Cell Phone EndofLife Management

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Cell Phone End-of-Life Management
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Cell Phone Evolution
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Cell Phone Components

• Plastic housing and keypad
• Liquid crystal display (LCD)
• Printed wiring board (PWB)
• Connectors

• Active electronic components (e.g. integrated
  circuits)
• Passive electronic components (e.g.
  capacitors and resistors)
• Microphones and speakers

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Material Composition of Cell Phones
WEEE Directive Category 3 products 75
Recovery 65 Recycling and reuse
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Cell Phone Life Cycle Primary Energy
Requirements (PER)
1) 2003 Nokia study gives only 150 MJ for product
manufacture. Breakdown is from an earlier
Nokia study from 1999, as is the end-of-life
assessment.
Perspective 275 MJ is the gross calorific value
of 7.9 liters of gasoline, or 52 km in a
Lincoln Navigator, or 185 km in a Toyota Prius.
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Alternatives to cell phone disposal
Phonedemand use
End-of-life phone disposal
Primary materialsproduction
Componentsmanufacture
Final phoneassembly
Phone refurbishment
Component reuse
End-of-life phone collection
Inspection sorting
Metalsmarket
Metals recycling
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Background

• Estimated amount of cell phone subscriber in
  2007 2.5 billion
• Estimated end-of-life phones in 2005 in the USA
  130 million ( 0.55 wt of total e-waste in
  the US)
• Estimated av. life time 18 months, collection
  rate lt 20
• More handsets reused than recycled

Recycling potential in USA in 2005
Material composition
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Analytical framework for environmental assessment
Cell phone use
Diversion fromlandfill Edisp
Collection Ecoll reprocessing Erepro
Material product markets
Displaced production Edisplaced
Calculation of net primary energy savings (NPES)
dreuse and drecycling denote the displacement
rates for reuse and recycling
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Diversion from Landfill Toxicity of Substances
in Cell Phones
Cell phones contain substances of concern (mostly
Pb, Ni, Cr, Cu), yet it is not clear to what
extent they will leach if phones are landfilled.
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Cell Phone Reuse Recycling

• Recovered materials
• Gold (Au)
• Silver (Ag)
• Copper (Cu)
• Platinum / Palladium (Pt, Pd)
• Make up 70-84 of primary energy requirementsfor
  materials production
• or 12-19 of the cell phone mass.

• Primary energy requirements
• Collection 1-5 MJ/phone
• Recycling 1.5-2 MJ/phone
• Reuse 0.5-1 MJ/phone

• Potential energy savings
• Recycling 10-20 MJ/phone
• Reuse 145-248 MJ/phone

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Energy savings of cell phone recycling relative
to landfill
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Energy savings of cell phone reuse relative to
recycling
Recycling may save more energy than reuse
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Economics of cell phone recycling and reuse
Reverse logistics
Recycling
Reuse
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Economics of cell phone recycling and reuse
Recycling (including reverse logistics)
Not profitable if recyclers have to bear the
reverse logistics costs
Reuse
Profitable
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Estimated operating profits of refurbishers in
the US in 2006 and the UK in 2003 as a function
of the reuse yield r
Operating profit for cell phone refurbishers
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Closer look at cell phone recycling
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Closer look at gold recycling from cell phones
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Closer look at cell phone reuse
Resale values of cell phones decrease over time,
especially for high end phones