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The Material Basis of ICT

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ICT Innovations for Sustainability

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 310))

Abstract

Technologies for storing, transmitting, and processing information have made astounding progress in dematerialization. The amount of physical mass needed to represent one bit of information has dramatically decreased in the last few years, and is still declining. However, information will always need a material basis. In this chapter, we address both the upstream (from mining to the product) and the downstream (from the product to final disposal) implications of the composition of an average Swiss end-of-life (EoL) consumer ICT device from a materials perspective. Regarding the upstream implications, we calculate the scores of the MIPS material rucksack indicator and the ReCiPe mineral resource depletion indicator for selected materials contained in ICT devices, namely polymers, the base metals Al, Cu, and Fe, and the geochemically scarce metals Ag, Au, and Pd. For primary production of one kg of raw material found in consumer ICT devices, the highest material rucksack and resource depletion scores are obtained for the three scarce metals Ag, Au, and Pd; almost the entire material rucksack for these metals is determined by the mining and refining processes. This picture changes when indicator scores are scaled to their relative mass per kg average Swiss EoL consumer ICT device: the base metals Fe and in particular Cu now score much higher than the scarce metals for both indicators. Regarding the downstream implications, we determine the effects of a substitution of primary raw materials in ICT devices with secondary raw materials recovered from EoL consumer ICT devices on both indicator scores. According to our results, such a substitution leads to benefits which are highest for the base metals, followed by scarce metals. The recovery of secondary raw materials from EoL consumer ICT devices can significantly reduce the need for primary raw materials and subsequently the material rucksacks and related impacts. However, increased recycling is not a panacea: the current rapid growth of the materials stock in the technosphere necessitates continuous natural resource depletion, and recycling itself is ultimately limited by thermodynamics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ABS: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene; PC: polycarbonate; PC/ABS: polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene blend; PE: polyethylene; PS: polystyrene; SAN: styrene acrylonitrile.

  2. 2.

    A metal is called geochemically scarce if it occurs at an average concentration below 0.01 weight percent in the earth’s crust [4]. In this chapter, we use “scarce” as a synonym for “geochemically scarce.”

  3. 3.

    A deposit is any accumulation of a mineral or a group of minerals that may be economically valuable [12].

  4. 4.

    A reserve is the part of the resource which has been fully geologically evaluated and is commercially and legally mineable [12].

  5. 5.

    The reserve base is the reserve of a resource plus those parts of the resource that have a reasonable potential for becoming economically available within planning horizons beyond those that assume proven technology and current economics [12].

  6. 6.

    A resource is a natural concentration of minerals or a body of rock that is, or may become, of potential economic interest as a basis for the extraction of a mineral commodity [12].

  7. 7.

    The static lifetime is the ratio between reserve or reserve base and annual mine production [12].

  8. 8.

    The authors chose the acronym “ReCiPe” because the method is expected to provide a recipe for calculating life cycle impact category indicators and at the same time represent the initials of the institutes that were main contributors to this project [13].

  9. 9.

    The CML method is a problem-oriented impact assessment method developed at the Center of Environmental Science (CML) of Leiden University (NL) and described in their “operational guide to the ISO standards.” [14].

  10. 10.

    The Eco-Indicator ’99 method is an endpoint method that aggregates all impacts into three different damage categories (damage to human health, to ecosystem quality, and to the available resources). The method was developed in the Netherlands and is among the most often used life cycle impact assessment methods in Europe [15].

  11. 11.

    “Dissipation”—in this context—refers to the dilution of a material in the technosphere or ecosphere in such a way that its recovery is made practically impossible. The “technosphere” includes all objects and associated material flows that have been created by humankind and are under its control [9].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Patrick A. Wäger, Roland Hischier & Rolf Widmer

Authors
  1. Patrick A. Wäger
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  2. Roland Hischier
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  3. Rolf Widmer
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Correspondence to Patrick A. Wäger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Lorenz M. Hilty

  2. Zurich, Switzerland

    Bernard Aebischer

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Wäger, P.A., Hischier, R., Widmer, R. (2015). The Material Basis of ICT. In: Hilty, L., Aebischer, B. (eds) ICT Innovations for Sustainability. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 310. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09228-7_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09228-7_12

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