CLEVER - Closed Loop Emotionally Valuable E-waste Recovery

The rapid turnover in consumer electronics, fuelled by increased consumption, has resulted in negative global environmental and social consequences. These appliances are typically disposed of into UK landfills or to developing countries, incinerated, or otherwise 'lost' - very few are recycled. As a result, the metals they contain are not effectively recovered and new materials must be extracted to produce more goods. Reportedly more than half of all UK households are dissatisfied with how long small household appliances last and think they should last longer, yet, while several strategies to extend product lifespans have been developed, they are under-utilized within the consumer electronics market. Materials scarcity, particularly of non-renewable, finite resources, is a global concern and one that UK consumers and manufacturers cannot ignore. To use these resources more efficiently and reduce mounting electronic waste (e-waste), consumers must be encouraged to retain their devices for longer and return them at the end of their life (or before).

To assist in a transition from the current 'throw-away' society towards a new model we will develop a function-oriented business model, called a Product Service System, which shifts the focus from designing (and selling) physical products only, to designing (and selling) a system of products and services incorporating both service and ownership, which are jointly capable of fulfilling consumer needs. In this system component parts with 'low-emotional value', but requiring regular technical upgrade (such as the printed circuit board or flexible circuits) will be owned by manufacturers and leased to customers, and potentially "high-emotional value" components (such as the outer casing) are owned and valued by the customer, so that they become products that are kept for long periods of time. In this project these parts are termed the 'skin' - the outer casing, or the part that the user interacts with directly; the 'skeleton' - the critical support components inside the device; and the 'organs' - the high-tech electronics that deliver the function and which need to
be the most up-to-date parts of the device.

To encourage greater emotional attachment to products, new materials which 'age gracefully' will be developed and consumer responses to these materials explored. To recover component parts quickly and efficiently for recycling and metals recovery, new skeleton materials based on biopolymers will be designed and produced. The most important characteristic of these materials is that they will be stable and robust while in use, but can be triggered to decompose when the device is to be taken apart for recycling. Such triggered disassembly of the innards of the device will facilitate the recovery of the valuable metal containing electronic 'organs' so that these can be efficiently recycled and retained in the closed loop of electronics manufacture. The project will also address the efficient recovery and recycling of some of the most valuable metals contained in electronic devices.

At each stage of development, a social and environmental analysis of the proposed PSS and materials will be undertaken to identify any negative impacts. Together these materials and the new product-service system will enable greater resource efficiency and contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (which contribute to climate change) and reducing annual environmental costs of waste being sent to landfill (estimated at £211m), while enabling efficient recovery of metals, thus maximizing use of resources, reducing costs, and improving UK resilience by reducing reliance on imports.

Keeping electronic devices in a closed loop also means they are less likely to become part of the e-waste exported (sometimes illegally) to developing countries, where people may risk their lives to recover the valuable metals by burning, or smelting, processes that may release dioxins, or use mercury.

This programme is designed around the potential impacts including i) social impacts (behavioural change), ii) environmental impacts (closing the recycling loop), iii) manufacturing impacts (novel materials to enable (i) and (ii)), and economic impacts (novel product-service systems and retention of valuable metals in the manufacturing cycle).
To achieve this we will work with partners along the electronic device supply chain from materials manufacturers and processing aid producers, through electronics manufacturers and retailers, to the end user: individuals who purchase, use and (currently) frequently discard their devices, or relegate these to hibernation, rather than committing them to the recycling loop.
The project provides elements of future-proofing, in particular addressing current known, and future expected, WEEE recycling targets potentially offering means to mitigate future potential for costly redress, or rectification of damage, in developing countries where much WEEE is currently reprocessed in suboptimal circumstances.
Focus on the application of metrics in the form of both environmental impacts, via Life Cycle Assessment, and social impacts, via Social Life Cycle Assessment will provide confidence in the applicability of the technology, and the best route to uptake, without which only academic impact would be realised.
OTHER DISCIPLINES: This project brings together materials engineers, chemists, sustainable designers, social scientists and LCA experts and so impacts on a range of disciplines within the project and, following from academic outputs, beyond the project.
PUBLIC: In the short term, society will benefit from consultation and input into the design of the Product Service Systems (impacting a relatively small number of citizens) and, in the medium to long term, from opportunities to have advanced functional electronic devices, while contributing to a sustainable business model (potentially a very large number of citizens).
SKILLS: The remarkably interdisciplinary nature of the project (which would have been unlikely to develop except under the exceptional circumstances provided by the EPSRC Sandpit model), brings together experts across the academic spectrum. All PDRAs will be exposed to all parts of the programme, thus producing trained, technically and socially astute personnel for a cross-disciplinary workforce. Social scientists will be exposed to sustainable engineering and science and vice versa, providing opportunities for PDRAs to develop interdisciplinary networks that inform their future work. Similarly, PhD students supported will benefit from this environment and from the extra training activities afforded by the workpackages and the association with EPSRC CDTs. Some Co-Is are early career academics and this project will yield expanded networks, future collaboration opportunities and development of transdisciplinary research - impacting positively on their research profiles and careers.
INDUSTRIAL USERS: In addition to the partners identified, this work has the potential to impact on manufacturers of electronic components in the UK (Gwent Electronic Materials); electronic device manufacturers (Philips, Sharp); device retailers (Boots and others in the UK's WEEE Distributor Take back Scheme, run by Valpak); electronics recyclers (to be contacted through the Industry Council for Electronics Recycling, ICER and the Centre for Remanufacturing, Environmental Resource Management); manufacturers of composite casing materials (Formax, Sustainable Composites Ltd) and internal support components, e.g. circuit boards, who will be contacted through SusCompNet (EPSRC funded); and, finally, on producers of the ionic liquid processing aids essential to composite manufacture (IoLiTec, Merck, BASF) and enzymatically triggered decomposition, e.g. Novozymes, TMO Renewables. Many of these companies already engage with the project partners and CI-KTN will assist in engaging further technology users.