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New green ICT standards tackle e-waste and energy
efficiency
Universal charger for laptops and green battery solution defined
Geneva, 20 December 2013 –
A meeting of ITU’s expert group on green ICT has resulted in new
standards including an environmentally friendly
universal charger for laptops as well as other portable devices (ITU-T
L.1002), and a standard for green batteries for smart phones and other
handheld ICT devices (ITU-T L.1010). Additionally experts have agreed on
a standardised methodology for manufacturers to report the quantity of
rare metals contained in their ICT devices (Recommendation ITU-T 1101) –
something that will increase the efficiency of recycling schemes.
Specifically designed to reduce e-waste and increase usability, ITU-T
L.1002 is an international standard for a universal power adapter (UPA)
for portable devices, including notebooks, which complements the
recently announced IEC/Technical Specification 62700/Ed1 by adding a
number of environmentally friendly requirements. For example the
ITU standard addresses energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction,
specifies eco-design, resistibility, a no-load power requirement and
optimizes the use of scarce and raw materials. It builds on the
successful ITU-T L.1000 and L.1001 Recommendations dedicated
respectively to mobile phones and stationary devices (e.g. xDSL modems)
that were first adopted by ITU in 2009 and 2012. The resulting
savings in e-waste could equate to 300,000 tonnes annually according to
an ITU/GeSI study carried out by the University
of Genoa.
During the same meeting,
ITU-T experts also agreed a test suite (ITU-T L.1005), which provides a
full suite of tests to check for conformance to ITU-T L.1000, the
standard for a universal mobile phone charger. The suite was developed
in response to the European Parliament Radio Equipment Directive, which
requires all mobile phones to be compatible with a universal charger
(see
here for more).
Hamadoun I. Touré, Secretary-General, ITU: “Standardized solutions will be a key
way to reduce e-waste, an increasingly intractable problem, particularly
for the developing world. This fact is emphasised by last week’s report
from the UN's StEP initiative, which predicts a growth of 33 per cent in
the global volume of electronic waste in the next four years.”
ITU is a partner of StEP, a multistakeholder
initiative, which aims to tackle the e-waste problem by advocating
policy change, redesign, reuse and recycling.
Ahmed Zeddam, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 5: “The
results of this meeting have shown once again the importance to which
industry is attaching to the problem of e-waste. Swift global adoption
of our standards has been another important indicator of how quickly
industry is willing to tackle this problem. ITU-T Study Group 5 stands
ready to continue the development of standards that will facilitate the
reduction of e-waste and the improvement of energy efficiency in order
to protect our environment.”
In addition to the charger standards, the ITU
experts meeting in Lima, Peru, agreed on a new standard (ITU-T L.1010)
that defines a minimum set of parameters for green batteries that should
reduce the future environmental impact of battery use. The ITU-T
Recommendation includes environmental considerations in the upstream
supply chain, reliability and eco-design guidelines to help ensure
longer lasting batteries with a reduced environmental impact over the
entire life cycle, without compromising product safety.
An additional result of ITU-T’s Study Group 5
meeting which took place in Lima from 2 to 13 December 2013, and was
kindly hosted by the government of Peru, was a standard that provides
manufacturers of ICT goods with efficient ways of reporting their use of
rare metals and other recyclable elements in their products in order to
achieve successful recycling schemes. A standardized method of measuring
rare metals is needed to give consistency in the supply chain. Moreover,
it is hard to distinguish rare earth elements contained in rare metals
because they have similar chemical properties.
ITU-T’s work on e-waste is driven by Resolution 79
adopted at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (Dubai,
2012), which instructs ITU-T Study Group 5 to
develop Recommendations, methodologies and other publications relating
to handling and controlling e-waste resulting from
telecommunications/ICT and methods of treating it.
For more information, please contact:
Paul Conneally
Head, Communications
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Toby Johnson
Senior Communications Officer
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