Evaluation of the Potential Toxicity of Metals in Discarded Electronics: A Case Study of Mobile Phones in P. R. China

The e-waste is increasingly flooding Asia, especially China, which could precipitate a growing volume of toxic input to the local environment if not handled properly. This makes the assessment of environmental impact from discarded electronics an essentially important task for end-of-life (EOL) management. Tins paper presents a quantitative investigation of the toxicity of metals in mobile phones under a worst-case scenario using the toxicity potential indicator (TPI) module in the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM)-EE Toolbox.