End-of-Life treatment of Radio Base Station transceivers in Europe, Japan and the USA : a Life Cycle Assessment study

Sammanfattning: The background to this study is increased efforts at Ericsson to evaluate the environmental impact of the products. Earlier Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies at Ericsson have mainly focused on the production- and use phases, whereas the End-of-Life (EoL) phase has not been thoroughly considered. This, along with the fact that legislation on producer responsibility for electronics is anticipated in a number ofcountries around the world, has made research in the environmental impact of the EoLphase increasingly important. The main objectives of this study were: To develop scenarios for the most likely EoLtreatment of Radio Base Station transceivers in the three geographic areas Europe, Japanand the USA, to evaluate the environmental impacts of these scenarios by using the LCAmethodology, and finally, to compare the environmental impacts of the two options for EoL treatment of a Radio Base Station transceiver; dismantling and shredding without former dismantling. Initially, two transceivers were sent out for recycling trials, one to the Japanese recycling company Total Environmental Recycling Management and another to the American recycling company United Recycling Industries Inc. Also, contacts were established with the recycling companies MIREC B.V. in the Netherlands and Ragn-Sells Elektronikåtervinning AB in Sweden. Out of the results from the recycling trials and the contacts with MIREC and Ragn-Sells, four different scenarios were developed. These scenarios all start with manual dismantling. Furthermore, the Swedish recycling companyAB Arv Andersson was contacted and an additional scenario based on shredding of an entire transceiver without former dismantling was developed. It shall be noted that the shredding scenario is a hypothetical scenario, based on the assumption that the transceiver does not contain any beryllium oxide components, which otherwise often require the transceiver to be dismantled. The five EoL treatment scenarios discussed above were combined with assumptions on the take-back logistics for discarded transceivers and totally nine different EoL scenarios were developed. Finally, the environmental impacts of these nine scenarios were evaluated by using the LCA methodology, and the following final conclusions were drawn: • The environmental impact due to transportation is relatively large compared to theimpact of other processes involved in the End-of-Life phase of a transceiver. • In most cases, aeroplane transportation causes several times larger environmental impact per tonkilometre than truck transportation does. • It appears that, from an environmental point of view, shredding of an entire transceiver without former dismantling is a just as good alternative for End-of-Lifetreatment of a transceiver as a recycling process starting with dismantling.