The iNEMI Project on Value Recovery from Used Electronics demonstrates how a multi-stakeholder circular economy (CE) for hard disk drives can be developed explicitly based on the Ostrom Framework for Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) for sustainable, self-management of common pool resources. Using the Ostrom Framework, we mapped hard drives into Ostrom characteristics, followed the flow of hard drives from raw materials and manufacturing through use in hyperscale data centers and end-of-use treatment, and filled gaps in the existing value recovery supply chain by recruiting team members necessary for multiple CE value recovery pathways. Those pathways ranged from hard drive wiping/resale and reuse of voice coil magnet assembles in new hard drives to breakdown of magnets into NdFeB powder for new magnet manufacturing and recovery of rare earth metals, copper, gold, and aluminum. The project gave the team insights into best practices in the context of a multi-pathway, SES-based circular economy, how trusted relationships, information sharing, and collaborative demonstration projects make decisions towards circularity possible, and how quantifying the economics, logistics, environmental impacts, and the leverage points help stakeholders identify current and future opportunities that depend on their working together to realize.
