<div class="csl-bib-body">
<div class="csl-entry">Nagai, E. (2011). <i>The value of resources : an analysis of the material composition and material price of consumer electronic products</i> [Master Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://resolver.obvsg.at/urn:nbn:at:at-ubtuw:1-51922</div>
</div>
The electronics industry is a constantly and rapidly evolving industry, and even the material composition within the same category of appliances is continuously evolving with new technology, customer preferences, legislative changes, and nowadays, health and environmental concerns. This paper follows the changes in the material composition and the relative value of those materials for seven categories of electronic appliances: refrigerators, washing machines, CRT displays, flat panel displays, desktop computers, laptop computers, and mobile phones. The results showed that the relative value of resources contained in an electronic product, compared to its market price, is very low for all products studied. This indicates that despite growing concern today, even a large-scale increase in resource prices, including precious metals, is unlikely to lead to any significant increase in market prices of electronic products. The study also indicated that the smaller and more high-tech an appliance becomes, the less valuable and more difficult it tends to become for resource recovery at the end of its lifecycle.
en
dc.language
English
-
dc.language.iso
en
-
dc.rights.uri
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
-
dc.title
The value of resources : an analysis of the material composition and material price of consumer electronic products