13.1 Introduction

The world population’s current standard of living increases the demand for the earth’s finite natural resources. At the same time, population growth and urbanization are challenging these standards. We have been practicing a linear model economy since the Industrial Revolution. As a result of this behavior, we created a scenario, which is frequently referred to as a “take, make, dispose of” world, where we promote a single use of materials and products, creating a one-directional model of mass production, mass consumption, and finally, disposal after a single or limited time of use. This type of model is stretching our planet’s physical limits (Esposito et al. 2018). Hence, it is vital for the planet’s future to implement carbon-neutral and circular-economy solutions into our everyday life, improve strategies in the public and private industry sectors, and develop decision-making policies at the industrial scale. In other words, we need to rethink our business model entirely.

At present, only 9% of the materials already produced are recycled back to use (Statista 2021b). On average, close to 14% of municipal waste collected is recycled globally, with some countries reaching recycling rates close to 50%, like India and Australia. In the EU, the average recycling rate in 27 countries is at 43%, while it is 26% in Canada and 22% in China. However, some materials are recycled more than others. In the US, paper and paperboard are recycled at a rate of 64.7%, metals such as lead at 67%, magnesium at 54%, iron and steel at 52%, aluminum at 50%, glass at about 33%, and plastic 9.1% (Better Meets Reality 2021).

The global market economy is mainly based on the extraction of natural resources. It provides factories with the feedstock of materials that are then transformed into the products to be purchased and typically disposed of after a short time of use. Esposito et al. (2018) reported that currently, we are consuming goods at a 50% faster rate than replacing them.

In our everyday life, we use various mixed, hybrid, and composite materials, which are either bio-sourced or derived from metals or minerals, while more and more plastic and human-made types of materials are becoming prevalent. Many of these materials are still produced in a not-very-ecological, sustainable, nor efficient way. Most of these materials once produced, never used again after their end-of-life (EoL), while using virgin materials derived from natural resources. At the same time, the power generation is still mainly based on fossil fuels, hence, significantly contributing to global anthropogenic pollution and accelerating climate change. The major challenge for today’s world will be to stop and make a difference – today – and start designing materials and products based on a circular-economy’s principles and criteria, as indicated in Figure 13.1.

The circular-economy theme started to be debated in the 1990s, but it was not until the early 2000s when it began to be discoursed to achieve “true environmental sustainability.” The definition of a circular economy was formulated by the European Commission (2020) and discussed further by Sillanpää and Ncibi (2019). The circular-economy model could address resource scarcity and issues with waste disposal and eventually provide a win–win situation from an economic and environmental perspective while creating a new value proposition (Homrich et al. 2018). The cradle-to-cradle flow concept was born out to replace the cradle-to-grave economic model, representing linear material flow. If the circular economy is carried out extensively, it could potentially reduce consumption of new raw materials by 32% within 15 years and by 53% by 2050 (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015; Esposito et al. 2018). The circular-economy concept has been promoted by the European Union and several other countries, including China, Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom (Korhonen et al. 2018).

According to Araujo Galvão et al. (2018), many barriers were initially identified for moving from a linear to a circular economy, and these can be categorized as:

1. Technological
2. Financial and economic
3. Regulatory/policymaking
4. Managerial
5. Performance indicators
6. Lack of accurate information on environmental impacts
7. Customer-oriented and social barriers.

We must start looking at the “big picture” while handling all the products and materials coming to an EoL phase and learn from the life cycle of a product and the past experiences. The most challenging is the technological barrier encountered in recycling, while the most significant is the decreased economic value of recycled materials and the recycling costs. In addition, there is a lack of understanding of environmental costs and an absence of pressure from societies to demand from the governments more stringent environmental policies and regulations around manufacturing and waste management, hence demonstrating significant social barriers.

According to Zhang et al. (2009), the main challenge facing societies is to find feasible strategies to disconnect economic growth from the environmental issues within the limits of the available resources. Rizos et al. (2016) indicated that the main barriers moving to the circular economy are lack of supply and demand for recyclable materials combined with the lack of capital and an absence of technical know-how in connecting material development, product design, and recycling with the proper government policies or supports. At present, a significant barrier to the transition to a more circular system and developing recyclable products (Figure 13.2) is a lack of demand or customers’ willingness to pay more for recyclable products, both in business and in the general society at large.

This chapter aims to provide an overall picture of the challenges and discuss the way forward on how to change the industrial system from linear to circular. The approach is to assess this from the point of view of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) devices, material design, and development. The following aspects will be addressed in this chapter:

• Digitalization and the need for electronics
• Perspective on recycling, life-cycle analysis in the material design phase
• Challenges for e-waste recycling and circular economy
• Drivers for change and complexity of the industrial system
• Barriers for change to move to a circular economy.

13.2 Digitalization and the Need for Electronic Devices

Electronics provide us with broad access to education, instant information, and nonstop entertainment while contributing to mass communication and improving our everyday life. Digitalization brought through electronics led to the advancement of industrial productivity, accessibility to information, and improved living standards in our present societies worldwide. It has also proven to allow us to continue functioning as a productive society during pandemic scenarios (COVID-19).

Every year, millions of new electronic devices are pouring into the market to facilitate a digital lifestyle for many consumers worldwide. According to Statista (2021a), by 2020, over 4 billion people have had a personal computer, while a total of 3.3 billion own a mobile smartphone. This translates into 41.5% users in the global population. Global sales reached a value of over 400 billion USD until the beginning of 2021, with over 150 billion USD worth of sales in China.

These numbers are staggering and provide us with insight into the scale of electronics production and its sales value worldwide. Digitalization is creating enormous demand for many different types of devices and, consequently, various raw materials. It is also affecting markets, businesses, and employment in a very significant way. Digitalization on its own requires a large amount of energy to power the computers and support internet transmission of the data to facilitate worldwide connectivity. Digitalization through the use of millions of electronic devices and their faith at the EoL becomes part of the problem in recycling complex materials used in the manufacturing of these modern electronics. At the same time, it can also be part of the solution for facilitating a circular economy.

Modern smartphones are an excellent example of the digital world’s electronic products that everyone commonly uses; they are made of very complex materials to increase their digital performance. At the same time, they pose significant challenges in recycling. The digital–technical performance of smartphones has rapidly evolved from the perspective of the types of materials used in these products and their functionalities. Smartphones are made as complex devices, using close to 70 different elements with more than 60 metals in their composition. While the competition between smartphone producers has focused only on display size, resolution, or sensitivity, it has not concentrated on material efficiency, sustainability, or recyclability.

The number of smartphones sold to end users worldwide from 2007 to 2020 has increased from 122 million to 1560 million units (Statista 2021a). These products are in use approximately only for a maximum of one to two years (Forti et al. 2020; Kumar 2020). The take-back system and material recycling of most of the components and materials remain negligible. The large number of electronics continuously produced and owned globally illustrates the extent of the issue.

13.3 Recycling and Circular Economy

The pervasive expansion of electronics generates an unsustainable growth of waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). E-waste is the fastest-growing solid-waste stream, expected to reach 74.7 Mt by 2030 (Forti et al. 2020). Furthermore, electronics rely on the use of critical and scarce elements that are needed to make interminably newer and better-performing devices. Since we need these electronic devices to progress into the future, the recovery of these scarce and valuable materials should become our most significant driver for a circular economy. As a result, all of these products’ life-cycle analyses – starting from the beginning to the end – should provide us with the incentive to reuse these critical materials. In addition to the scarcity of the necessary materials, there is an economic value in the circularity of materials recovered from electronic waste. Currently, the material value from electronics alone is US$ 62.5 billion, while there is 100 times more gold in a ton of mobile phones than in a ton of gold ore (World Economic Forum 2019). There is a significant incentive for the recovery of valuable materials from e-waste.

The challenge is also in the EoL phase of electrical devices since recycling is difficult, even impossible in some cases, especially when the waste is not homogeneous in terms of valuable metal content and with very little-known materials’ composition. Electronic devices contain a wide variety of materials, including hazardous and toxic materials, for example, arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, and types of flame retardants that are harmful to human health and the environment (Chen et al. 2012; Guo et al. 2015; Kumar et al. 2018; Yu et al. 2017) if not disposed of properly. Meanwhile, some materials also represent a very high value, such as gold, silver, or copper (EPA 2012).

Suppose the e-waste goes to a landfill or is not treated in an environmentally responsible way at the end of a device’s life; there is a high risk of environmentally harmful damage extending for the foreseeable future (Kumar 2020). In addition, the e-waste contains valuable resources that can be recovered and reused, reducing the need to use natural resources in the form of new virgin materials or metals (Hagelüken and Corti 2010). There is no functional recycling system for electrical devices to separate different metal alloys, mainly due to economic reasons, while recycling infrastructure for bulk metals, such as steel and aluminum, exists. The challenge is that the existing e-waste recycling systems cannot economically process nonhomogeneous e-waste scrap with many different substances in its composition.

Recycling in the traditional linear economy was usually designed to provide additional resources for primary production; it has been referred to as “an Aspirin” for the societal hangover due to overconsumption. It has been mainly designed to alleviate shortages of some raw materials while mostly providing an opportunity for segregated waste disposal in many jurisdictions. In developing countries, recycling is frequently carried out informally while providing a source of income for the most impoverished population engaged in the rudimentary recycling of valuable materials, mostly metals, for immediate monetary profit (Forti et al. 2020).

On the other hand, in the developed countries where there are more organized practices of municipal waste management, recycling can be considered an opportunity for resource recovery. This is even more so in the context of pressing issues of the criticality of some metals, critical elements, and raw materials to produce new electronics that we so heavily rely on in our everyday life. In the circular-economy model, the goal is to keep the materials and products in use as long as possible and increase their value during the life cycle. Material efficiency is part of the circular economy, and it promotes the efficient use of natural resources and the effective reuse of generated from waste byproducts. We need more research in recycling and the material-design and product-development phase, and the use of recycled byproducts, as this becomes an integral part of a material-efficiency strategy to facilitate a circular economy. In addition, we need to learn how to apply knowledge of materials to the beginning of the life cycle of the newly designed and manufactured products for better recyclability.

Alternatively, recycling and reusing materials must be justifiable from an economic, environmental, and social perspective. The transition must begin from acknowledging the challenges and opportunities in the “big picture” and from the systemic perspective; otherwise, we only partly optimize the system. Most of the research in material efficiency has always focused on how waste from one process can be used as a valuable raw material in another process elsewhere (Pajunen et al. 2016).

However, we have to start from the beginning of the process at the design stage, where we develop new materials from recovered secondary resources and use them in manufacturing new products. Also, we need to make changes in the whole value chain, where all of the components and materials have to go through the same design and development process (Pajunen et al. 2016). In other words, we have to start designing for recycling and focusing on maximizing what is already in use while considering the life cycle of the product from the sourcing stage and through the whole supply chain to consumption and including sourcing of secondary raw materials obtained from recycling. Moreover, recycling should also be aimed at producing the byproducts of a certain quality in terms of their physical characteristics and functionalities; hence, they can be diverted straight to developing the new materials and manufacturing stage.

Systemic change is needed in the EoL of products too. We have to create a global take-back system for all the different kinds of devices and products. This will allow a decrease in the complexity of recycling in industrial systems. The take-back approach can create a more homogeneous waste scheme by allowing for the EoL devices to come back directly to the original equipment manufacturer for recycling. This will incentivize the manufacturer to design for recycling material savings by using recovered secondary products from recycling, while these will become a source of secondary “raw” material for their new products. Simultaneously, it will lower the demand for virgin materials, allow for a closed-loop recycling system, and adapt eco-design approaches while creating economic benefits (Wagner et al. 2020). It will also ensure an adequate quality of secondary raw material obtained from recycling required for designing new materials by the same industrial set-up, the same manufacturing company.

13.4 Challenges for e-Waste Recycling and Circular Economy

New-age electronics are manufactured using newly designed materials, and functional requirements drive these new materials’ designs. The development of new electronic devices and many novelty products requires new composite or hybrid materials to attain appropriate material characteristics, allowing them to be lightweight, have extreme strength, and a reduced size that is desirable for everyday use. Composites are materials prepared from two or more distinct complementary substances, for example, metals, ceramics, glass, and polymers. These materials produce another material with characteristics different from its components, often visible on a macroscopic scale. The hybrid materials are the ones in which the constituents are blended on the molecular or nanometer scale, and the individual components remain invisible on the macroscale (Pajunen et al. 2016). In the product design phase, many types of materials are combined; hence, these electronic products contain many metals, their alloys, and various chemical compounds, polymers, plastics, and flame retardants. The more advanced functions required, the more complex the materials need to be. For electronic products, these can include combining metal alloys with ceramics and fibers for creating composites, gluing honeycomb structures, making metal foams, depositing thin films, and creating nanoparticle structures (Reuter et al. 2013). Functionality is often further enhanced by coatings for improving wear, corrosion or fire resistance, safety, or improving aesthetic aspects. In conclusion, recycling such devices becomes very complex (Pajunen et al. 2016).

The economic drivers are the most important in the design phase, while the EoL phase aspects are usually not considered at all, except as depreciable value. In manufacturing, material efficiency should be considered from the economic and marketing point of view. Currently, there are few incentives or pressures to increase the recyclability of electronic products due to their technological complexity. Generally, only valuable metals or materials, which have a high monetary value, such as copper, gold, silver, palladium, rare-earth elements, or fiberglass, are being recycled from e-waste (Baldé et al. 2017; Forti et al. 2020; S. Zhang et al. 2017).

For example, in EU countries, recycling targets are set at the national level and are based on the percentage value of the material’s total weight (The European Commission 2008). Incentives for recycling should include financial drivers for manufacturers to produce recyclable products and prefer to buy those products and help in their recycling collection. This can be enabled via taxation. For example, if the product is recyclable and the recycling system is available, it could have tax relief during its life cycle. Such tax relief or a price reduction should increase consumer demand for recyclable products. Monetary incentives for consumers and recycling companies are missing in the current linear system.

The main challenge also lies in the lack of appropriate recycling systems and efficient separation technologies for complex electronics. There is a lack of information about the EoL of an electronic product or its life cycle to understand opportunities for recycling electronics. As a result, it is essential to include EoL in the design phase for material efficiency. Designing for recyclability to recover high-value and low-value components for reuse in new products is the only way to solve recycling problems of structurally, naturally complex electronics.

The complexity of electronics will increase as the multifunctional hybrid materials, and advanced manufacturing technologies are used for more sophisticated electronics in terms of performance and practicality. Hence, there is a critical necessity for high-level multidisciplinary competencies and the development of new solutions, which can be crucial factors in renewing the global manufacturing industry. Manufacturing in the current industrial system is very complex, and most of the material cycles are multifaceted and interconnected in terms of material sourcing. The reuse of byproducts or metals from recycling to develop new products can become very complicated due to the already pre-existing linear-economy logistics. The change needs to be implemented right at the design and material-development stage to facilitate material circularity.

The main goal is to include life-cycle thinking and the recyclability of complex and hybrid materials in the material-development and product-design phases and integrate recycling and sustainability perspectives into decision making at strategic, management, and production levels and work toward increasing demand for byproducts from recycling and recycled materials as source material for new-age materials.

13.5 Drivers for Change – Circular Economy

A circular economy needs to be considered against the backdrop of modern societal needs and industrial logic. Industrial logic drives companies to strive for market share, increased sales, and improved profits by offering competitive products through innovations and improved technologies, while there are different drivers for different players-stakeholders. For example, both the general public and private sector organizations, with their industrial set-ups, are vital in any society. They need to be accommodated in terms of their needs and desires to transition comfortably and successfully toward a circular economy.

In addition to industrial set-ups and societal backgrounds, there are also urgent environmental concerns; for example, the levels of clean water and the availability of raw materials needed by the industrial set-ups are already reaching a critical point for the supply of critical raw materials (European Commission 2014). For example, if a single country dominates the market for a particular raw material, that country can directly influence its availability and price. This means that the availability of materials is also challenged by global trade as much as economic and policy issues, given the current situation with the worldwide supply of rare-earth elements. In the worst scenarios, problems with raw materials’ availability may lead to difficulties in manufacturing and closure of industrial operations in certain jurisdictions.

The lack or shortage of natural resources and raw materials needed in the production phase can become a strong driver for promoting a circular economy. According to Esposito et al. (2018), the linear-economy model’s inability to cope with the enormous demand for natural resources will result in a shortage of 8 billion tons of raw material supply. An approach in line with a circular-economy’s principles is the best solution for the environment and the most practical way of operating from an economic sense. The circular-economy perspective is presented in Figure 13.3. In the transition toward a circular economy, there is a need for new solutions in every phase of the product’s life cycle.

In every part of a product’s life cycle, there is a potential to reduce resource consumption and improve its environmental performance. From the design perspective, the six sustainability principles are the following (UNEP 2007):

1. Apply a “re philosophy,” meaning to rethink the product and its functions
2. Make the product easy to repair
3. Replace harmful substances with safer, less hazardous alternatives
4. Design the product for disassembly so that the parts can be reused
5. Reduce energy, material consumption, and socioeconomic impacts throughout a product’s life cycle
6. Select materials that can be recycled.

At present, the challenge from a recycling point of view is balancing the economy and environmental standpoint. The EoL phase of complex products creates nonhomogeneous waste. This waste may contain valuable materials that can be recovered and reused and parts that do not have any or have very little economic value when recycled, such as nonmetal fractions from e-waste, including various plastics with low monetary value.

In the industrial-design process, most of the environmental impacts are locked in at an early phase, and significant decisions are made when there is very little information about the details of the product’s design. However, when these decisions are made earlier in the product’s life cycle, their effects become crucial in the end. The opportunities to make changes in product design decrease with time, and the cost of making any changes increases at the same time. To make changes in sustainability and recyclability, all of the important players in the supply chain have to be involved. They need to strive for the same goal to achieve the circularity of the materials used in the product that is being designed.

It is vital to take the recycling perspective into account both in the material-development and in the product-design phases when targeting circular economy and consider a take-back system for the components and materials to promote material circularity, as shown in Figure 13.4.

The first step of promoting a circular economy is extending the product’s life cycle by using durable materials and making long-life products that can be repaired and reused at the end of their life cycles. In some cases, a product or component can be designed to be used for another purpose without chemical or mechanical modifications. Hence, further processing of the product does not require extra energy or new raw materials.

If a mechanical modification is not possible to recirculate the product, this must be considered in the design phase; i.e. the product’s materials are developed to be reused later as a raw material for a new product. In addition, it is also essential to make sure that nonhazardous substances are used in composite materials as they impair recirculation and cause the materials to become hazardous waste or end up in incineration. The recirculation of materials can also be facilitated by chemical modification (chemically assisted); however, this is the most aggressive form of recirculation from a monetary-investment and energy-intensity point of view. In a chemically assisted modification, the material’s chemical bonds are broken down so that the materials can be reprocessed and utilized as new raw materials in another industrial process.

The starting point for material scientists, product developers, and designers is to reduce waste and losses as these always incur additional monetary expenses. Waste and losses can be reduced in many ways. Everyone benefits when all the stakeholders participate in the product’s life cycle, cooperate across corporate boundaries, and jointly provide feedback on its entire life cycle. The concept can be “to design out waste,” meaning that we design to minimize the final waste as proposed in one of the five fundamentals traits by The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2015).

An uninterrupted flow of information about the choices being made and cost-cutting opportunities have to flow through the life cycle, from the development phase right into the final project’s execution. It is not enough that correct decisions and plans are made at the early stages – the plans must be executed and supervised throughout the production process and the product’s life cycle until it reaches the customer. To succeed, there is a need to bring together expertise in all phases, from product design to reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling.

The novel circular-economy business model can be reshaped, for example, where a product can be shared as a part of service, creating a sharing-economy model and generating new business types for the industrial network (product-as-a-service) according to Lacy (2015) and as proposed in Figure 13.3. Some of these ideas were developed as a result of economic and social research on the operation and functionality of a circular economy as early as in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early 2000s (Hawken et al. 1999; Lifset and Graedel 2002; McDonough and Braungart 2002; Stahel 1986). This “product-as-service” business model can be adopted easily for electronic products such as cellular phones and computers. The customer buys services with the new product and can access software upgrades as part of the sharing service. However, this may be more difficult to apply to other electronics such as standard home appliances or specialty industrial electronics.

13.6 Demand for Recyclable Products

A vital part of redesigning and making electronic business greener is to have an economic driver toward sustainability. However, if the reward is somewhere else, a business is not going to choose an environment-friendly option without having a possibility of an economic benefit. As a result, business interest is nonexistent, and without consumers’ demanding recyclable products in the manufacturing of new products, there will be no market forces to call for regulations in the use of recyclable materials in new products.

At present, the only driver in the smart/mobile phone market is to increase product sales. For manufacturing companies, the target is to be the global market share leader. All companies are developing new models with new technical features and applications; competition is fierce, and cost-efficiency targets are high. Accordingly, since 2012, the Samsung brand, the leading global smartphone vendor, has held a share of 20–30% in the smartphone market. The Apple brand is the second-largest, and Huawei is the third-largest vendor of smartphones worldwide, while Xiaomi and OPPO have recently increased their smartphone market share according to global market statistics (Statista 2021c).

The biggest electronic manufacturing companies and their retailers’ marketing and advertising information is based only on their phones’ technological features and new applications but is not focused on providing information regarding the device’s composition, structure, or recyclability features. All companies provide similar information on the device’s technological capabilities instead of information on their sustainability characteristics. It may still be a long way for a change in manufacturing companies’ attitudes toward the concept of circularity and sustainability in the electronics industries unless the consumers strongly demand this shift.

This chapter aims to provide information on the issues related to electronic waste, which is linked with the design of electronics and their recyclability to promote responsible consumption with minimum waste production. Building a functional recycling system is crucial when targeting the transition toward a circular economy. However, without social pressure from the consumers, the manufacturers do not have any incentives to promote their electronic products’ recyclability. The main driver of the manufacturing industry is the economy and for the customer is to acquire the best in terms of the latest technology electronic device for their everyday use and applications. As a result, there are no incentives for recycling, and there is a lack of recyclable products in the mobile phone marketplace. The marketing of new features with advanced technical applications and their capabilities are still the most significant challenges to sustainability through the device’s life cycle.

There are many small- or medium-sized enterprises or companies (SME) in the mobile phone supply chain. However, large manufacturing companies’ importance in the supply chain and their willingness to cooperate with smaller companies within the supply chain is paramount. If the larger manufacturer demands sustainability and environmental responsibility from their suppliers via procurement, smaller SME companies must comply out of necessity if they want to continue cooperating with the known manufacturer in the future; therefore, they have to respond to these market needs and conditions.

With the increasing costs of raw materials and waste disposal, finding new solutions to mitigate these issues in cost-effective ways will be essential. Thus, the most important driver will be to recycle electronics to secure critical and other, perhaps not-so-critical raw materials to protect the environment. However, from an economic perspective, there are currently no suitable or justifiable separation and refining processes for recovering some of the high- and low-value materials from e-waste at the same time.

For a transition toward a society with a circular economy, there is a need to promote recyclable materials and increase the demand from society to use such materials in electronics manufacturing. In other words, we need to educate the consumers’ market – the more recyclable and good-quality products there are on the market, the more demand there will be for these materials. The move toward a circular economy requires perseverance and consistent progress in all aspects of the manufacturing process. The industrial organization needs to develop confidence in the circular economy and its associated strategies, such as a demand for suppliers’ sustainability while continuing the advancement into efficient recycling technologies and developing high-quality recyclable products at the same time.

13.7 Summary

In this chapter, we have focused on the circular economy and the role of life-cycle analysis when making recyclable electronic devices. The transition toward a carbon-neutral circular economy and sustainability in small electronics such as smartphones might be possible due to the opportunities lying in the recovery of valuable components and the desire to build resilient manufacturing industries that will promote eco-design and a design for recyclability. For example, the “European Green Deal” is considered a roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable. This can happen by turning climate change-related environmental challenges into opportunities across all the policy areas and sectors of society. There will be significant undertakings to integrate the circular economy and life-cycle thinking into the development and design processes.

Ideally, the goal is to live within the planet’s natural boundaries and physical means, maintaining the planet’s vitality (Figure 13.5) and keeping the extracted resources and products made from these natural resources in circularity as long as possible. When it comes to manufacturing products and materials, scientific and engineering expertise plays a significant role. However, no engineering field can tackle major challenges alone, such as transitioning from a linear economy to a circular economy. Sustainable solutions have to be carried forward while considering technological, economic, legal, administrative, social, and environmental factors. In this chapter, we attempted to present some ideas that could be implemented to improve the chances of recirculation of electronics by-products and e-waste to facilitate a circular economy. Nonetheless, to make this happen, there is a need for multisectoral, multidisciplinary, and global co-operation.

As for the future of e-waste, what is needed is designing new materials with an ecological design in mind, using recycled-from-e-waste components for the production of new electronics without toxic and hazardous chemicals, coupled with a strategy for future recycling. All this is necessary while mastering the recycling processes with minimization of final waste and utilizing all byproducts during the process; all these elements may eventually lead to near-zero e-waste in the future. This would be the most desirable effect in the context of a circular economy; it would be a win–win situation for the future of electronics in the new age of digitalization.

References

1. Araujo Galvão, G.D., de Nadae, J., Clemente, D.H. et al. (2018). Circular economy: overview of barriers. Procedia CIRP 73: 79–85. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.04.011.
2. Baldé, C. P., Forti, V., Gray, V., et al. (2017). The Global E-waste Monitor–2017. Bonn/Geneva/Vienna. Available at: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM 2017/Global-E-waste Monitor 2017.pdf (accessed 21 March 2018)
3. Better Meets Reality. (2021). The Present & Future Of Recycling Metal – Better Meets Reality. https://www.bettermeetsreality.com/the-present-future-of-recycling-metal/#comment-1161 (accessed 02 April 2021).
4. Chen, Y., Li, J., Chen, L. et al. (2012). Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) plastics and printed circuit boards (PCBs). Procedia Environmental Sciences 16: 552–559.
5. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2015). Growth Within: a circular economy vision for a competitive Europe. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/publications/growth-within-a-circular-economy-vision-for-a-competitive-europe (accessed 02 April 2021).
6. EPA. (2012). Printed circuit board recycling methods. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-05/documents/handout-10-circuitboards.pdf (accessed 02 April 2021).
7. Esposito, M., Tse, T., and Soufani, K. (2018). Introducing a circular economy: new thinking with new managerial and policy implications. California Management Review 60 (3): 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008125618764691.
8. European Commission. (2014). Report on Critical raw materials for the EU. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/raw-materials/specific-interest/critical_en (accessed 02 April 2021).
9. European Commission. (2020). Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic and Social Committee and The Committee of the regions: A new Circular Economy Action Plan. For a cleaner and more competitive Europe. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0098&from=EN (accessed 02 April 2021).
10. Forti, V., Baldé, C. P., Kuehr, R., & Bel, G. (2020). Global E-waste Monitor 2020: Quantities, flows and the circular economy potential. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Environment/Documents/Toolbox/GEM_2020_def.pdf (accessed 02 April 2021).
11. Guo, J., Zhang, R., and Xu, Z. (2015). PBDEs emission from waste printed wiring boards during thermal process. Environmental Science & Technology 49 (5): 2716–2723.
12. Hagelüken, C. and Corti, C.W. (2010). Recycling of gold from electronics: cost-effective use through ‘Design for Recycling’. Gold Bulletin 43 (3): 209–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03214988.
13. Hawken, P., Hunter, L., & Amory, L. (1999). Natural capitalism: creating the next industrial revolution. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/natural-capitalism-creating-next-industrial-revolution (accessed 02 April 2021).
14. Homrich, A.S., Galvão, G., Abadia, L.G., and Carvalho, M.M. (2018). The circular economy umbrella: trends and gaps on integrating pathways. Journal of Cleaner Production 175: 525–543. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.064.
15. Korhonen, J., Honkasalo, A., and Seppälä, J. (2018). Circular economy: the concept and its limitations. Ecological Economics 143: 37–46. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.041.
16. Kumar, A. (2020). Characterization of non-metal fraction of waste printed circuit boards to promote recycling [University of British Columbia]. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0394917 (accessed 02 April 2021).
17. Kumar, A., Holuszko, M.E., and Janke, T. (2018). Characterization of the non-metal fraction of the processed waste printed circuit boards. Waste Management 75: 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WASMAN.2018.02.010.
18. Lacy, P. (2015). The Circular Economy. Great Idea, But Can It Work? https://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2015/01/20/the-circular-economy-great-idea-but-can-it-work/?sh=549cad732e28 (accessed 02 April 2021).
19. Lifset, R. and Graedel, T.E. (2002). Industrial ecology: goals and definitions. In: A Handbook of Industrial Ecology (eds. R. Ayres and L. Ayres). Edward Elgar Publishing https://doi.org/10.4337/9781843765479.00009.
20. McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, 1e. North Point Press https://books.google.ca/books?id=KFX5RprPGQ0C&pg=PP10&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 02 April 2021).
21. Pajunen, N., Rintala, L., Aromaa, J., and Heiskanen, K. (2016). Recycling – the importance of understanding the complexity of the issue. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering 9 (2): 93–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/19397038.2015.1069416.
22. Reuter, M. A., Hudson, C., van Schaik, A., Heiskanen, K., Meskers, C., & Hagelüken, C. (2013). UNEP (2013) Metal Recycling: Opportunities, limits, infrastructure. A report of the Working Group on the Global Metal Flows to the International Resource Panel.
23. Rizos, V., Behrens, A., Van der Gaast, W. et al. (2016). Implementation of circular economy business models by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): barriers and enablers. Sustainability 8 (11): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111212.
24. Sillanpää, M. and Ncibi, C. (2019). Getting hold of the circular economy concept. In: The Circular Economy (eds. M. Sillanpää and C.B.T.-T.C.E. Ncibi), 1–35. Academic Press https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815267-6.00001-3.
25. Stahel, W.R. (1986). Product life as a variable: the notion of utilization. Science and Public Policy 13 (4): 185–193. https://doi.org/10.1093/spp/13.4.185.
26. Statista. (2021a). Cell phone sales worldwide 2007–2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone-sales-to-end-users-since-2007/ (accessed 02 April 2021).
27. Statista. (2021b). Consumer Market Outlook – market directory. https://www.statista.com/outlook/consumer-markets/market-directory (accessed 02 April 2021).
28. Statista. (2021c). Global smartphone market share from 4th quarter 2009 to 4th quarter 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271496/global-market-share-held-by-smartphone-vendors-since-4th-quarter-2009/ (accessed 02 April 2021).
29. The European Commission. (2008). Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives. In Official Journal of the European Union. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32008L0098&from=EN (accessed 02 April 2021).
30. UNEP (2007). E-waste Volume 1: Inventory Assessment Manual, 1e). United Nations. https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/7857/EWasteManual_Vol1.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y. (accessed 02 April 2021).
31. Wagner, F., Peeters, J.R., De Keyzer, J. et al. (2020). Closed loop recycling of WEEE plastics: a case study for payment terminals. Procedia CIRP 90: 416–420. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2020.01.084.
32. World Economic Forum. (2019). A New Circular Vision for Electronics – Time for a Global Reboot. www.weforum.org (accessed 02 April 2021).
33. Yu, D., Duan, H., Song, Q. et al. (2017). Characterization of brominated flame retardants from e-waste components in China. Waste Management 68: 498–507.
34. Zhang, H., Hara, K., Yabar, H. et al. (2009). Comparative analysis of socio-economic and environmental performances for Chinese EIPs: case studies in Baotou, Suzhou and Shanghai. Sustainability Science 4 (2): 263–279. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-009-0078-0.
35. Zhang, S., Ding, Y., Liu, B., and Chang, C. (2017). Supply and demand of some critical metals and present status of their recycling in WEEE. Waste Management 65: 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.04.003.