According to the European Environmental Bureau, the full lifecycle of European smartphones represents 14 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. The average lifetime of a device is only three years. On average, each EU citizen produces approximately 15.6 kg of electro-waste per year, of which only 7 kg is collected and recycled. "Electronics need to be designed so that valuable components can be used for the longest time possible and so that all these units can be easily recycled,” says Wojciech Stęplewski from the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Tele and Radio Research Institute. Polish researchers from this facility participated in the international sustainablySMART project aimed at developing new methods of designing mobile devices to reduce their environmental impact.
“The sustainable production of electronics is very important today, particularly due to the fact that there are more and more of them and they are widely used. Unfortunately, it pollutes the environment, if we do not recycle and dispose of it responsibly. We need to implement techniques and technologies that will enable us to use electronics for longer, and to significantly reduce waste from their production and associated CO2 emissions,” says Wojciech Stęplewski, leader of the Printed Circuit Technologies and Assembly Research Group at the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Tele and Radio Research Institute to the Newseria news agency.
Smartphones are a good example of the environmental impact of electronic devices. Based on data from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the average life span of a smartphone in Europe reaches three years, with annual sales of around 211 million pieces. The full life cycle of European smartphones represents 14 million tons of CO2 emissions per year, and the production of just one model requires approximately 70 kg of raw materials — mainly plastic, glass and precious metals.
According to the EEB, extending the life span of smartphones and other electronics by just one year would save the same amount of CO2 emissions across the EU as reducing the movement of 2 million cars per year. And extending their life span by five years to 2030 would save as much as 10 million tonnes of emissions (CO2 equivalent) per year, which corresponds to taking 5 million cars off the road. Stena Recycling reports that recycling one smartphone at the end of its life span can save enough energy to keep a nine-watt light bulb burning for over 200 days.
"Smartphones, laptops and other devices contain many electronic components such as integrated circuits, CPUs, memories. These are manufactured in billions of pieces, using precious metals such as gold and platinum, which are quite expensive. It takes digging through a lot of ore to extract just a few grams. Therefore, the longer we use these electronic components, the more we save the environment and reduce our carbon footprint,” expert says.
According to the United Nations, consumers generate approximately 50 million tons of electronic waste each year worldwide, and the value of the raw materials they contain exceeds 48 billion euros. Each inhabitant of the EU produces approximately 15.6 kg of electro-waste per year. According to the report "Electro-waste Management. Challenges for 2019-2023", prepared by ElektroEko SA, APPiA Poland and the Digital Poland Association, approximately 7 kg of this electro-waste is collected and recycled. Stena Recycling, in turn, reports that computers, smartphones, TVs and refrigerators are the fastest growing waste fraction across the European Union.
Very valuable resources such as copper, silver or gold can be recovered from used electronics. For example, recycling of five used computers can produce approximately 1 g of gold. Mining the same amount of gold in a mine in Africa requires the use of 2 tons of rocks and soil, through a complicated process that has negative impact on the environment, such as land degradation, excessive water consumption or soil contamination with toxic chemicals. Moreover, approximately 10 percent of the world's gold resources are used for the production of modern electronics.
“Electronics must be designed to allow valuable components and subassemblies to be used for as long as possible and to be easily recycled,” says the expert of the Tele and Radio Research Institute.
Extending the life cycle of electronics and mobile devices and developing new methods for their design was the goal of the European sustainablySMART project involving cooperation of 17 research centers from eight European countries.
"As part of the sustainablySMART project, there were developed, among others, a modular smartphone, a tablet with an environmentally friendly casing and a special robot that disassembles electronic equipment and its components so that they do not damage and can be later used in other devices,” explains Wojciech Stęplewski.
The Tele and Radio Research Institute belonging to the Łukasiewicz Research Network was one of the centers participating in the sustainablySMART project. Its main task was to develop device concepts and techniques for the recovery of selected electronic subassemblies from mobile devices, in accordance with the principles of a closed-cycle economy. Importantly, the concepts and products created under sustainablySMART have already been marketed for commercial use.
"The consortium members are already developing new solutions and marketing them. As a whole team, we will soon participate in international conferences, such as in the United States, and trade fairs, where we will convince people to use the technologies that have been developed in this project,” says the leader of the Printed Circuit Technologies and Assembly Research Group. “Telecommunications providers and major electronics manufacturers are already strongly recognizing this trend of sustainable electronics and the circular economy. It is also developing on the customer side. It is only a matter of time before it grows even more.”
sustainablySMART project was recently awarded with the Ralf Dahrendorf Prize for the European Research Area by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The award highlights the significant added value of collaborative European research and honors the commitment of researchers that is crucial to the success of the European Research Area. sustainablySMART is one of five projects which received this award this year.
