Resource use and waste generation related to electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has been significantly increasing in the past decades. In 2019, the world generated 53.6 million tonnes (Mt) of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). In the EU, WEEE is considered to be one of the fastest-growing waste streams.
Different pieces of EU legislation have been put in place to organise collection schemes for WEEE, restrict the use of hazardous substances and incentivise recycling. However, WEEE is a very heterogeneous and complex waste stream and many critical materials still cannot be recovered in recycling processes. Therefore, a promising way to keep precious resources within the economy and reduce waste generation lies in the extension of the useful lifetime of EEE. Product lifetime extension goes hand in hand with the European Commission’s strategy to move toward a Circular Economy and is anchored in a variety of roadmaps and directives.
The term ‘premature obsolescence’ describes the phenomenon that products cease to be used at a point in their lifetime that arrives too soon. Premature obsolescence can have technical and non-technical underlying reasons. From a technical point of view, flaws in the quality and design of a product can lead to low reliability and a lack of reparability. Non-technical reasons for premature obsolescence can be linked to factors such as technological progress, advertising and fashion, consumption patterns and trends, and status, among others.
The main objective of PROMPT is to develop an independent testing programme to support the assessment of the longevity of consumer products, when they are put on the market. It has the goal to enable testing bodies, consumer organisations, market surveillance authorities and other interested stakeholders to rely on tangible definitions and to methodically assess premature obsolescence. It will contribute to ongoing and future standardisation efforts and provide designers and policymakers with recommendations on improving the durability and reparability of products, empower consumers to make informed choices, and create awareness of market conditions.
In PROMPT a test programme with improved testing protocols has been demonstrated for smartphones, TVs, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. The testing enables product comparisons with respect to a comprehensive set of criteria, which were covering the aspects of reliability, reparability and resistance to psychological obsolescence. Challenges identified for future research were time and cost of testing, standardisation gaps and the need for more data.
