“I always hand in my broken electronic devices, but is anything actually done with them?” In a time of scarce materials, you would hope so, but recycling these types of products is quite complicated.
It is only possible for about 20% of the products worldwide. In the Netherlands, we are doing a lot better, but still not good enough. The Circular Circuits project, with several universities involved, focuses on improving this.
In this episode of the BNR podcast series, project leader Jan-Willem Welink from TU Delft explains how they are trying to use various lines of research to enable better recycling and a longer lifespan of electronics in a time of scare critical raw materials.
In addition, PhD researcher Jasper Coppen will speak about his research into corrosion and PhD researcher Sjoerd de Jong will tell you more about his computer models that should make it possible to better predict how long devices will last at all.
Please find the link to the podcast here (in Dutch).