Disassembly and recycling of electronic consumer products: an overview

Discarded electronic consumer products cause enormous environmental problems as no thought has been given to their possible reuse. Some European governments have passed laws so that manufacturers and importers are being made responsible for their products when discarded by the consumer. Therefore, manufacturers have started to think about product designs which allow the reuse of components and the recycling of materials. Such designs have special requirements with respect to materials, fixings, and assembly and disassembly techniques. From an economic point of view the disassembly and recycling of consumer products should be carried out with minimum costs. To fulfil governmental rules, certain operations have to be executed," therefore a disassembly strategy should include operations to separate out poisonous components. Many techniques are available to separate and reduce materials, but it is clear that the working conditions of employees involved in the disassembly and dismantling processes should be improved.