Exploring the inner loops of the circular economy: Replacement, repair, and reuse of mobile phones in Austria

Wieser, Harald; Tröger, Nina

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.106

Cited by 136 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

123

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In a study concerning the replacement, repair and reuse of mobile phones in Austria (Wieser and Tröger, 2018), a different perspective is presented on why supply of used goods might be shrinking. Austrian consumers are generally avoiding to dispose of their old phones.…”

Section: Re-use Operations In Austriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ascending the Waste Hierarchy: Re-use potential in Swedish recycling centres

Milios

Dalhammar

2020

Detritus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

According to the waste hierarchy principle, which constitutes the basis of European waste legislation, waste prevention and re-use are considered -most of the times -better waste management options than recycling. However, prevention and re-use activities are difficult to operationalise and measure, without a monitoring framework in place. This contribution investigates the potential of re-using end-of-life products that have been disposed at recycling centres in Sweden. Recycling centres receive a wide variety of materials for recycling, of which a portion could be re-used instead. The aim is to identify what product groups can be re-used, the share of these potentially re-usable products in the recycling centres, and under what conditions their re-use is feasible. A literature review of similar studies, site visits at recycling centres in Sweden, and semi-structured interviews with relevant stakeholders were used to analyse the potential for re-use in private recycling centres in Sweden. The most suitable product groups for re-use identified are building materials, furniture and electrical equipment (mainly white goods), as other material types are mostly handled by charity organisations (e.g. textiles). There is significant potential for increasing re-use operations in recycling centres, but in order to be economically profitable it is important to identify the most suitable material fractions (or product groups) and engage in strategic partnerships that will allow more effective organisation of re-use processes.L. Milios, C. Dalhammar / DETRITUS / Volume 09 -2020 / pages 27-37 28

show abstract

Section: Re-use Operations In Austriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ascending the Waste Hierarchy: Re-use potential in Swedish recycling centres

Milios

Dalhammar

2020

Detritus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Smartphones are known to have fast innovation cycles. Because new model releases are frequent, technological progress and consumers' desire for advanced functionality are commonly viewed as the main drivers behind rapid product replacement and short use-phase duration (Wilson et al 2017;Wieser and Tröger 2017). As a result, several have argued that making phones easier to repair and update, thereby slowing their technical obsolescence, would increase their potential for reuse and extend their use phase (Wilhelm et al 2011;van Nes and Cramer 2005;Benton et al 2015).…”

Section: Repairability and Intangiblesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Go et al. ; Cooper ; Wieser and Tröger ). The basic idea is that because the production, transportation, and EoL management of each product requires a “fixed” investment of resources and energy, using products longer would mean gaining more utility from the same fixed investment (Skelton and Allwood ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These environmental costs are intensified as mobile phones have relatively short life spans (defined here as the time between initial purchase and disposal at end of life [EoL]), with recent estimates suggesting a use phase of less than 2 years (Geyer and Blass ; Wilson et al. ; Wieser and Tröger ). Some argue that products that are easy to repair may ease environmental burdens and improve resource productivity by prolonging the active use period (Felton and Bird ; van Nes and Cramer ; Yu et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, although the climate change using products longer would mean gaining more utility from the same fixed investment (Skelton and Allwood 2013). Although longer life spans are not always environmentally beneficial, for products such as smartphones that require many resources up front (i.e., the fixed investment) and few resources during use (i.e., operational inputs), longer use times usually mean more efficient utilization of resources overall (Allwood et al 2012;Frey et al 2006;Wieser and Tröger 2017;Cooper and Gutowski 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

What Affects the Secondhand Value of Smartphones: Evidence from eBay

Makov

Fishman

Chertow

et al. 2018

J of Industrial Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Reuse via secondhand markets can extend the use phase of products, thereby reducing environmental impacts. Analyzing 500,000 listings of used Apple and Samsung smartphones sold in 2015 and 2016 via eBay, we examine which product properties affect how long smartphones retain market value and facilitate market‐based reuse. Our results suggest that although repairability and large memory size are typically thought to be “life extending,” in practice they have limited impact on the current economic life span of smartphones and their market‐based reuse. In contrast, we show that brand, an intangible product property, can extend smartphones’ economic life span by 12.5 months. Because longer economic life spans imply extended use phases and longer life spans overall, these results illustrate the potential of harnessing the intangible properties of products to promote sustainable consumption.

show abstract

Sustainable use of a smartphone and regulatory needs

Kögler,

Paulick,

Scheffran

et al. 2024

Sustainable Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The significance of information and communication technologies (ICT) for the Paris Climate Agreement is continuously increasing because of its growing energy consumption. Here we examine the question for the smartphone and extend the investigation to more aspects of sustainability. Critical issues are identified for ten UN Sustainable Development Goals. Measurements of smartphone energy consumption show that a significant savings potential can be unlocked by reducing the data outflow and the large amount of personal data stored in data centers. Main discrepancies are also traced to the oligopolistic market structure of operating systems (OSs), messenger services, and social media apps. Technical means for a sustainable smartphone use are suggested as alternative OSs, social media channels of the Fediverse, as well as free and open‐source software. Finally, societal conditions are emphasized to make the market for OSs and apps more diverse so that a sustainable smartphone use can generally prevail.

show abstract

Exploring the inner loops of the circular economy: Replacement, repair, and reuse of mobile phones in Austria

Cited by 136 publications

References 41 publications

Ascending the Waste Hierarchy: Re-use potential in Swedish recycling centres

Ascending the Waste Hierarchy: Re-use potential in Swedish recycling centres

What Affects the Secondhand Value of Smartphones: Evidence from eBay

Sustainable use of a smartphone and regulatory needs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About