loss. Many studies aim to improve the situation by characterizing metals within printed circuit boards (PCBs). My work focuses on the evolving composition and the flow of materials located outside of PCBs. I have discovered significant economic potential of non-PCB metals, and provide suggestions for optimization of different preprocessing steps. I recommend that preprocessors pay special attention to precious metals in fine shredding. And I have also provided strategies for plastics recycling by forecasting the demand and supply of it in Portugal. Besides opportunities for addressing environmental impact in the end-of-life stage of electronics products, there are also opportunities in other life cycle stages such as GHG savings by the enablement of semiconductors in the use stage. I identify six areas of GHG savings and provide insights for more informed policy to better evaluate the influence of technologies in the electronics industry.