1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Disposition
Metals: The recycling process for recovering metal from electronic products builds upon the
existing scrap metal industry. Unlike plastics, whose true raw materials are various forms of
petroleum, metals are recovered back to elements. In most cases, therefore, the scrap metal from
electronics is smelted and refined into numerous metals for sale. The key to optimizing metal recycling
from electronic products is determining how much processing is warranted to remove
components, plastic, glass, or paper from the metal stream before transferring it to a refiner or
smelter. A series of technologies are in limited commercial use for removing ferrous materials
(using a magnet), separating copper and nickel (using an air classifier), and separating aluminum
(through an eddy current separator).
5.7 Definitions
Product end-of-life management (PELM) for electronic products is a relatively new undertaking.
As is often the case with an emerging field, terms are sometimes used without clear
understanding or agreement on their meaning. The following definitions are included as a
reference guide to the terms used throughout this section.
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Asset (or Resource Materials) Recovery: The process of a seller voluntarily obtaining
ownership of an item through a commercial transaction (e.g., sale, lease, rental, or tradein)
for any commercial purpose including parts recovery, remanufacturing, or recycling.
Collection Infrastructure: Any mechanism, public or private, including reverse
distribution and municipal solid waste collection, for recovering used electronic
equipment.
Demanufacturing: The process of disassembling products into usable components or material
fractions.
Disposition: The effective management of retired products according to current
economics, market conditions, regulations, technology, and environmental factors. A
broader term that envisions reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, recovery, and
other options.
End-of-Life (EOL): The point at which a product is no longer useful to the holder for its
original purpose. Synonymous with retired.
Product End-of-Life Management (PELM): A system for managing retired products (i.e.,
a disposition system).
Product Stewardship: One of the best definitions of product stewardship is provided by
Hewlett-Packard, a leader in this area, as “…a philosophy and practice of designing products
and their associated accessories and processes to prevent and/or minimize adverse
health, safety, and ecological impacts throughout their life cycle, (i.e., design,
manufacture distribution, use, take-back, disassembly, reuse, recycle and ultimate
disposition of constituent parts and materials)…” [30].
Product Take-Back: To some, product take-back refers to legislative mandates for the recovery
and recycling of products, while to others, it refers to voluntary and involuntary
efforts. Moreover, it should be noted that take-back legislation does not automatically require
manufacturers to physically recover equipment themselves (i.e., bring it back to
their facilities). Take-back legislation generally mandates that manufacturers ensure that
recovery and recycling happens, either within the organization or through a third party.