Nadja von Gries
University of Kassel (Center for Environmental Systems Research) / Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy
Nadja von Gries is research fellow in the business unit “Circular Economy” at the Wuppertal Institute and phd student at the University of Kassel in Germany. Civil engineer (B.Sc.) and environmental engineer (M.Sc.), focused on regional and infrastructural planning, as well as waste management and engineering. Her work area includes waste prevention by re-use and resource efficiency in waste management.
The extension of the service life of products by reuse has been identified as key strategy for a circular economy. Especially waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), one of the fastest growing waste streams in Europe, could benefit from reuse and repair because of resource intensive production processes and short life cycles.
The starting point of this paper is the fact that in spite of product-related barriers (e.g. increased complexity, rapid loss of value, deterioration of quality), in some regions across Europe reuse of WEEE is well incorporated in waste management structures. However, the practices are very different (e.g. estimates show that the overall per capita WEEE reuse amount in Flanders (Belgium) is more than 4 times higher than in Germany) and an understanding of these practices on product level is lacking. As the resource intensity of the products production, defect and usage patterns, and repair options vary from one electronic product to another, the potentials and benefits of prolonging the use phase of products by reuse can only be understood by distinguishing between different electronic products.
The analysis is based on two case studies of reuse companies in Flanders and North-Rhine Westphalia (Germany). Starting from the investigation of product characteristics and defect patterns with a focus on washing machines, flatscreen monitors, loudspeakers and coffee machines, the flows of the selected waste products and their transformation into used products and waste throughout the activities of the company’s are quantitative and qualitative analysed (reference year: 2015). The study is based on expert interviews with the responsible actors, and the extensive evaluation of internal data documentations of the companies’ (e.g. for the investigation in the German company over 1000 handwritten pages with lists of tested products were analysed). To fill data gaps data was gathered by collection and reuse trials (e.g. observation of 32 repair measures).
For instance, the results show that the reuse rates for washing machines are very different in the companies (Flanders: 25%, NRW: 0%), while the reuse rate for coffee machines is around 14% in the Belgian and 9% in the German company.
Based on these empirical findings the paper shows for both case studies the interrelationships between the product system and environmental impacts. Using abiotic material input indicators the product flows are assessed. First the material composition of the products are analysed by literature review and combined with indicators, which are gathered from an existing database and for materials, for which data is not available, a characterization method is applied (both work of the Wuppertal Institute), which allows calculating these indicators based on the Ecoinvent database. Other natural resource consumption along the lifecycle (e.g. through energy consumption during use phase) is qualitative discussed.
This system view enables to give recommendations to politics and planning to promote reuse in a resource-efficient way (e.g. focusing on specific products, applying specific practices) and contributes to the discussion of reuse of waste becoming an integral part of any city’s metabolism.
• Socio-economic metabolism and material flow analysis , • Circular economy
