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Can the pandemic help us to embrace refurbished electronics?

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https://www.dw.com/en/can-the-pandemic-h...a-53741181

EXCERPTS: With the pandemic impacting supply chains, some electronics manufacturers have been struggling to produce new equipment. Could this be the moment for refurbishing and reusing existing equipment? Sales of electronics goods have surged in recent months as millions around the world have turned their homes into offices and digital classrooms.

That might sound like good news for manufacturers, but the other winners could be those pushing for circular economies that facilitate a continual use of resources. [...] Miquel Ballester, Circular Innovation Lead at Fairphone says increased interest in reusing and refurbishing resources is a "perfect example of what happens in a crisis situation when things cannot be taken for granted anymore. People start to look into other strategies to achieve the same goals or they change their goals."

[...] But in a world that generates about 50 million tons of electric and electronic waste annually — roughly equivalent to discarding 1,000 laptops every single second, opting for refurbished goods is still relatively uncommon. Even though the European Union adopted a new Circular Economy Action Plan in March that aims to ensure resources used are kept in the EU economy for as long as possible, there is still the issue of changing mindsets.

IT companies in Europe are legally bound to delete old personal data from organization's systems under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR), but many people remain concerned that older devices can become the source of potential data breaches and leakages. "After you've used a certain product, it is important to make sure that you are doing everything the right way because of the environment but also because of the law. So, if you have a company, you are obliged by the law in Europe to remove all data from every employee or person from a workstation or laptop and household at a certain time," Bergsma said.

[...] Hasan Alkas, professor of Macroeconomics at Rhine Waal University of Applied Sciences in Germany, doesn't believe consumers are ready to embrace the "second-hand market” in the long-term. "During the crisis nobody wants to spend too much, everyone wants to hold onto the money and if there is a choice between the old one and the new one, you will buy an old one," Alkas told DW, adding that China will ultimately regain its position in the market... (MORE - details)
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