Environmental Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Prague–Jinonice, Czech Republic.
Waste Manag. 2012 Aug;32(8):1583-91. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2012.03.028. Epub 2012 Apr 30.
The volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has been rapidly growing in recent years. In the European Union (EU), legislation promoting the collection and recycling of WEEE has been in force since the year 2003. Yet, both current and recently suggested collection targets for WEEE are completely ineffective when it comes to collection and recycling of small WEEE (s-WEEE), with mobile phones as a typical example. Mobile phones are the most sold EEE and at the same time one of appliances with the lowest collection rate. To improve this situation, it is necessary to assess the amount of generated end of life (EoL) mobile phones as precisely as possible. This paper presents a method of assessment of EoL mobile phones generation based on delay model. Within the scope of this paper, the method has been applied on the Czech Republic data. However, this method can be applied also to other EoL appliances in or outside the Czech Republic. Our results show that the average total lifespan of Czech mobile phones is surprisingly long, exactly 7.99 years. We impute long lifespan particularly to a storage time of EoL mobile phones at households, estimated to be 4.35 years. In the years 1990-2000, only 45 thousands of EoL mobile phones were generated in the Czech Republic, while in the years 2000-2010 the number grew to 6.5 million pieces and it is estimated that in the years 2010-2020 about 26.3 million pieces will be generated. Current European legislation sets targets on collection and recycling of WEEE in general, but no specific collection target for EoL mobile phone exists. In the year 2010 only about 3-6% of Czech EoL mobile phones were collected for recovery and recycling. If we make similar estimation using an estimated average EU value, then within the next 10 years about 1.3 billion of EoL mobile phones would be available for recycling in the EU. This amount contains about 31 tonnes of gold and 325 tonnes of silver. Since Europe is dependent on import of many raw materials, efficient recycling of EoL products could help reduce this dependence. To set a working system of collection, it will be necessary to set new and realistic collection targets.
近年来，废弃电子电气设备（WEEE）的数量迅速增长。在欧盟（EU），自 2003 年以来，一直有促进 WEEE 收集和回收的立法。然而，目前和最近建议的 WEEE 收集目标对于小型 WEEE（s-WEEE）的收集和回收完全无效，手机就是一个典型的例子。手机是销售量最大的 EEE，同时也是收集率最低的电器之一。为了改善这种情况，有必要尽可能准确地评估报废手机的数量。本文提出了一种基于延迟模型的报废手机产生评估方法。在本文的范围内，该方法已应用于捷克共和国的数据。然而，该方法也可以应用于捷克共和国内外的其他报废电器。我们的研究结果表明，捷克手机的平均总寿命出人意料地长，正好是 7.99 年。我们将长寿命归因于家庭中存储报废手机的时间，估计为 4.35 年。在 1990-2000 年期间，捷克共和国仅产生了 4.5 万部报废手机，而在 2000-2010 年期间，这一数字增长到了 650 万部，估计在 2010-2020 年期间，将产生 2630 万部报废手机。目前的欧洲立法规定了 WEEE 收集和回收的总体目标，但没有针对报废手机的具体收集目标。2010 年，只有约 3-6%的捷克报废手机被收集用于回收和循环利用。如果我们使用估计的欧盟平均水平进行类似的估计，那么在未来 10 年内，欧盟将有大约 13 亿部报废手机可供回收。这一数量包含约 31 吨黄金和 325 吨白银。由于欧洲依赖于许多原材料的进口，因此有效回收报废产品可以帮助减少这种依赖。为了建立一个有效的收集系统，有必要设定新的、现实的收集目标。
