Analysis of material efficiency aspects of personal computers product group

This report has been developed within the project 'Technical support for environmental footprinting, material efficiency in product policy and the European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment' (LCA) (2013-2017) funded by the Directorate-General for Environment. The report summarises the findings of the analysis of material-efficiency aspects of the personal-computer (PC) product group, namely durability, reusability, reparability and recyclability. It also aims to identify material-efficiency aspects which can be relevant for the current revision of the Ecodesign Regulation (EU) No 617/2013. Special focus was given to the content of EU critical raw materials (CRMs)in computers and computer components, and how to increase the efficient use of these materials, including material savings thanks to reuse and repair and recovery of the products at end of life. The analysis has been based mainly on the REAPro method developed by the Joint Research Centre for the material-efficiency assessment of products. This work has been carried out in the period June 2016-September 2017, in parallel with the development of The preparatory study on the review of Regulation 617/2013 (Lot 3) - computers and computer servers led by Viegand Maagøe and Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek NV (VITO) (2017) (3). During this period, close communication was maintained with the authors of the preparatory study. This allowed ensuring consistency between input data and assumptions of the two studies. Moreover, outcomes of the present research were used as scientific basis for the preparatory study for the analysis of material-efficiency aspects for computers. The research has been differentiated as far as possible for different types of computers (i.e. tablet, notebooks and desktop computers). The report starts with the analysis of the technical and scientific background relevant for material-efficiency aspects of computers, such as market sales, expected lifetime, bill of materials, and a focus on the content of CRMs (especially cobalt in batteries, rare earths including neodymium in hard disk drives and palladium in printed circuit boards). Successively the report analyses the current practices for repair, reuse and recycling of computers.