Event Calendar

Sunday, June 25, 2017

iNEMI Presentation at 2017 Joint Conference ISIE and ISSST

Start Date: 6/29/2017 3:00 PM CDT
End Date: 6/29/2017 3:15 PM CDT

Venue Name: UIC Forum

Location:
725 West Roosevelt Road
Chicago, IL  United States  60608

iNEMI will give a presentation at the
2017 Joint Conference:  ISIE-ISSST 2017:  Science in Support of Sustainable and Resilient Communities

The presentation is from the:
iNEMI Value Recovery from Used Electronics (Metals Recycling Phase 2) Project


Title of presentation:  A Vision for the Circular Economy in Hard Disk Drives Based on Self Management of Common Pool Resources

Authors:  Carol Handwerker, William Olson, Wayne Rifer, Colin Fitzpatrick, Willie Cade

Presenter at Conference:  Colin Fitzpatrick, University of Limerick

Abstract
Metals recovery from electronic product recycling is currently focused on high-volume, valuable metals that are easily recoverable.  Current and future electronics will contain small quantities of resources available for recovery but are not currently recovered in today’s recycling infrastructure. Trends toward miniaturization, product dematerialization, and the introduction of new heterogeneous materials systems create new challenges with respect to materials supply, materials recovery, and electronics recycling. This situation is bad and it’s getting worse.

Tackling this situation, iNEMI (the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) undertook a project to examine the role its members could play in increasing metals recovery, while promoting sustainable electronics.  It is based on the premise that reuse of hard drives is always the superior option due to the energy intensity of electronics manufacturing and the extent of the loss of critical raw materials experienced under the existing recycling paradigm.

The project aimed to investigate if the conditions existed to develop a voluntary, community-based solution involving adaptive governance systems to self-manage common pool resources inspired by the work of Eleanor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Prize in Economics).