Durability, reparability and recyclability: Applying material efficiency standards EN 4555x to mobile phones and tablet computers

Abstract

With the 2nd Circular Economy Action Plan the European Commission put a much stronger emphasis on material efficiency aspects under the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC and the Sustainable Products Initiative. In 2019 and 2020 horizontal standards have been published as a result of an earlier standardization mandate (M/543), including among others EN 45552 for the assessment of durability, EN 45554 for the assessment of the ability to repair, reuse and upgrade, and EN 45555 for assessing the recyclability and recoverability of energy-related products. As generic standards these are meant to provide the framework for product group specific standards. In parallel, the European Commission seeks to implement regulations, which already address material efficiency aspects. A debate is ongoing, whether the regulation can directly make use of components of the horizontal standards for product group specific requirements through transitional methods, or whether product group specific standards need to be developed first. The first approach lacks the broad consensus process of standardization, the latter means a delay of material efficiency requirements by several years. In both cases scientific and technical evidence is needed to justify requirements or criteria. This paper provides such insights for mobile phones and tablet computers, by interpreting the generic standards. In case of quantifying recyclability according to EN 45555 such an approach leads to a low recyclability rate of 15% with little variation for different designs. This finding indicates also that current recycling practice – which is the required benchmark under EN 45555 – has major limitations for reaching higher material efficiency, but on the other hand some of the most relevant metals in terms of life cycle impacts are actually recovered in state of the art recycling routes. For durability and reparability assessments the identification of priority parts is crucial, and the paper discusses pros and cons of a rather short priority parts list versus a longer list with more granular specific requirements and potentially a weighting of parts. A key question is also whether the standards shall be the basis for specific minimum requirements or a more complex scoring system, of even both in parallel. These are examples where the lessons learnt with the process of developing eco-design requirements for mobile phones and tablets provides guidance for future product specific standards.