S CI EN C E OF TH E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
a v a i l a b l e a t w w w. s c i e n c e d i r e c t . c o m
w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / s c i t o t e n v
Life cycle assessment study of a Chinese desktop
personal computer
Huabo Duan a,1 , Martin Eugster b , Roland Hischier b , Martin Streicher-Porte b , Jinhui Li a,⁎
a
Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, China
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa), Switzerland
b
AR TIC LE D ATA
ABSTR ACT
Article history:
Associated with the tremendous prosperity in world electronic information and
Received 9 April 2008
telecommunication industry, there continues to be an increasing awareness of the
Received in revised form
environmental impacts related to the accelerating mass production, electricity use, and
28 October 2008
waste management of electronic and electric products (e-products). China's importance as
Accepted 31 October 2008
both a consumer and supplier of e-products has grown at an unprecedented pace in recent
Available online 12 December 2008
decade. Hence, this paper aims to describe the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to
investigate the environmental performance of Chinese e-products from a global level. A
Keywords:
desktop personal computer system has been selected to carry out a detailed and modular LCA
LCA
which follows the ISO 14040 series. The LCA is constructed by SimaPro software version 7.0 and
Personal computer
expressed with the Eco-indicator'99 life cycle impact assessment method. For a sensitivity
Environmental impact
analysis of the overall LCA results, the so-called CML method is used in order to estimate the
Electronics
influence of the choice of the assessment method on the result. Life cycle inventory
China
information is complied by ecoinvent 1.3 databases, combined with literature and field
investigations on the present Chinese situation. The established LCA study shows that that the
manufacturing and the use of such devices are of the highest environmental importance. In
the manufacturing of such devices, the integrated circuits (ICs) and the Liquid Crystal Display
(LCD) are those parts contributing most to the impact. As no other aspects are taken into
account during the use phase, the impact is due to the way how the electricity is produced. The
final process steps – i.e. the end of life phase – lead to a clear environmental benefit if a formal
and modern, up-to-date technical system is assumed, like here in this study.
Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1.
Introduction
China's importance as both a supplier and consumer of
electronic goods or e-products has grown at an unprecedented
pace over the course of the past decade (Wong and El-Abd, 2003).
Since its entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001,
China's e-product manufacturing sector has entirely reoriented
itself from an industry driven primarily by domestic markets, to
a fundamentally export driven sector and the world's most
important supplier of many, if not most, major e-products on
the market today. The e-product sector now accounts for 10.2%
of the country's total industrial output value and 6.3% of
national industrial profits (NBSC, 2007. The statistical data
used (NBSC, 2007) are taken from 2006 survey. While the rapid
transition towards global market leadership in the e-products
sector has produced significant economic benefits at both the
⁎ Corresponding author. Tsinghua University, Sino-Italia Environmental Energy Building, Room 805, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China.
Tel.: +86 6279 4143; fax: +86 6277 2048.
E-mail addresses: dhb06@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn (H. Duan), jinhui@tsinghua.edu.cn (J. Li).
1
Tel.: +86 10 6279 4351; fax: +86 10 6277 2048.
0048-9697/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2008.10.063
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S CI EN CE OF T H E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
national and community levels, it has also placed increasing
pressures on the local and global environment (Puckett et al.,
2002; Widmer et al., 2005; Wong et al., 2007).
Within the Sino-Swiss cooperation project “Sustainable
Development: China and Global Markets”, three major industrial
sectors, namely cotton and textile, timber and e-products, were
studied, and key sustainability impacts were identified and
evaluated from a global level. For the analysis of the environmental impacts in the e-product sector, a life cycle assessment
(LCA) study has been carried out. Since the e-product sector is
very broad and comprises a vast variety of different appliances, a
detailed and modular LCA of a desktop personal computer
system (PC system) has been selected as a case study (see the
explanations by following passages in this section).
The PC industry is one of the most prosperous electronic
industries in China, being the top computer market in the AsiaPacific region (excluding Japan) with expansion of more than 8%
per year. In 2006 the volume of PCs output reached to 89.80 million
units, of which above 10% was exported (NBSC, 2007).
However, along with its life cycle, a PC generates a lot of
environmental impacts (Atlantic Consulting and IPU, 1998).
During the manufacture phase, large amounts of natural
resources are needed. The use of a PC consumes considerable
amounts of electricity. In addition, the disposal of electronics
(i.e. the respective End-of-Life (EoL) treatment) could pose
severe impacts on human health and the eco-system when
they are not well managed, as many parts of PC contain
hazardous materials, such as brominated flame retardants,
tin–lead soldering on printed wiring boards (PWB), polychlorinated biphenyl in transformer, and mercury in Switch (Qu
et al., 2007; Deng et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2008). Exposure to such
chemical substances may increase the risk of developing
cancer in people and even cause death (Tekwawa et al., 1997;
Socolof et al., 2000).
The increased awareness of the importance of environmental protection and the possible impacts associated with products
manufactured, distributed, consumed and EoL managed, have
increased interest in the development of methods to better
understand and address these impacts. One of the techniques
being developed for this purpose is life cycle assessment (LCA)
(ISO, 2000; Besnainou and Coulon, 1994; Rivela et al., 2006; Asari
et al., 2008). Since the end of 1990s, there have been some studies
done on the LCA of PC products or their key components
(Socolof et al., 2005; Hikwama, 2005; Choi et al., 2006; Kim et al.,
2001; USEPA, 2001). Similar efforts have been taken to apply LCA
methodology to other information and communication technologies, such as mobile phone networks (Scharnhorst et al.,
2005, 2006). However, contribution from research to LCA studies
on e-products in China was nearly blank, particularly with
regard to PC product. Just a few papers described the implementation of LCA to conduct eco-design or investigate the
environmental impact of technologies for waste management
(Yang and Wang, 1996; Zeng, 2006; Wang, 2005).
For this study, a Chinese desktop PC system – using to 50%
a traditional Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screen, and to 50% a
modern LCD flat screen – is assessed over its complete life
cycle, from the extraction of the requested resources up to a
state-of-the-art disposal, like currently practice e.g. in Switzerland. The present paper gives a description of the goal and
scope (Section 2.1), the inventory data (Section 2.2) as well as
the most important results from the impact assessment of
these data (Section 3).
2.
Materials and methods
2.1.
Goal and scope
2.1.1.
Objective of the study
The environmental performance of a desktop PC system –
assembled in China – is calculated by conducting a LCA study
according to the international standards of the ISO 14040
series (ISO, 2000; Rebitzer et al., 2004; Pennington et al., 2004).
Within the context of the above mentioned footprint project,
the objective of this case study is to establish a scientific
baseline that evaluates the key environmental impact related
to e-products. The PC system is chosen as this is a very
complex electronic device; and its results will allow general
conclusions, valuable for the complete e-product industry.
2.1.2.
System boundaries
The here examined desktop PC system is taking into account
the complete life cycle of such a device, ranging from
manufacture (including all steps from material extraction up
to the final assembly of the system), distribution (from
production site to the use site), functional life span, up to the
EoL treatment (including recycling and disposal operations).
Hereby the production phase focuses on PC systems assembled
in China — while all upstream (e.g. production of electronic
components like capacitors, PWB, etc.) and downstream steps
(i.e. use, disposal of PC) represent the actual market situation
for the Chinese PC assemblers. Hence, only the PC's assembly
phase is limited to China mainland — all other steps are seen
from a rather global level (see also Fig. 1 below).
2.1.3.
Functional units
The functional unit is a desktop PC system which consists of
four different subunits: desktop computer itself, the screen
(CRT and LCD technologies), the keyboard and the mouse. The
examined PC system (based on a Pentium IV processor)
comprises to 50% a CRT and to 50% a LCD screen, it is 4.2 h
per day active and 2.6 h per day in either standby or sleep
mode (assuming a 40% office and 60% home use of the PC
system) during 6 years before the complete system is handed
over for EoL treatment. For the distribution and the subsequent use of the desktop PC system, an export amount of 10%
of the production volume (to Europe, the United States but also
other Asian countries) is assumed, based on the current trade
statistics of China (for more details see Section 2.2).
2.2.
Life cycle inventory
2.2.1.
China
PC production and consumption — market situation in
Based on literature review and field investigation (NBSC, 2007;
Duan et al., 2007a,b; Li et al., 2006; Tong, 2004; MOFCOM, 2007;
China Custom, 2007; Terazono et al., 2006; BCRC, 2005), data
information relevant for the here investigated Chinese PC
system about the following aspects have been gathered
(hereby, China Taiwan and Hong Kong are classified as foreign
S CI EN C E OF TH E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
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Fig. 1 – Geographical situation of production and distribution of desktop PC systems produced in China.
trade regions according to China Custom Statistics), which are
aimed to establish the inventory data of the various life stages.
• The volume and proportion of finished PC products consumed in domestic and foreign markets, destined countries
and regions, and main type and specification of PC;
• The share between CRT display and LCD used in the PC
system;
• The proportion of major devices and components (e.g. CRT,
LCD, PWB and IC) produced in domestic respectively,
imported from foreign markets; including the geographic
distribution of original countries and regions where these
devices and components are produced;
• Transportation distance estimations between the different
producers and suppliers (on the domestic and the foreign
markets).
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2.2.2.
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Data — sources, assumptions and limitations
So far, no Chinese national life cycle inventory (LCI) database
is available. In addition, very few public data with regard to PC
systems (as well as their components) are available. Hence, in
order to get a quantitative model, the data sources as well as
the assumptions and limitations described in Table 1 have
been used in this study here for the various life stages of the
examined PC system.
As shown there, the various components and devices have
been modelled by using a pre-version of the respective
ecoinvent v2.0 datasets (referred in Table 1 as “Empa-internal
database”) with a change in the electricity input (Chinese mix)
for those parts of these components and devices produced in
China. A more detailed view into the used data sources (i.e. its
actual values) is not possible. The split between China and
abroad is established based on the information shown in Fig. 1.
From this figure, it can be seen that mainly the high-tech
products (like e.g. logic Integrated circuits (ICs) or LCD
modules) are major parts produced abroad. On the other
hand, general parts such as PWB, ferrous-metal and nonferrous-metal, or packaging materials, are mainly produced
directly in China.
2.3.
Life cycle impact assessment
As main life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method, the
method “Eco-indicator' 99”, is used. This method is an
example of a multi-step, fully aggregating method, leading
to one single number as result. The various environmental
impacts that are examined within this method are summed
Fig. 2 – Environmental impacts of a PC system expressed with
the Eco-Indicator'99 method.
up in one of three damage categories: human health,
ecosystem quality and resource consumption. The final
normalization and weighting steps are then performed at
this damage level (Josa et al., 2007; Geodkoop and Spriensma,
2001; Vlasopoulos et al., 2006). The whole method is an
example for the damage-oriented approach.
For a sensitivity analysis of the overall results, the so-called
CML method (Centrum voor Milieukunde Leiden) is used in
order to estimate the influence of the choice of the LCIA method
on the result. This Dutch method is an example of the so-called
“problem-oriented” or “mid-point” approach. The method is
based on the publication of Guinee et al. (2001), acknowledged as
a reference in the field of LCA, and also known as the “CML
Table 1 – Assumption and data sources for the various life stages of the PC system
Life stage
Manufacturing
Distribution
Use
End-of-Life (EoL)
treatment
Data source(s)
Extraction of resources
Processing of basic
materials
Production of electronic
components
Final assembly of desktop
PC system
Transports between
different steps
Split export/home selling
Distances inside China
Distances of exports
Transport data
Consumption pattern
Electricity consumption
Electricity mixes
Landfilling
Worst case recycling
Best case recycling
“Avoided” primary
production
Covered area
Assumptions and limitations
ecoinvent data v1.3
ecoinvent data v1.3
Global
Global
–
–
Empa-internal database a
China/global
–
Empa-internal database
China
–
ecoinvent data v1.3
Europe
Standard distances and means used
Chinese trade statistics
Chinese statistics
Empa-internal database
ecoinvent data v1.3
Chinese statistics
Empa-internal database
ecoinvent data v1.3, and
Empa-internal database
ecoinvent data v1.3
Own assumptions
China
China
Global
Europe
China
Global
Europe Global
–
–
Estimation in framework of works on ecoinvent v2
–
40% office use, 60% home use.
–
• UCTE-Mix as European mix used b;
• China-Mix for other Asian countries used.
Empa-internal database
ecoinvent data v1.3
Global
Global
Europe
Global
• 100% of hazardous substances from PC & LCD
screen to air;
• Hazardous substances from CRT screen to air,
solid and water (each 33%).
Current practice in Swiss WEEE recycling.
• Only metals;
• Plastic 100% incinerated.
a
Empa-internal database = according to project specific conditions (production in China) adapted pre-version of those data that have been
developed in parallel to this project for the extension/update of the ecoinvent database (ecoinvent data v2.0).
b
UCTE-Mix = the Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity.
S CI EN C E OF TH E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
Fig. 3 – Split of the environmental impacts of the distribution
(a) and the use phase (b) into the amounts from the different
markets plus the resulting average (according to the respective
market shares), all expressed with the Eco-Indicator'99 method.
Guide”. This guide provides a list of different impact assessment
categories, grouped into obligatory impact categories (i.e. all
those category indicators used in most LCA studies), additional
impact categories (i.e. categories that have operational indicators, but are not often included in LCA studies) and other impact
categories (i.e. no operational indicators available, and therefore
impossible to include quantitatively in LCA).
1759
3.
Result and discussion
3.1.
Environmental impacts of the complete life cycle of a PC
According to the results of the impact assessment of the
complete life cycle of a PC, as shown in Fig. 2, manufacturing
(including raw material extraction and processing, components production, and PC assembly) and use generate
significantly more impacts than the two other life stages.
From the total of 41 Eco-Indicator'99 points (EIP) within the
manufacturing step, more than a quarter is due to the
consumed fossil resources (see also Fig. 4), resulting in an
overall impact for the damage to resources that is about 40%
in case of manufacturing (compared to only about 27% in case
of the use phase). The distribution step contributes very few
to the impacts. During the EoL step assuming a state-of-theart recycling (like e.g. the current Swiss WEEE recycling
systems, Hischier et al., 2005), substantial environmental
benefits are even generated. The beneficial value of about 22
EIP equals to more than half of the impact during the
manufacturing step.
Despite the fact that 10% of China finished PC products are
exported to Europe, the United States and other Asian
countries – which means long transportation distances within
the distribution step (see Fig. 3a) – the impact due to the
distribution stays very low compared to all other phases,
accounting actually for less than 1%. It was assumed that the
PC systems are transported on land with lorries and over long
distances on sea with cargo ships.
Due to the electricity consumption of the PC system in the
use phase, important impacts are generated within the six
years of effective lifespan assumed here. This impact of the
use phase is caused by the respective impact of the electricity
production. In China electricity is mainly produced by fossil
fuels. Due to the fact that 90% of the produced desktop PC
systems are used in China itself, the Chinese electricity mix is
dominating the impact of the use phase (see Fig. 3b). This fact
influences as well the results shown in Fig. 4, where the main
contributors to the environmental impact of the three relevant
Fig. 4 – Main contributions to the environmental impacts of a PC system (method of Eco-Indicator'99).
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S CI EN C E OF TH E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
life stages “manufacturing”, “use” and “EoL” are shown in
more details.
In this figure, the impact of the use phase is dominated
from the emissions to air, plus the consumption of fossil
resources — clear indicators for a high consumption of the
latter substances. The high impact due to SO2 emissions is
directly linked to the fact, that the Chinese electricity mix is
mainly generated from thermal power plants using coal as
fuel. Much less important are the various emissions to air for
the first step — i.e. the manufacturing. Here, the consumed
resources are more dominant. Due to the high energy
requirements in the extraction and processing of the metals,
fossil resources are showing up much more important than
metal resources. The EoL step shows for the resources as well
as the emissions to air negative values (i.e. an environmental
benefit instead of an impact) due to the fact that recycling can
be expressed as “avoided primary production”.
In a second step, the results from Fig. 2 were cross-checked
using a second, different LCIA method — the CML method.
This is an LCIA method that doesn't aggregate the various
environmental impacts — but keeps them all separated; thus,
no overall impact can be calculated here. Nevertheless,
comparing Figs. 2 and 5 shows that both methods produced
rather similar results. For almost all single environmental
impacts reported in Fig. 5, manufacturing and use have a
clearly higher environmental impact compared to the other
two stages and the EoL stage leads most of the time to an
environmental benefit.
3.2.
Impacts during the manufacturing of the various
devices
As shown in Fig. 2 the manufacturing phase is very important.
Hence a more detailed view into this first life stage is
established – distinguishing firstly between the various parts
that belong to such a PC system – i.e. the desktop PC or CPU
(central processing unit) itself, the screen (CRT, LCD), the
keyboard and the mouse. In Fig. 6 the resulting environmental
impacts of these various parts are shown. In case of screens,
the complete impact of either type of screen technology (CRT,
LCD) is shown here. The results show that the desktop of PC
has the greatest contribution to environmental impacts,
followed by the two screens — while keyboard and mouse
are of minor importance.
A more detailed view on the first three devices from Fig. 6 – i.e.
the desktop PC and the two screen types – is shown in Fig. 7. Here
it can be seen that the environmental impacts of a desktop
PC (Fig. 7a) is clearly dominated by the motherboard — accounting
for 54% of the impacts of the complete desktop PC, or about
11.5 EIP. The actual weight of a motherboard accounts only for
8.1% (Streicher-Porte et al., 2007). Other components of the
desktop PC are of much smaller importance. In the case of the
two screens, the respective screen material contributes the most
to the environmental impacts of these components. In case of the
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Fig. 6 – Environmental impacts caused by the production of
the various parts of the here examined PC system, expressed
with the method of Eco-Indicator'99.
CRT screen, CRT tube itself, electronics components and housing
materials together are responsible for more than 80% of the
environmental impact of such a device. Hereof, glass in the CRT
tube is responsible for the main part, mainly due to its high weight
compared to e.g. electronics components. In case of the competing LCD technology, LCD module has by far the greatest
contribution to the environment with about 60% of the total
impacts of such a device, while assembly process and electronics
components only account for about 16% of the impact. Within the
LCD module, glass and various coatings are responsible for the
high impact.
In case of the CRT screen (Fig. 7b), the CRT tube itself is not
the only significant part. Actually, the tube, the electronics
components and the housing together are responsible for
more than 80% of the environmental impact of such a device,
or about 17 EIP. In case of the competing LCD technology
(shown in Fig. 7c), the LCD module has by far the greatest
contribution to the environment with about 8.5 EIP, accounting for about 60% of the total impacts of such a device, while
the assembly process and the electronics components only
account for about 16% of the impact.
3.3.
EoL scenarios
For the last life stage – the EoL treatment – the actual impact
depends upon whether or not the desktop PC system is sent to
a landfill or recycled and, if recycled, what processes are used
in the recycling process. For this study the following three
scenarios have been examined:
(i) Scenario “Recycling, best case”: recycling of all recyclable fractions plus use of a technology that minimizes
any releases of toxic substances into the environment
(state-of-the-art recycling);
Fig. 5 – Environmental impacts of a PC system expressed with several impact factors out of the CML'01 method. As no further
aggregation is possible, no values are given in the different impact categories.
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(ii) Scenario “Recycling, worst case”: recycling of all recyclable fractions without special protection of the environment concerning toxic substances (current system in
undeveloped countries, like China);
(iii) Scenario “landfilling, worst case”: landfilling of the
complete system without prior treatment concerning
toxic substances.
Reliable quantitative data on e-waste flows treated under
conditions of any of these scenarios are not available. Nevertheless, the scenarios roughly map the three major consumer
Fig. 8 – Environmental impacts of the various EoL scenarios,
in comparison with the other life stages of the examined PC
system — all expressed with the method of Eco-Indicator'99.
markets for Chinese PC systems — the EU (high percentage of
recycling; advanced facilities), China (high percentage of
recycling; taking little care for workers or environment), and
the United States of America (high transfer to landfill). In Fig. 8,
the influences of the three scenarios on the environmental
impacts of the EoL treatment are shown. It can be seen that in
the best case the environmental benefits are almost as high as
the environmental burden of the worst case. Taking care of
toxic substances during recycling processes results in lowering the burden of EoL treatment of about 75 to 80%, and,
thus, allows an overall benefit for the EoL treatment.
4.
Conclusion
The main findings from this LCA study on PC systems can be
summarized as follows.
Fig. 7 – Environmental impacts of the production of the
various devices within the PC system (from (a) to (c)): desktop
PC itself, the CRT and the LCD screen — all expressed with the
method of Eco-Indicator'99.
(i) The manufacture and use phases generate with about
41 EIP resp. 43 EIP significantly more impacts than the
two other life stages, distribution and EoL treatment.
These two firstly mentioned phases are both dominated
by the fossil resource consumption (40% of total in
manufacturing step resp. 27% in use phase) and the
emissions to air (with e.g. SO2 being about 25% of total
impact in use phase). If EoL treatment is managed as a
state-of-the-art disposal process it has the potential to
create environmental benefit in the order of about half
of the impact of the manufacturing of the here
examined desktop PC system. This is due to the fact
that secondary resources from recycling can avoid
primary production.
(ii) The impact of the use phase is caused by the energy
consumption of the PC system. The Chinese energy mix
is dominated by electricity produced by thermal power
stations using coal and oil as fuels. Therefore, the
environmental impacts of the use phase are dominated
by SO2 emissions and other gaseous emissions with a
global warming potential, resulting in an overall result
that is dominated to about 65% from the human health
S CI EN C E OF TH E T OTAL EN V I RO N M EN T 4 0 7 ( 2 0 09 ) 17 5 5– 1 76 4
damage category — category that contains e.g. the
various gaseous emissions to air (like SO2, CO2, NOx).
(iii) Within the manufacture step of a PC system, the desktop
PC itself contributes the most to the total environmental
impacts (about 21 EIP), followed by CRT and LCD screens
(with 19 resp. 14 EIP) — while keyboard and mouse are of
minor importance. Environmental impacts of the desktop
PC are clearly dominated by the motherboard — accounting for 54% of the load of the complete desktop unit, or
about 11.5 EIP. In the case of the two screens, the LCD
module (60% of the impacts of an LCD screen) resp. the
CRT tube (33% of the total impacts), are the dominating
components of the respective device.
(iv) Within the EoL treatment phase, the environmental
benefits from the “state-of-the-art” disposal are almost
as high as the environmental impact in the worst case.
Sound management of toxic substances during recycling
process results in 75 to 80% decrease of impacts, and thus
leads to an overall benefit for the EoL treatment.
Based on the findings mentioned above, the following
recommendations are considered as priority areas for action
for ensuring the long term sustainability to Chinese (or even
international) policy makers. The most important environmental impacts arising from the PC products outside the EoL
phase are directly related to the high levels of energy use.
Thus, to promote the transition to environmentally friendly
energy sources and to increase the energy efficiency within
various stages will reduce the environmental impacts of a PC
system. A second, more directly applicable approach could be
the promotion of more environmentally friendly products
(eco-design). Also there the strongest support should focus on
reducing the overall energy consumption. Eco labeling,
energy-consumption standards and green purchasing practices are only some examples. In addition, the present EoL
treatment practices in China have to be drastically transformed. In order not to give away the potential which proper
EoL treatment of electronics offers, inefficiencies of the
existing system have to be eliminated. A comprehensive
recycling system for EoL electronics, – comprising collection,
dismantling, material and energy recovery, and sound disposal or destruction of hazardous components – is inevitable.
Acknowledgements
The support of the Sino-Swiss cooperation project “Sustainable
Development: China and Global Markets: a Commodity Chain
Sustainability Analysis of Key Chinese Electronic Product Chain”,
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20777043/
B070204), the National Key Technologies R & D Program of China
(NO. 2007BAC16B03) are all gratefully acknowledged.
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