1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Disposition
a hazardous waste and has to be handled as such, even if it is destined for recycling. This is true
even if there has been no change to the material, such as being scrapped without processing.
Among the more difficult issues is to define the “steward” or responsible party, for end-of-life
products in a modern multi-national, multi-layer marketing arena. At present, these products are
the responsibility of the owner, typically the consumer or a particular business entity. However,
in the current discussions about “take-back” it is not obvious who should be taking back what,
and under what conditions. In this context it is important to distinguish between voluntary asset
recovery, which takes place today where there is economic incentive to do so, and involuntary
product stewardship, whereby the responsibility is a mandated transaction under law. The
definition of “steward” is an important concept since, ultimately, the steward will be held
responsible for appropriate end-of-life management. 11 The range of possible stewards is broad.
Candidates include distributors, value added resellers (VARs), original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs), suppliers, exporters, holding companies, and end users. Furthermore, a product that is
at one time owned by a commercial enterprise can easily become a consumer product if it is sold
on the secondary market to a consumer.
5.4.5 Technology
Without sufficient market demand for refurbished products and recycled materials, it is difficult
to establish widespread recycling networks and efficient logistics. However, without such
logistics, the assurance of a successful business based on retired electronic product systems is
diminished. An important factor in this equation is the availability of technology focusing on the
end-of-life recycling processes, including disassembly, sorting, material identification,
separation, and recycling.
There is a growing infrastructure for recovering and recycling end-of-life electronic products.
However, most of the approaches focus on the recovery of metals and are less capable of dealing
with the large quantities of glass and plastic that are associated with computers and other
electronic products. Significant obstacles exist to cost-effective materials identification and
separation, and significant development is needed of processes for post separation processing. A
critical issue is the efficiency of the recovery process, i.e., recovering enough value to justify the
cost of processing.
Displays offer a good example of the way in which technological limitations block a potential
market. A draft report to the EPA states that more than 17 million computer displays were sold
in 1994 [25] and cites an EIA estimate that 10 million television sets will be disposed of each
year. Another report indicates that by the end of 1995, there will be a base of 300 million CRTs
(televisions and monitors) in service [26]. The potential recoverable material in retired CRTs
comes from leaded glass funnels, low carbon steel shadow masks, optical-quality glass face
plates, conductive coatings, and luminescent materials. Recovering the value, however, depends
on economically viable technology for glass separation and recovery, disassembly, materials
identification, and a host of other difficult technical issues. Due to its low market value, high
weight, and hazardous classification, CRT glass is not readily recovered.
11 See definitions given in Section 5.7.
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