Programme de bourses "Echanges Universitaires"
E-waste Dismantling for A-Living
Analysis of the End of Life Phase from E-waste and the Involvement of the Catadores in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Worldwide changes in the use of electronic equipments lead to an increasing amount of obsolete electronic equipments. In Brazil as in other developing countries there exists a lack of an e-waste management. This results in wrong disposal of the e-waste with the consequence that most of it will end up in landfills, where potentially leaded CRT-glass and plastic containing brominated flame retardants represent a high risk for the environment. Some parts of the occurring e-waste reach Brazilian street waste collectors, the so-called Catadores. They manually disassemble the devices and resell the separated parts for a small profit.
The purpose of this study is to assess the occurring e-waste flows mainly from computers and the benefits of introducing Catadores into a formal e-waste management system. A survey of the occurring e-waste generation in Brazil, Minas Gerais and Belo Horizonte has been conducted showing future estimations until the year 2020. The evolution of the waste flow composition shows that more and more CRT-monitors get replaced by LCD-monitors and therefore will disappear until 2020 and more and more computers will be laptops leading to a decrease in weight per unit ratio for computer equipments. In a second step a material flow analysis was performed in Belo Horizonte based on field surveys in order to assess the incoming waste stream leading to the Catadores. The manual disassembly performed of the Catadores was studied and dismantling processes were analysed. Finally, the economical attractiveness for the Catadores to conduct various e-waste activities was assessed, applying a process based cost model. It has been shown that the Catadores, depending on the incoming e-waste as well as the obtained material prices, can make a living out of e-waste disassembly. In a last step possible optimization strategies by introducing new technologies and the introduction of the Catadores into a formalized e-waste management were discussed.
Pictures: Manual disassembly at different associations of Catadores. Pictures made during field survey.
Combined Internship and Master Thesis of Barbara Annina Gerber, student at the Institute of Environmental Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich
Supervision: Daniel Ott and Dr. M. Streicher- Porte, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA)
Thesis tutor: Prof. Dr. S. Hellweg, Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich
Contact adresses:
Switzerland
Barbara Annina Gerber
Lindenbachstrasse 11
8006 Zürich
E-Mail:
gerberb@student.ethz.ch
EMPA:
Daniel Ott
Lerchenfeldstrasse. 5
CH-9014 St. Gallen
E-Mail:
Daniel.Ott@empa.ch
Dr. Martin Streicher-Porte
Lerchenfeldstrasse. 5
CH-9014 St. Gallen
E-Mail:
Martin.Streicher@empa.ch
Brazil
José Cláudio Junqueira Ribeiro
Presidente
Fundação Estadual do Meio Ambiente - Feam
E-Mail:jcjunqueira@meioambiente.mg.gov.br
Susane Meyer Portugal
Consultora
Projeto 3RsPCs - Resíduos Eletroeletrônicos
Fundação Estadual do Meio Ambiente – Feam
E-Mail:
susane.portugal@gmail.com