IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v68y2020ics0301420720304086.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating total potential material recovery from EEE in EU28

Author

Listed:
  • Mazzarano, Matteo

Abstract

In this paper we explored the recycling potential across EU28 of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE). This category embodies the commodities that require electricity in order to function. Per capita rate of EEE varies from less than 150 Kg to more than 2 tons in 2018. Economic intensity of this stock is overall decreasing and it is currently near to zero. EEE are composed by a wide range of materials, comprehending valuables ones as gold and rare ones as antimony. We calculated the potential recovery rate of 16 materials from this category. Using inflow-driven analysis, we estimated the potential value for both in-use stock and waste flows. We defined this rate artificial ore grade (AOG), given recycling as mining of the anthroposphere. Using the same dataset, we estimated the composition of EEE for the same materials and compared the results with other studies. Results show that in-use stock AOG is decreasing over time, possibly due to com-position change of EEE. Nevertheless, potential recovery from these 16 materials accounts to almost 15% of EEE weight in richer countries. Similar results occur for waste AOG. The only two materials that face an increase in rate are iron and chlorine: respectively 0.08%–0.1% and 0.0013%–0.0015% stock-waste. Heavy equipment seems to be the richest category due to size effect. We finally compared the in-use material stock contained within EEE and the rest of anthroposphere. The total weight of EEE is residual compared to total in-use stock. Our results show that high recovery potential is paired with low material consumption compared to the rest of economy. This is a good sign for material footprint, but negative for the volume of recycled materials.

Suggested Citation

  • Mazzarano, Matteo, 2020. "Estimating total potential material recovery from EEE in EU28," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:68:y:2020:i:c:s0301420720304086
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101785
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420720304086
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101785?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kovalev, Andrey V., 2016. "Misuse of thermodynamic entropy in economics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 129-136.
    2. Cucchiella, Federica & D’Adamo, Idiano & Lenny Koh, S.C. & Rosa, Paolo, 2015. "Recycling of WEEEs: An economic assessment of present and future e-waste streams," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 263-272.
    3. Thompson, Matt & Barr, Drew, 2014. "Cut-off grade: A real options analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 83-92.
    4. Perrine Chancerel & Christina E.M. Meskers & Christian Hagelüken & Vera Susanne Rotter, 2009. "Assessment of Precious Metal Flows During Preprocessing of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 13(5), pages 791-810, October.
    5. Horațiu Vermeșan & Ancuța-Elena Tiuc & Marius Purcar, 2019. "Advanced Recovery Techniques for Waste Materials from IT and Telecommunication Equipment Printed Circuit Boards," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, December.
    6. Andersson, Magnus & Ljunggren Söderman, Maria & Sandén, Björn A., 2019. "Challenges of recycling multiple scarce metals: The case of Swedish ELV and WEEE recycling," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Pothen, Frank, 2013. "The metal resources (METRO) model: A dynamic partial equilibrium model for metal markets applied to rare earth elements," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-112, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Marcello Ruberti & Stefania Massari, 2018. "Are the World-Leading Primary Silver Mines Exhausting?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-14, July.
    9. Wiedenhofer, Dominik & Fishman, Tomer & Lauk, Christian & Haas, Willi & Krausmann, Fridolin, 2019. "Integrating Material Stock Dynamics Into Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounting: Concepts, Modelling, and Global Application for 1900–2050," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 121-133.
    10. Eric Neumayer, 2013. "Weak versus Strong Sustainability," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14993.
    11. Sam Mitra, 2019. "Depletion, technology, and productivity growth in the metallic minerals industry," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(1), pages 19-37, April.
    12. Tomer Fishman & Heinz Schandl & Hiroki Tanikawa & Paul Walker & Fridolin Krausmann, 2014. "Accounting for the Material Stock of Nations," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 18(3), pages 407-420, May.
    13. Raffaele Isernia & Renato Passaro & Ivana Quinto & Antonio Thomas, 2019. "The Reverse Supply Chain of the E-Waste Management Processes in a Circular Economy Framework: Evidence from Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, April.
    14. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar, 2014. "The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262525429, December.
    15. Roland W. Scholz & Friedrich‐Wilhelm Wellmer, 2019. "Although there is no Physical Short‐Term Scarcity of Phosphorus, its Resource Efficiency Should be Improved," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 23(2), pages 313-318, April.
    16. Ulrich, Sam & Trench, Allan & Hagemann, Steffen, 2019. "Grade-cost relationships within Australian underground gold mines – A 2014–2017 empirical study and potential value implications," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 29-48.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oana-Cristina Modoi & Florin-Constantin Mihai, 2022. "E-Waste and End-of-Life Vehicles Management and Circular Economy Initiatives in Romania," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-40, February.
    2. Mazzarano, Matteo, 2022. "Material governance and circularity policies: How waste policies and innovation affect household appliances' accumulation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Horațiu Vermeșan & Ancuța-Elena Tiuc & Marius Purcar, 2019. "Advanced Recovery Techniques for Waste Materials from IT and Telecommunication Equipment Printed Circuit Boards," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, December.
    2. Mazzarano, Matteo, 2022. "Material governance and circularity policies: How waste policies and innovation affect household appliances' accumulation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    3. Mathieu, Valentin & Roda, Jean-Marc, 2023. "A meta-analysis on wood trade flow modeling concepts," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. Neves, Sónia Almeida & Marques, António Cardoso & de Sá Lopes, Leonardo Batista, 2024. "Is environmental regulation keeping e-waste under control? Evidence from e-waste exports in the European Union," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    5. Dias, Pablo R. & Schmidt, Lucas & Chang, Nathan L. & Monteiro Lunardi, Marina & Deng, Rong & Trigger, Blair & Bonan Gomes, Lucas & Egan, Renate & Veit, Hugo, 2022. "High yield, low cost, environmentally friendly process to recycle silicon solar panels: Technical, economic and environmental feasibility assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    6. Franz Schug & David Frantz & Dominik Wiedenhofer & Helmut Haberl & Doris Virág & Sebastian van der Linden & Patrick Hostert, 2023. "High‐resolution mapping of 33 years of material stock and population growth in Germany using Earth Observation data," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(1), pages 110-124, February.
    7. Geraldo Cardoso de Oliveira Neto & Auro de Jesus Cardoso Correia & Henrricco Nieves Pujol Tucci & Rosângela Andrade Pita Brancalhão Melatto & Marlene Amorim, 2023. "Reverse Chain for Electronic Waste to Promote Circular Economy in Brazil: A Survey on Electronics Manufacturers and Importers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-27, February.
    8. Daniela Cordova-Pizarro & Ismael Aguilar-Barajas & David Romero & Ciro A. Rodriguez, 2019. "Circular Economy in the Electronic Products Sector: Material Flow Analysis and Economic Impact of Cellphone E-Waste in Mexico," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, March.
    9. Joris Baars & Mohammad Ali Rajaeifar & Oliver Heidrich, 2022. "Quo vadis MFA? Integrated material flow analysis to support material efficiency," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(4), pages 1487-1503, August.
    10. Piotr Nowakowski & Sandra Kuśnierz & Julia Płoszaj & Patrycja Sosna, 2021. "Collecting Small-Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment in Poland—How Can Containers Help in Disposal of E-Waste by Individuals?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-18, November.
    11. Panchal, Rohit & Singh, Anju & Diwan, Hema, 2021. "Economic potential of recycling e-waste in India and its impact on import of materials," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Chenling Fu & Yan Zhang & Tianjie Deng & Ichiro Daigo, 2022. "The evolution of material stock research: From exploring to rising to hot studies," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(2), pages 462-476, April.
    13. Liang Yuan & Weisheng Lu & Fan Xue & Maosu Li, 2023. "Building feature‐based machine learning regression to quantify urban material stocks: A Hong Kong study," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(1), pages 336-349, February.
    14. Raffaele Isernia & Renato Passaro & Ivana Quinto & Antonio Thomas, 2019. "The Reverse Supply Chain of the E-Waste Management Processes in a Circular Economy Framework: Evidence from Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, April.
    15. Samuel Abalansa & Badr El Mahrad & John Icely & Alice Newton, 2021. "Electronic Waste, an Environmental Problem Exported to Developing Countries: The GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-24, May.
    16. Bahar, Dany & Choudhury, Prithwiraj & Rapoport, Hillel, 2020. "Migrant inventors and the technological advantage of nations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(9).
    17. Rambaud, Alexandre & Richard, Jacques, 2015. "The “Triple Depreciation Line” instead of the “Triple Bottom Line”: Towards a genuine integrated reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 92-116.
    18. Taelim Choi & Randall W. Jackson & Nancey Green Leigh & Christa D. Jensen, 2011. "A Baseline Input—Output Model with Environmental Accounts (IOEA) Applied to E-Waste Recycling," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 3-33, January.
    19. Mustapha Douch & Terence Huw Edwards, 2022. "The bilateral trade effects of announcement shocks: Brexit as a natural field experiment," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 305-329, March.
    20. Bahar, Dany & Rosenow, Samuel & Stein, Ernesto & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2019. "Export take-offs and acceleration: Unpacking cross-sector linkages in the evolution of comparative advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 48-60.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:68:y:2020:i:c:s0301420720304086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30467 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.