SCS Standards issues recycled-content guidelines for electronics

Emeryville, California-based not-for-profit organization SCS Standards has published its new Annex A to the existing SCS-103 Certification Standard for Recycled Content.” Annex A focuses on the electrical and electronic equipment sectors.

The 15-page annex was developed by a diverse multistakeholder group that includes  Amazon, the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, De’Longhi, Dell Technologies, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, HP, Microsoft, Logitech, Philips and The Recycling Partnership.

The “Recycled Material Inputs” section of the document sets a recycled-content threshold for 11 types of metal and seven categories of polymers. Metals covered include aluminum, cobalt, copper, gold, magnesium, platinum, rare earth metals, steel, tin, titanium and tungsten.

In the polymers list are polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate (PC), polypropylene (PP), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and PC/ABS, carbon fiber and an “other” category that includes high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) and polyamide 66 (PA66).

“SCS-103 Annex A: Supplemental Criteria for Electrical and Electronic Equipment,” according to SCS Standards, “raises the bar for recycled content in consumer electronics products.”

“SCS 103 Annex A goes beyond the current practice of certifying individual material inputs for these complex electrical and electronic products, providing consumers with a much more accessible and understandable claim,” SCS Standards Executive Director Victoria Norman says.

The company says current recycled content claims in the sector often focus on component materials. The SCS Recycled Content Standard, however, sets a minimum threshold for recycled content for each product sub-category and requires multiple recycled material inputs.

Certification to the annex “will allow for a product-level claim and will back up manufacturers’ recycled content claims, reinforcing customer confidence, and supporting purchases of products with higher levels of recycled content,” SCS Standards says.

The organization says the document is designed to “support the industry’s goal of stimulating increased use of recycled materials in products and promoting innovation in material collection and recycling processes to minimize waste to landfills.”

The SCS Standards Annex A document can be downloaded here.