Ugo

Vallauri

Ugo

Vallauri

Ugo

Ugo Vallauri

INTERVIEW

64

80% of the overall greenhouse gas

emissions linked to the whole life cycle of

the product have to do with the

manufacturing stage. It becomes very

obvious that the only thing we can do to

reduce the environmental impact of using

all these products is to make fewer of

them. Obviously when you’re talking

about a fridge or an oven, there’s a

significant amount of energy used in the

use phase, but when you compare it with

small battery-powered products, during

the use phase you’re going to be using

maybe 15% of the overall carbon

emissions of the overall life cycle of

that product.

Which means that the only

environmentally sound option is to

keep using, repairing, reusing, and

extending the lifespan of that product as

much as possible, before it reaches the

recycling phase.

HS I’ve seen the argument that modern

appliances are more energy-efficient,

and therefore it’s more environmentally

responsible to upgrade your laptop,

for example, for something that uses

less energy.

UV That is absolutely wrong. This only

applies to things like your fridge and

other larger appliances. All evidence

points to exactly the opposite. If you were

to look at the energy consumption in use

for a laptop, in order to make up for the

proportion of environmental damage

caused by that product during the

manufacturing phase, you would have to

keep a laptop in use for ten years to make

up for that.

”

”

At the Restart

Project, we first

believe that we

should consume

more slowly than

we do now

HackSpace The United Nations says that

the UK is the second highest producer

of e-waste per capita. What are we

doing wrong?

Ugo Vallauri It’s obvious that a country

with the kind of economy of the UK would

be one of the highest producers of e-waste.

Yes, we are consuming too much and

too fast, but we’re also not very efficient,

compared to some other countries, at

collecting the products we no longer use

for recycling. At the Restart Project, we

first believe that we should consume

more slowly than we do now, and that

when products are no longer used by the

first user, we should try to reuse them,

by reselling them, giving them away.

When certain products reach the

end of their useful lifespan, we are

extremely inefficient – around the

world generally, but in the UK in

particular – at collecting all kinds of

electronic products.

This is particularly true for smaller

products that a lot of people are still

adding to their non-recycling waste,

so they end up in landfill because

they’re small. Obviously, it wouldn’t

be possible to do this with a washing

machine, but it’s perfectly possible to do

with a kettle or a toaster.

On average, around the world, we are

still very inefficient at recycling

electronics, and a high proportion of them

simply don’t get recycled at all – more

than half of all electronics are not recycled.

On top of that, there is a misconception

that recycling is always the best thing

to do. Many critical raw materials used

in smartphones aren’t recycled at all,

such as beryllium (used in connectors),

gallium (in integrated circuits), indium

(in touchscreens) and silicon metal

(in microchips).

For other materials, the amount of

recycling is extremely low, including

graphite (used in batteries), neodymium

(in microphones) and tantalum

(in microcapacitors).

It gets worse than that. In the life cycle

of a smartphone, for example, the iconic

product of this generation, approximately

Of course, when you’re buying a new

product, it makes sense to consider energy

efficiency as one of the criteria. It is a

useful way to understand how much

money you might save during the use

phase, but this does not take into

consideration how much energy and

materials are employed during the

manufacturing phase.

This is why we are campaigning for the

right to repair, which among other things

involves pushing for better regulations

that prevent manufacturers from making

products that do not meet minimum

requirements of repairability, such as being

near-impossible to disassemble for repair;

providing as many spare parts as possible

for as long as possible; and providing

access to repair manuals and

instructions to facilitate repair for

everyone, and not just for

professional repairers, which for a lot

of products no longer exists widely

in our communities.

I don’t mean smartphones, tablets,

and other IT products – they’ve

generated a thriving repair

community. But for many other

products that people tend to bring to

repair events like our Restart Parties

or to Repair Cafés, such as kettles, toasters,

printers, headphones, hair straighteners,

hair dryers, and many other products.

HS Yes! We visited a Repair Café earlier

this year. It’s amazing how many simple

appliances are designed to stop you from

fixing them when they break.

UV That’s exactly why we’re campaigning,

with our partners across Europe, to push

for a European-wide movement for right to

repair. We know that for many products

there simply is no regulation whatsoever

limiting the power of manufacturers to just

do whatever makes the most sense to

them, irrespective of the environment.

For some products, some regulation

exists, and we’ve actually pushed the

option of initial minimal right to repair and

repair provisions in European legislations.

From 2021, new televisions, electronic

screens, dishwashers, and fridges that