Abstract-Digital Devices or Electric and Electronic Equipment (EEE) are scrapped at an alarming rate instead of being salvaged, fixed, and reused. For the reuse sector to flourish, donors, receivers, and reuse centers need services and technologies to gain effectiveness, efficiency, and traceability to reach the goal of greatly extending the lifetime of devices and still ensuring their final recycling. The main challenges to overcome are access to sufficient good-quality used devices, quick preparation of those with greatest potential for reuse, ability to make direct donations, guarantee that reused devices are eventually recycled, communication of the social and environmental value of reuse, establishing a system to reward donors, and ensuring commitment of receivers of reused devices to recycling. We present a set of open-source tools based on a distributed platform ecosystem that supports direct donation of devices. Devices are prepared for reuse in the donor's location, and receivers collect them. Malicious users are discouraged by a reputation scheme to reward cooperative receivers that reuse devices and track them until disposed to recycling agents. This reduces costs, and minimizes EEE losses as there is no need for a central logistic system or centralizing the engagement of donors on charity projects. The background and foreground Intellectual Property follows an open model (unrestricted), as the goal is to bootstrap the reuse process, generate local efficiencies, guarantee final recycling, and ensure traceability. Pilots already performed for more than four years and two thousand devices validate the model with 80% traceability of device components.
Circular economies are particularly relevant in the context of digital devices or electric and electronic equipment (EEE). Many digital devices built using scarce and potentially toxic materials have a too-short life, instead of being repaired or reused. In addition, informal recycling of electronics in the developed and developing world has emerged as a new global environmental concern. We describe the dimensions of the problem, the challenge to move to a circular economy, and the ecology for digital devices as well as how this depends on the traceability of devices and cooperation among all stakeholders locally and globally. Moreover we examine the need for support mechanisms to facilitate, standardise, and reduce the transaction cost of the processes and increase their added value. We present eReuse.org, a set of open-source tools, procedures, open data, and services organised as a common-pool resource (CPR) to reach the circular economy of electronics through promoting reuse and ensuring traceability until recycling. Further, eReuse.org envisions empowering and engaging people around the world to create local communities that bootstrap electronic reuse and to support the development of a globally recognised reuse quality and traceability standard. CCS Concepts •Human-centered computing → Social content sharing; •Networks → Location based services; •Hardware → Impact on the environment; •Social and professional topics → Governmental regulations;
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