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Sustainable End-of-Life Management of Plastic in Used Electronics
Citation:
Sahle-Demessie, Endalkac. Sustainable End-of-Life Management of Plastic in Used Electronics. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-23/182, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
Presently most electronic systems are not designed for recycling, let alone for circulation. Plastics in these products account for about 20% of material use, and through better design, significant environmental and financial savings could be achieved. Although technological solutions and circular design opportunities exist, many parts of the U.S. still lack the infrastructure for collection, recycling, and materials recovery. This report critically assesses the challenges of the current system in design, such as disassembly and product contamination, such as flame retardants. Additives also play some role in plastic recycling and reaching circular electronics and plastic. The goal should be designing and setting up a system that enables circulation. The purpose of this report is to drive the plastics used in electronic products toward a circular economy. The case examples collected for the information show how different stages of the lifecycle can be designed to make plastic circulation possible and make business sense. Best practices from various states are presented to inform a leap in material flow management and scale up these circular solutions across the industry.
Description:
This product will describe for the Regions and Program Office various techniques for identifying, sorting, and processing various plastic resins and additives used in electronic products. Used e-waste plastics have become major problems to the recycling industry. Past practices permitted the shipment of loads of mixed resin plastics to accepting countries and many additivies, such as certain flame retardants, are no longer permitted to be used which has reduced the demands for certain e-waste plastics. The electronics recycling industry is still adjusting to prohibitions that have recently been put in place eliminating any waste plastics shipments to certain countries. These changes will slow down to future shipments and cause significant reductions in materials exported. Recovered plastics that are able to be exported in either case will very likely be clean(er) shipments of single resin waste derived plastics in contrast to the complex multi resin plastic mixtures of the past. These new requirements will force the domestic adoption of new technologies for identificion of plastic resins and additives, as well as separation and processing strategies to meet the requiements of the recieving nation. Examples are metals and flame retardants which are significant hinderances to the separation and recycling of ewaste plastics that could be recycled. The selection of multiple separation techniques and understanding the materials flow requirements is essential to enable cost effective recycling. Naturally, this new effort will be forced to respond to the challenge to effectively meet the current electronic waste plastic flows and search for technology capable of addressing the current roadblocks (technical and economic) to accomplish the desired recycling actions. This article will focus on reviewing various techniques that can be used to identify, sort and process various plastics resins and additives used in electronic products.