Platform for The Future of E-waste
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Project Title
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Project Description
E-value aims to develop a specialized collective hub for data, material, and network flows for the future of E-waste. It is instrumental in helping the EU establish broader financial incentives and improving the legal framework to lead the global conversation on exploring more robust commercially viable solutions for E-waste management and promote the twin transitions. Creating an e-waste recycling system, bringing a resilient, reliable, and self-sufficient circular raw materials market for EU.
Geographical Scope
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
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Description of the project
Summary
We propose a European networking platform to incentivize WEEE (waste from electrical and electronic equipment) as a secondary raw material source inside Europe.
The current EU's e-waste management and recycling rate are not optimistic. With only 40% of e-waste recycled and fragmented e-recovery industry, the EU faces serious environmental challenges.
The platform establishes a network between different actors along the e-waste management chain:
• Citizens and businesses that need to dispose of WEEE.
• Recycling and recovery facilities that treat e-waste refurbish components and extract raw materials.
• European sustainable companies that need raw materials for their production processes.
By being part of this network, the stakeholders can be matched together based on their needs and capabilities, cross-checking information about the type and amount of WEEE generated and that can be processed.
This system will also:
• Implement shared data standards on e-waste collection and treatment.
• Provide bureaucracy simplification and assistance for all actors.
• Facilitate the WEEE sorting to classify devices still working from obsolete ones.
In order to create a more efficient recycling system inside the European Union.
To watch our project video: https://youtu.be/z2aOB5p_BFc
This idea was elaborated within the MSc in Product Service System Design of the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano - Final Synthesis Design Studio (profs. Meroni, Broadbent, Selloni, Perondi). Authors: I. Castro, G. Musumeci, S. Shi, S. Stefanoni.
Key objectives for sustainability
Currently our society is highly dependent on digital technologies, but once these devices become obsolete, they turn into e-waste and toxic waste load, causing considerable social and environmental damage. They could end up in landfills, incinerated or illegally exported. On the other side, European industries are highly dependent on imports for raw materials supply, due to the lack of internal mineral resources, resulting in an unreliable and inconsistent market.
E-value aims to develop a specialized hub for data, material, and network flows in the e-waste industry to enable the next generation of e-waste recycling and recovery service systems in the EU region.
Vision: Create a fluid and robust e-waste recycling system to transform into a significant internal raw materials source for Europe.
Mission: Connect the e-waste generators, recyclers, and sustainable manufacturing companies integrating the management software "ERP" guiding them through an engaging experience towards the circular economy.
Promise:
- to promote a standardized digital e-waste management and monitoring system across the EU, significantly improved e-waste recycling efficiency,
- a stable, flexible and sustainable market for secondary circular raw materials, an empowered EU industry and SME's,
- a resilient and collaborative platform and environment, and increased awareness of the circular economy
Values:
- circularity: to transform e-waste into a valuable resource
- collaboration: between the different actors to create a more fluid system
- transparency: to raise awareness and build a trustful relationship with the users
- reliability: to secure a path to become more efficient and sustainable
- empowerment: through the Evalue service and the e-waste management process
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The main output from E-value is to increase the recoverability of CRMs inside of E-waste across Europe. And to promote the industry and material circularity of SMEs hosted in the EU to accelerate the twin transition for a circular economy, and collectively creating sustainable circular raw material era.
To cut global emissions, circularity must become the norm. E-value is instrumental in helping the EU establish broader financial incentives and an enabling legal framework to lead the global conversation on exploring stronger commercially viable and universal solutions for the recovery of e-waste and CRMs.
So E-value ultimately seeks to bring to the EU a reliable, resilient and self-sufficient market for circular raw materials based on an efficient recovery from e-waste, and to achieve a complete de-toxification of consumer electronics and a 85-95% recovery rate of e-waste and providing more jobs at home by 2050.
Take solar panels as an example for E-value's intervention in the system. The recovery rate of solar panels within the EU is now only 3%. However, through E-value's collaborative networks, the recovery rate of solar panels is expected to increase by 82% to 85%, which means E-value can reduce 18.3 tons of pollution for the world per year. Then based on a 30% recovery rate of CRMs and an average price of 715 Euros per kilo of CRMs in it, E-value's recycling activities for solar panels are expected to produce an economic value of 7.8 billion Euros, which is expected to reach 24 billion Euros by the year 2050.
Key objectives for inclusion
E-value is A european Collaborative Networking Platform that aims to create a fluid and robust e-waste recycling system and unearth the currently untapped potential behind the "waste."
Evalue offers generators a direct and efficient solution to dispose of e-waste by requesting a pickup or drop-off service through the Evalue online platform, which simplifies the process and its bureaucracy. At collection points, e-waste is sorted following a standardized procedure to optimize the distribution among recycling centers and refurbishers.
For recycling centers, Evalue offers the possibility to widen their e-waste supply and consumer base. Indeed, through the online raw materials market, recyclers can find new buyers and quickly sell materials. If they don't already dispose of a logistic system, recyclers can benefit from the one provided by Evalue. Finally, they can also receive a consultation service to enlarge or improve the production.
The receivers can benefit from the logistic service as well. The refurbishers are also offered the chance to re-insert in the recycling system devices' spare parts that can not be refurbished. Instead, the sustainable enterprises are provided access to the MRP software and the Evalue raw materials market to buy resources in a more cost-efficient and sustainable way. By subscribing to Evalue, they also get a sustainability certification, validating their usage of circular materials. They can benefit from a consultation service for a fee, including interpretation and support for EU regulations on e-waste disposal, optimizing the structure of raw material use, and requesting an assessment of the sustainability of the company's circularity to achieve a certification upgrade.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
With e-Value we plan to have an impact on different levels:
From the social point of view:
- There will be an improved quality of life and wellbeing of communities and neighborhoods (gradual elimination of e-waste landfills due to correct disposal + recycle),
- Higher awareness on e-waste disposal for all European citizens (communication side),
- Creation of new jobs (self-explanatory)
- Increased safety when dealing with hazardous materials (more controls over the recyclers that join the network).
Environmental:
- Reduced burden of e-waste produced pollution on ecosystems (especially of hazardous materials), both in Europe (A higher and more connected network, less bureaucracy and simplicity of process allow for a greater and “safer” collection + proper disposal and/or more efficient recycling) and abroad (acknowledgement of the value of e-waste, exports are reduced/eliminated).
- Reduced pollution from mining of raw materials and their transportation around the globe (materials are bought from the internal market)
Economical:
- Increased independence of EU from foreign countries for source of raw materials (increased recycling and internal re-selling)
- Expansion of the secondary raw materials market internal supply (empowered automation and internet-based solutions and maximization of resources)
- Push to the transition towards carbon netural europe with an increase of circular businesses (certification for the use of the materials)
- Push to the transition towards digital transformation (implementation of Industry 4.0 solutions)
By delivering an e-waste resource planning system with standardized data, EValue builds critical relationships between the actors and sets the foundations for materials to flow efficiently.
At the same time, our key partners also come from policy, financial, and resource fields, such as the E.U., the government, the Climate Investment Bank, the municipalities, and the local communities.
