DfR and DfD Applied to Electrical and Electronic Equipments Resulting Environmental Life Cycle Performance - A Case Study for Portugal

Abstract

The present study assesses on the role of ecodesign strategies to promote improvements in life cycle environmental performance of electrical and electronic equipment. Through the use of a simplified LCA (life cycle assessment) methodology, the life cycle environmental impacts of mobile phone equipments of successive product generations from one manufacturer were determined. LCA results have demonstrated that improvements in general product environmental performance can be obtained, although in some specific environmental impact categories, such improvements were limited. With the newly implemented WEEE management system in Portugal, the study on DfR (design for recycling) and DfD (design for disassembly) strategies has showed that DfR's potential for product environmental performance enhancement is limited, as recycling is still not very efficient and is dependent on multiple operations that have environmental impacts themselves. DfD, on the other hand, has proved to be an important strategy in reducing life cycle environmental impacts if it manages to promote product/component reuse