Electrónicos Sostenibles: Integración de Soluciones Globales de Ingeniería y Política

La investigación sobre cómo integrar las soluciones tecnológicas y de política para mejorar la gestión sostenible del sistema de los productos electrónicos al final de su vida.

Desarrollo de una Metodología para Caracterizar y Cuantificar el Flujo de Electrónicos Usados de Norte América al resto del Mundo

Los objetivos específicos del estudio son: (1) Desarrollar un enfoque metodológico para cuantificar el flujo de exportación computadoras usadas y monitores de computadora de los Estados Unidos, México y Canadá, (2) Desarrollar un conjunto de enfoques metodológicos para cuantificar los destinos mundiales de las computadoras y monitores de ordenador utilizados exportados desde América del Norte, (3) validar y probar los enfoques metodológicos anteriores mediante la adquisición de datos específicos del país como factible dado los recursos disponibles para esta investigación.

Evaluando y Manejando la Sostenibilidad de la Cadena Inversa de Suministro de Electrónicos

Globalization continues to transform forward supply chains. The scope of mining and manufacturing activities has expanded around the globe, accompanied by massive material and monetary flows between nations, which entail profound environmental, economic and social effects. While a degree of consideration has been given to the sustainable management of international forward supply chains, almost no attention has been paid to the globalization of reverse supply chains. By reserve supply chain we mean the network of activities carrying out the reuse, recycling and final disposal of products and their associated components and materials. Understanding and managing international reverse supply chains is important on multiple levels. One is that any hope to achieve a cyclic industrial system as envisioned in Industrial Ecology must now, due to globalization of forward supply chains, also consider product/material return loops from an international perspective. Also, used goods markets and reuse/recycling industries apparently play an important role in many developing economies, yet also entail environmental risks. Are there ways to manage international reverse flows such as to realize opportunities and manage risk? This project works to develop the intellectual infrastructure needed to engineer and manage international reverse flows from a sustainability perspective. This is explored through a case study of end-of-life personal computers in the US. The first component of the project is a material flows analysis to understand the current state of flows of end-of-first-life computers from the U.S. internationally. The second component involves exploration of the environment and development characteristics of different international paths for the reverse chain for computers. A third component combines of engineering design at product and system level and policy considerations to explore reuse/recycling systems achieving different societal objectives.

Bill of Attributes (BOA) in life cycle modeling of laptop computers: results and trends from disassembly studies

This study aims to contribute to developing data and understanding of the BOA side of the equation for laptop computers. The broad goals of this study are: Generate primary data on BOA through physical disassembly, Characterize trends and relationships between different attributes, Explore models relating different product attributes in order to streamline the estimation of carbon footprints.

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