The EU WEEE Directive prioritises reuse and preparation for reuse over recycling for all categories of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). However, in order for preparation for reuse to flourish it requires products that are technically and economically feasible to repair and subsequently placed back on the market.
Firstly, from a technical perspective, it is essential that the most common faults that cause users to dispose of the products are addressable and indeed repairable. Secondly, from an economic perspective, these repairs must be realised in a sufficiently short time and with a labour cost which makes it economically viable to undertake the repair work. Under the same constraint, suitably priced replacement parts must also be available for these repairs.
In order to maximise the reparability of such EEE products, this presentation presents a review of EEE product design and associated criteria which would enable better preparation for reuse potential in EEE equipment in their later product lifecycle, support repair and reuse of these products as economically viable activities.
The two product categories considered in this research are large household appliances (LHA) and information and communications technology (ICT) equipment. LHA equipment is the largest contributor to WEEE by weight whereas ICT equipment such as laptops, mobile phones and computer tablets are the largest contributors by amount. More specifically, the review considers washing machines and mobile phones/computer tablets as indicative products in their respective categories.
For washing machines, a study was conducted over a period of 6 months where 1,100 appliances were considered for preparation for reuse from Irish consumer WEEE. The appliances went through a repair process as per PAS 141 at an accredited preparation for reuse centre in Dublin, Ireland. The repairs conducted are itemised for the 327 appliances which successfully made it through the repair process and were subsequently marketed and sold.
The results show that the most common repairs are brushes (24%), motors (17%), doors (17%), mains leads (10%) and pumps (7%) in washing machines. Based on this, it is recommended that design criteria for washing machines include modular motors and drain pumps, motors support replaceable brushes, all mains leads are connected via socket housing and all doors/seals are easily repaired and refurbished. These recommendations should be included in the revision of the implementing measure related to the EU EcoDesign and Energy Labelling directive frameworks.
A separate study undertaken for mobile phones and computer tablets was conducted at four electronics repair shops across Ireland. Again, data was collected on the most common successful repairs with a view to generating recommendations on the classes of repairs which would be technically and economically feasible in all products in the category. A population of almost 23,000 devices produced repair and design recommendations focusing predominantly on screens (55%), batteries (17%) and chargers (10%) as the key repairable components in these products. Again, this repair data and subsequent recommendations for product design will be presented here and relayed to producers through the relevant EcoDesign and Energy Labelling directive channels.
• Products and services, design for the environment, product declarations and labelling , • Circular economy , • Sustainable consumption and production
