Download What does the growth in semiconductor

Design for Resource Optimization
Presentation to Tablets Workshop
December 12, 2013
Electronics TakeBack Coalition
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This presentation
1. Resource use in electronics
2. What are the current metrics we use for
looking at resource optimization
3. Are the current metrics adequate for
driving serious resource optimization?
4. What are the long term goals of our
sustainability efforts?
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Resource consumption exceeds
recovery
• High volumes of metals, plastics consumed:
More than 40 percent of the global mine production of
copper, tin, antimony, indium, ruthenium and rare earth
elements is used annually for electronics and appliance
production.
• Low volumes of metals recovered – Globally,
we recover less than 15% of precious metals
from electronics recycling
Source:Christian Hagelüken, Umicore, Presentation to Sustainability Forum
Wingspread, October 2012
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Unsustainable resource churn
• Minerals are not renewable.
Mineral
When will we run out?
Indium
2028
Silver
2029
Gold
2030
Scientific
American
2010
• Political issues around who controls access to rare earth
minerals, critical minerals, oil. Supply risks.
• Mining is truly awful.
– Huge impacts on local communities, environment.
Destruction of local economies. Some fuel civil wars
(conflict minerals)
Mining issues continued
• Extreme pollution from mining
• Enormous amounts of waste:
Producing one ton of copper results in 110 tons of
waste ore and 200 tons of “overburden,” the material
that is removed in open pit mining to reach the ore.
Source: Earthworks, “Ruined Lands, Poisoned Waters,”
• Some rare earth elements occur with
radioactive minerals, so extraction is
dangerous and generates radioactive waste.
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What are the current metrics we are using to
encourage resource optimization?
MATERIALS IN
What materials go into the product?
• Recycled content (plastic)
Shortcomings:
- Plastic only, not metals
- Tiny amounts or recycled
content
- Adds flame retarded plastic
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Current metrics
MATERIALS OUT
What materials come out of the product for
recycling? Metrics look at broad categories:
• metals (ferrous, non-ferrous, precious)
• plastics,
• glass
• Batteries
• Circuit board
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Current Metrics –
Calculating Recyclability by Weight
Recyclability Calculation ULE 110
1. Weight of battery
2. Weight of recyclable plastic parts
3. Weight of recyclable metal parts
4. Weight of circuit boards, displays, and other electronic
components
5. Weight of glass display windows or lenses if separated
6. TOTAL RECYCLABLE WEIGHT
(Sum 1:5)
7. Total weight of handset and battery (g)
% Recyclable =Total Recyclable Wt (6) /Total weight (7)
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Shortcomings of metrics on
materials out
• Weight based calculations measure theoretical
recycling, but don’t reflect economic realities.
Can a recycler make money recycling the materials in your product,
including cost to separate them?
• Some products/materials still end up in the trash,
or in low-road export markets
• Lots of down-cycling of plastics
• Ignores high value critical minerals, rare earth
elements (used in small amounts)
• Doesn’t tell is what’s closed loop recycled
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Current metrics continued
DESIGN FOR REUSE
OR RECYLABILITY
PRODUCT LONGEVITY
Product design enables
disassembly – easy removal
of fasteners
Replacement parts
availability for X years
Limited coatings on plastics
Availability of warranties
External enclosures easy to
Removable battery
remove with common tools
Larger plastic parts separable
from metals
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Shortcomings of current metrics
• Tablet study shows
design for manual
disassembly (to
enable repair) is
often at odds with
design for
recyclability (easy
separation of
parts/materials)
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Shortcomings of current metrics
• Not enough
emphasis on
removing obstacles
to reuse and repair
for all, not just for
authorized repair
units
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Products becoming more complex
• Over 40 elements in a mobile phone
• More components (convergence) crammed
into shrinking form factors
• More chips & semiconductor components
• More complex mixtures of materials – both
plastic mixtures and metal alloys used
• More reliance on critical minerals without
ability to recover them
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Increasing product complexity:
Semiconductor components
• Tablets: Large number of components and parts
made with semiconductors
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Semiconductor production uses
massive amounts of resources:
• Chemicals used in semiconductor
manufacturing. Many very toxic.
• Energy used in
•
•
•
Chip making and semi component manufacturing
Processing high purity chemicals required for chip making
Making ultra pure water for chip making
• Water - Massive amounts of water
•
•
Hazardous waste generation
Toxic chemical exposures – workers and communities
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Semiconductor production uses
massive amounts of resources
(2002 example) To make a single 32-MB DRAM
computer chip weighing only 2 grams, it takes
• 32,000 g of water,
• 1600 g (3.5 lbs) of fossil fuels,
• 700 grams of elemental gases, and
• 72 grams of chemicals. That makes the ratio of
fossil fuel and chemicals used to make the chip
630 to 1, compared to making a car, which uses
a 2 to 1 ratio.
•
•
Eric Williams, Robert Ayres, Miriam Heller, “The 1.7 Kilogram Microchip: Energy and Material Use in the
Production of Semiconductor Devices,” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol 36 No 24, 2002.
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E-Reader LCA
• One e-reader requires:
• the extraction of 33 pounds of minerals (including
conflict minerals, like columbite-tantalite)
• 79 gallons of water to produce its batteries and printed
wiring boards, and in refining metals like the gold used in
trace quantities in the circuits.
• 100 kilowatt hours of fossil fuels for manufacturing,
resulting in 66 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Source: New York Times April 2010
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Semiconductor Miniaturization
• Technology advances have pushed
semiconductor miniaturization down to the
nanoscale level →
• Fabrication processing requires more
materials, more complex materials, more
energy, and in some steps, more water.
•
Source: Farhang Shadman, “Environmental challenges in nanoelectronics
manufacturing,” Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering 2012, 1:258–268,
March 2012: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.coche.2012.03.004
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Need strategies & metrics that reflect the
complexity of the products
• UNEP Report on Metals Recycling 2013
• Considers the complex interactions in a
recycling system
• Combines principles of:
–
–
–
–
separation physics
thermodynamics
metallurgy
economics of recycling
• Assesses what comes out of the system, in
order to minimize the losses from each step
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• Product design determines the mineralogy
of the recyclates and thus their economic
value
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Product design for resource efficiency
• The purity and constituency of the material
entering metallurgical processing
determines recycling output
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Product-Centric Recycling
• Product-Centric recycling focuses on
optimizing recycling the product as a
whole rather than as separate contained
metals (material centric recycling).
• Product Centric recycling targets
components – how to separate and
recover them.
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KPIs
• Economic value of output should be a key
product indicator
“Economic output value is the indicator
that best reflects whether the physical realities
of the recycling process have been optimized”
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What about plastics?
• Need similar
analysis of
resource
efficiency
issues for
plastics
recovery and
recycling
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Resource Optimization?
• After using all those resources- water, energy,
chemicals, minerals – to make tablets, we can
only recover $1- $1.75 worth of materials.
• UNEP Report: “Economic output value is the indicator
that best reflects whether the physical realities of the
recycling process have been optimized”
• Are tablets at risk for being disposable
products?
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Resource optimization =
enabling serious rates of reuse
• Need to enable and encourage anyone to
repair and refurbish products
– Repair manuals and schematics made public
– Access to spare parts for everyone, not just
“authorized” repairers
– Easy path to unlocking devices
– Design for manual disassembly
– User replaceable batteries
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Design challenges
• Don’t make us choose between repair and recycling.
Can’t we challenge designers to come up with fasteners
that promote easy manual disassembly, material
separation, and protect the product from damage.
• Standardized (Voluntary) external enclosure
disassembly methodologies, to remove guesswork
– Snaps
– Screws
– Glue/tape.
– Marking on exterior would indicate which was used.
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Design challenges
• Standardized plastic(s) for tablet enclosures.
Same additives, color, etc, to ensure pure
recyclable stream. Infinitely recyclable?
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