Recycling telephone housings into wall mounts for the MERLIN LEGEND and PARTNER II communications systems

Author

Glantschnig, Werner J. ; Anjou, Louis D.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Princeton, NJ, USA

fYear

1994

fDate

2-4 May 1994

Firstpage

284

Lastpage

289

Abstract

Resource conservation is among the major goals of life cycle design. One way to achieve resource conservation is by means of using recycled materials in the manufacture of products. Of course, recycling may also make sense from a purely economic perspective. In this paper an AT&T internal recycling project is discussed in which 100% post-consumer ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) plastic flake derived from scrapped telephone housings is used for making wall mount panels for the MERLIN LEGEND and PARTNER II business telephone systems. Issues pertinent to the use of recycled plastic, such as the material´s suitability in view of its somewhat degraded physical properties, and the implications of applicable product standards and regulations, are reviewed as well

Keywords

plastics; telephone sets; telephone systems; waste disposal; AT&T internal recycling project; MERLIN LEGEND communications system; PARTNER II communications system; acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene; degraded physical properties; life cycle design; product regulations; product standards; recycled plastic; resource conservation; telephone housings recycling; wall mounts; Degradation; Electric shock; Fuel economy; Manufacturing; Petroleum; Plastics; Recycling; Resins; Telephony; Waste materials;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronics and the Environment, 1994. ISEE 1994., Proceedings., 1994 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1769-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISEE.1994.337243

Filename

337243