An analysis of some environmental consequences of European electrical and electronic waste regulation

Y. Barba-Gutiérrez, B. Adenso-Díaz and M. Hopp

Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2008, vol. 52, issue 3, 481-495

Abstract: In recent years, new European Directives have been issued to ensure that Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is treated in as environmentally friendly a way as possible. These new European laws call for the creation of new logistics networks to collect all such waste. The purpose of this paper is to show that, under certain circumstances, the environmental impact of these networks could be even higher than the impact of non-collection. Different appliances were analysed (washing machines, refrigerators, TV sets and personal computers) in order to test this hypothesis. The methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied, highlighting especially the final phase of product life and calculating the threshold beyond which collection is harmful for each type of equipment. The results demonstrate that, depending on the distance travelled to pick up the domestic appliances, recycling is not as environmental friendly as expected, especially when it comes to the impact of fossil fuels or respiratory inorganics (winter smog). This work can be a useful tool for manufacturers (now forced to take back all the equipment after use for subsequent treatment) when designing their new recycling networks from an environmental perspective.

Keywords: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment; Life Cycle Assessment; Domestic appliances; Environmental impact; Waste regulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344907001462
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:recore:v:52:y:2008:i:3:p:481-495

DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2007.06.002

Access Statistics for this article

Resources, Conservation & Recycling is currently edited by Ming Xu

More articles in Resources, Conservation & Recycling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kai Meng ().