title: Use, Storage, and Disposal of Electronic Equipment in Switzerland.
abstract: Electronic devices contain important resources, including precious and critical raw materials. For an efficient management of these resources, it is important to know where the devices are located, how long they are used and when and how they are disposed of. In this article, we explore the past and current quantities of electronic devices in the in-use stock and storage stock in Switzerland and quantify the flows between the use, storage and disposal phase with dynamic material flow analysis (MFA). Devices included are mobile phones, desktop and laptop computers, monitors, cathode ray tube and flat panel display televisions, DVD players, and headphones. The system for the dynamic MFA was developed as a cascade model dividing the use phase in first, second and further use, with each of these steps consisting of an in-use stock and a storage stock for devices. Using a customized software tool, we apply Monte Carlo simulation to systematically consider data uncertainty. The results highlight the importance of the storage stock, which accounts for 25% (in terms of mass) or 40% (in terms of pieces) of the total stock of electronic devices in 2014. Reuse and storage significantly influence the total lifetime of devices and lead to wide and positively skewed lifetime distributions.
authors.affiliation: Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Laboratory , Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8739-4011
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Thiébaud
authors.affiliation: Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Laboratory , Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.|University of Zürich , Department of Informatics, Binzmühlestrasse 14, CH-8050 Zürich, Switzerland.|KTH Royal Institute of Technology , Centre for Sustainable Communications (CESC), Lindstedtsvägen 5, S-10044 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Lorenz M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Hilty
authors.affiliation: World Resources Forum (WRF), Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schluep
authors.affiliation: Clausthal Environmental Institute (CUTEC), Leibnizstrasse 21 + 23, D-38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Faulstich
mesh_terms: D055984:Cathode Ray Tube; D004581:Electronics; D008838:Microcomputers; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012037:Refuse Disposal; D013557:Switzerland