Sustainability assessment frameworks are an important tool for assessing the social, economic and environmental impacts of technological advances. These tools can assist scientists, policy makers, industry and funding partners to understand a projects overall value and identify any shortcomings of the technology. This study demonstrates the novel application of an existing economic assessment method, as well as outlines a new social risk assessment method developed specifically for evaluating emerging recycling technologies.

This study is divided into two parts utilising the IRETA2 (Innovative Recycling Routes to Recover Tantalum from Electronic Waste) as a Project example. Part 1 consists of the novel application of Material Flow Cost Analysis (MFCA) to determine the preferred recycling method, as well as the optimal cost point of primary sourced Ta that would deem recycling economically viable. Finally, the importance of recovery and selling by-products on the overall economic feasibility of the recycling process is also demonstrated.

Part 2 comprises the application of a specialised social impact and risk evaluation method developed following a critical analysis of established social impact and sustainability assessment methods. The preferred methodology following this critical analysis is outlined and potential unintended consequences of recycling on the livelihoods of those involved in the existing Tantalum material story is demonstrated.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany in the framework of “IRETA 2” (project number 033RK080H).