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Alternatives for Disposition of Electronics Planning Tool (ADEPT)
Citation:
Richardson, T., E. Sahle-Demessie, J. Glaser, C. Lee, S. Al-Abed, AND C. Northeim. Alternatives for Disposition of Electronics Planning Tool (ADEPT). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/C-19/140.
Impact/Purpose:
Increases in household income coupled with rapid technology development and falling prices have resulted in a significant increase in the sale and use of consumer electronics in the United States over the past two decades. The rapid growth in consumer electronics markets paired with the diversification of manufactured products has contributed to an equally rapid increase in the stock of obsolete equipment and devices ready for end-of-life (EOL) management. In 2011, the White House established the Interagency Task Force on National Sustainable Electronics Stewardship, which devised a strategy for achieving the goals outlined in the 2009 Executive Order (EO) 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental Energy and Economic Performance. The national strategy is based on the following four goals: (1) building incentives for designing greener electronics and enhancing science, research, and technology development in the United States; (2) ensuring that the federal government leads by example; (3) increasing safe and effective management and handling of used electronics in the United States; and (4) reducing harm from U.S. exports of e-waste and improving handling of used electronics in developing countries. Understanding the pathways of used electronics from the consumer to their final disposition will provide insight to decision makers about their impacts and support efforts to encourage improvements in policy, technology, and beneficial use.
Description:
ADEPT is built in an Excel workbook, with several supporting worksheets used in the calculation of waste generation at various stages in reuse, recycling, and end of life. Overview information is provided in this section and example runs of ADEPT are included in Section 4. This document concludes with some examples illustrating how to modify the default assumptions and generate and interpret results. ADEPT starts with national sales data of electronics and disaggregates sales across states, based on each state’s gross domestic product (GDP). These disaggregated sales are the starting point for estimating the movement of electronic products from usage to collection, recycling, and final EOL disposal. Following the end of useful life, the two final destinations for used electronic are the commodity market (for products broken down to their components) and final disposal, which is assumed to be landfilling in this tool. ADEPT employs a combination of top-down data sources and bottom-up assumptions to track the generation of used electronics by state and estimate the material flows from generation to collection as well as processing and final disposition. Examples of top-down data sources include national statistics on population, GDP, and retail sales. Examples of bottom-up assumptions include average device weight per product based on the year of manufacturing, expected product lifetimes, and market share by consumer segment. ADEPT estimates material flows to three disposition pathways (i.e., reuse, recycling, and disposal). ADEPT produces national- and state-level results for the quantity of electronic products entering EOL management annually (during the years 1980 through 2040) as well as the subsequent volume of waste being landfilled at each stage of the EOL management process. Although the quality and availability of information on the markets and consumer behavior is improving, the rate of change in technology and market behavior is high, which makes these parameters hard to quantify. For this reason, ADEPT was designed to allow end users to easily update key parameters and data elements based on their own assumptions and better information in the future.