The Eco-Efficiency of Reuse Centres Critically Explored - The Washing Machine Case

By repairing and reselling used products, reuse centres aim at creating low-skill jobs while offering low-cost and environmentally beneficial products. However, due to a combination of decreased efficiency of wornout products and technological progress embodied in new products, lifetime extension of old products is sometimes not the most beneficial scenario from both an environmental and economic point of view. This paper investigates this trade-off for the case of washing machines. For selected types of washing machines, critical reuse ages are determined above which reuse is environmentally or economically undesirable. A sensitivity analysis shows that these critical reuse ages are often sensitive to small changes of the input parameters.