Repairing and maintaining used electronics
Along with our qualitative approach to this activity, we have also begun quantifying what might be called the 'environmental offsets' of the reuse, repair, refurbishment, and recycling of electronics by people in this sector. Our preliminary results suggest that laptop repair alone in a single cluster of such businesses we study in Lima, Peru leads to avoided greenhouse gas emissions of between 1.56-3.60 Gg CO2e (1560-3600 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).
See: Gusukuma, Marco, Ramzy Kahhat, Josh Lepawsky, and Erin Araujo. 2017. ‘Reducing E-Waste Flows by Extending Lifespan Through Repair Practices: Case Study of Laptops in Lima’. In Proceedings of the 16th International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium. Sardinia. [Download PDF]
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