Life cycle assessment of end-of-life scenarios: tablet case study

Abstract

This work presents a case study for a tablet treated in France. The objective was to assess the impacts of the end-of-life stage and its influence in the final results when considering different waste management scenarios. After a first analysis of the global electronic waste management scenario, three scenarios were selected: (1) optimistic scenario, in which the tablet is recycled considering the best available technologies; (2) a conservative scenario, which considers only the best referenced recycling channels; (3) a pessimist scenario considering the worst situation in terms of recycling. For some impact categories, the recycling activities result in higher environmental impacts than the scenarios with poor recycling, among others due to the increase in energy consumption during recycling. When the benefits of recycling are considered in the assessment, the advantage of recycling is evident, reinforcing the importance of the recycling channels as a provider of secondary materials that have lower environmental impacts. The differences in the results of the three scenarios reinforce the importance of clearly report the scenario considered in the end-of-life.