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A good way to tackle the e-waste problem is to design electronics devices for reduce, repair, reuse and recycling. Let’s find out how the EU’s EECONE scheme is supporting research into this mission.

Next year, the global consumer electronics industry is expected to gross $1 trillion for the first time. It raises the question: where do the old and unwanted products go? 

Every year, the issue of e-waste grows more urgent. According to the Global e-waste Monitor 2024, the world generated 34 billion kg of e-waste in 2010. But since then, volumes have risen by 2.3 billion kg per year. As a result, the e-waste total stood at 62 billion kg in 2022.

So, where does it go? Regrettably, most is sent to landfill. Just 22.3 per cent (13.8 billion kg) of the e-waste generated is collected and recycled. 

This is concerning. e-waste contains a range of materials, some of which cause environmental and health problems. It's also wasteful: modern electronics contains rare and expensive resources, which could be better recycled. 

Alongside waste, there is also the issue of emissions. According to the UN’s Environment Programme, electronics accounted for three percent of all carbon emissions in 2021. That’s comparable with aviation. 

The collective impact of e-waste is alarming. Scientists say there are nine Planetary Boundaries (PBs) that affect the life-support functions of the earth: climate, ocean pH, fresh water, biosphere, ozone, nutrients, land use, aerosols and pollution. It says six are now operating beyond safe limits.

In response, governments are stepping up. They are introducing regulations around safe disposal and recycling. And they are supporting projects to encourage cooperation among vendors and research into new innovations.

An example of the latter approach is the European ECOsystem for greeN Electronics (EECONE) project. This European Union funded scheme is exploring practical ways to reduce e-waste in the EU – and accelerate the shift to low-waste electronics.

Three main ways to reduce problem of e-waste

Most e-waste initiatives use the 6R concept as a guideline for sustainability efforts: reduce, reliability, repair, reuse, refurbish, recycle. So how do these principles translate into action for stakeholders in the electronics space? There are three key methods.

1.    Increase product lifetimes. Making products more reliable and repairable will reduce the volume of e-waste. 

2.    Reduce the amount of material used – especially toxic material. The use of renewable resources like plant-based polymers can make products more sustainable and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Of course, Manufacturers must consider whether a product or component is needed at all. If doesn't exist, it can never be waste.

3.    Make it easier to reuse and recycle components/elements. This promotes a circular economy and reduces the use of virgin materials.

New solutions to e-waste: the EECONE project

The EU is aware of the e-waste problem. Official figures say: 

•    EU citizens consume 14.4 million tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment a year
•    Authorities collect 5 million tonnes of e-waste a year
•    In 2022, 11.2 kg of electrical and electronic equipment waste were collected per inhabitant in the EU.

To address the issue, the EU introduced the directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in 2012. It mandates that vendors must contribute to the disposal and treatment of their products.

In March 2020, the EU unveiled a Circular Action Plan to “make sustainable products, services and business models the norm” and “transform consumption patterns so that no waste is produced in the first place.”

These are nice goals. The main hurdle to meeting them in the electronics space is the sheer number of participants. The value chain includes providers of rare earth materials, semiconductors, printed circuit boards, SIM cards, modems and more. How can they work together?

This is the objective of the €26 million EECONE initiative.

EECONE launched in 2023 as a three-year project with 49 partners from 16 European countries. It invites participants to explore efficient methods of recycling, repairing and reconditioning electronic components. The project comprises 10 use cases covering areas such as automotive, consumer electronics, health, communication, aviation, and agriculture.

Let’s explore one of them.

EECONE Use Case 8: giving a second life to smartphones

The smartphone market generates a lot of e-waste. In 2022, 5 billion phones were expected to become e-waste.

EECONE Use Case 8 explores the options for extending the life of smartphones – as well as ICT and customer-provided equipment (i.e. any device that connects to a network).

Thales is a participant. It’s exploring how to re-purpose the secure element (SE) from one device to another – for example, from a smartphone to a router used to provide connectivity for multiple existing devices (home appliances, industrial sensors etc).

This is important research. The SE is a tamper-proof chip that protects all data, critical functions and associated keys safely and shares them only with authorised applications and people. SEs were traditionally held on a removable SIM or bank card. But in newer devices, they can be soldered in place. Obviously, an embedded SE is much harder to re-purpose.

Christophe Guillaud, Thales’ Transversal Program & Activities Manager says: “The challenge is around security. The SE stores sensitive user credentials, so we need to repurpose it without creating risks to the user or the network. But SEs were not designed to be upgraded like, say, the open mobile OS. So, we are working on ways to handle the upgrade while preserving security.”

“The other key challenge is installing a new OS such as Linux, which will be maintained by the community over a long period, even after the end of standard mobile OS maintenance. And then there’s casing. You need new components to repackage a device into another form. But you can’t have a process that demands more resources than you save.”

Thales is now working with Belgium Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) on a mechanism to wipe and replace the mobile OS and SE OS. A proof of concept is in development, and the partners expect to give live demonstrations later this year.

Christophe says the ultimate aim is to provide guidelines on how to build in this functionality at the design stage. He says: “We want to issue recommendations on repurposing, and guidelines on how to do lifecycle assessments. We want to help manufacturers so that, when they are designing a new product, they know how to make it friendly for recycling and repurposing. This is the idea of EECONE.” 

If you are interested in eco-design, Thales is ready to talk, and to participate in European consortia that drive innovation in this space. For more details, please contact Marie Letailleur.

EECONE has received funding from the Chips Joint Undertaking under the grant agreement nr. 101112065 and from participating states Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey.  
For France, the project is supported by the French government as part of France 2030.