The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review

Abstract

The fear that human consumption is causing climate change, biodiversity loss, and mineral scarcity has recently prompted interest in reuse because of the intuitive belief that it reduces new production and waste. The environmental impacts of reuse have, however, received little attention—the benefits typically assumed rather than understood—and consequently the overall effects remain unclear. In this article, we structure the current work on the topic, reviewing the potential benefits and pitfalls described in the literature and providing a framework for future research.
Many products’ use‐phase energy requirements are decreasing. The relative importance of the embodied impacts from initial production is therefore growing and the prominence of reuse as an abatement strategy is likely to increase in the future. Many examples are found in the literature of beneficial reuse of standardized, unpowered products and components, and repairing an item is always found to be less energy intensive than new production. However, reusing a product does not guarantee an environmental benefit. Attention must be paid to restoring and upgrading old product efficiencies, minimizing overspecification in the new application, and considering whether more efficient, new products exist that would be more suitable. Cheap, reused goods can allow many consumers access to products they would otherwise have been unable to afford. Though socially valuable, these sales, which may help minimize landfill in the short term, can represent additional consumption rather than a net environmental benefit compared to the status quo.

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RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
The Environmental Impacts of Reuse
AReview
Daniel R. Cooper and Timothy G. Gutowski
Summary
The fear that human consumption is causing climate change, biodiversity loss, and mineral
scarcity has recently prompted interest in reuse because of the intuitive belief that it reduces
new production and waste. The environmental impacts of reuse have, however, received
little attention—the benefits typically assumed rather than understood—and consequently
the overall effects remain unclear. In this article, we structure the current work on the
topic, reviewing the potential benefits and pitfalls described in the literature and providing
a framework for future research.
Many products’ use-phase energy requirements are decreasing. The relative importance
of the embodied impacts from initial production is therefore growing and the prominence
of reuse as an abatement strategy is likely to increase in the future. Many examples are found
in the literature of beneficial reuse of standardized, unpowered products and components,
and repairing an item is always found to be less energy intensive than new production.
However, reusing a product does not guarantee an environmental benefit. Attention must
be paid to restoring and upgrading old product efficiencies, minimizing overspecification in
the new application, and considering whether more efficient, new products exist that would
be more suitable. Cheap, reused goods can allow many consumers access to products they
would otherwise have been unable to afford. Though socially valuable, these sales, which
may help minimize landfill in the short term, can represent additional consumption rather
than a net environmental benefit compared to the status quo.
Keywords :
dematerialization
energy
environmental impact
materials efficiency
remanufacturing
reuse
Introduction
Reuse has become one of the well-known 3Rs—“reduce,
reuse, recycle”—promoted by environmental agencies such as
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA 2014)
and the UK Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
(WRAP 2014) and expressed as part of China’s Circular Econ-
omy (Yuan et al. 2006). As policy makers look to incentivize
greater reuse in the future, it is essential that the environmental
impacts of reuse be better understood.
Reuse covers a range of activities from informal product ex-
changes between acquaintances, to the semiformal structure of
Address correspondence to: Daniel R. Cooper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 35-234, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Email:
drcooper@mit.edu
© 2015 by Yale University
DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12388 Editor managing review: Valerie Thomas
Volume 00, Number 0
car-boot sales and Internet exchanges such as eBay, to industrial
reuse of products and components, often called remanufactur-
ing. In this article, a broad definition is employed that covers
most of the activities branded as reuse in the literature: It is
a nondestructive process that finds a second or further use for
end-of-first-life solid materials (products or components) with-
out a change of state, excluding melting for metals, plastics
and glasses, and pulping for paper. The further use of a prod-
uct may be considered as product life extension. The spectrum
from reuse to product life extension overlaps with the activity
of product resale (Allwood et al. 2010a).
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RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Motivation: The Need to Reduce Production
and Waste
The immense world-wide demand for products and materi-
als means that human activities dominate the global flows of
many elements (Klee and Graedel 2004), and that industry ac-
counts for over one fifth of all anthropogenic carbon emissions
(Allwood et al. 2012, based on International Energy Agency
[IEA] data). The environmental impacts associated with our
industrialized society are too numerous to study in detail here;
however, Allwood and colleagues (2010b), in a white paper on
material efficiency (delivering services with less material pro-
duction), present a summary of the main impacts caused by the
global demand for products: (1) climate change; (2) the exhaus-
tion of resources (fossil fuels, water, land, ores, and biomass); and
(3) other impacts such as toxic releases to the ecosystem, and—
particularly in highly populated countries—concerns over land
availability for landfill.
To avoid the potentially dangerous effects of climate change
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
recommended a 40% to 70% cut in global carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions from 2010 levels by 2050 (IPCC 2014). Allwood and
colleagues (2010c, 2012) and Gutowski and colleagues (2013)
have shown that there is limited scope for future efficiency
improvements in material production; therefore, an absolute
reduction in material production (achievable through strategies
such as reuse) is likely to be required to make significant cuts to
industrial emissions.
There are few instances of absolute global resource scarcity,
but resource ore grades are declining over time (Phillips and
Edwards 1976; Mudd 2009). This may cause higher material
prices and more energy-intensive extraction because, for exam-
ple, more grinding is required to liberate the diluted material
of interest from the rock (Norgate and Jahanshahi 2011). As
energy sources are typically fossil-fuel based, extraction from di-
lute ores is likely to further increase emissions (Gutowski et al.
2013). Material production is often water and land intensive.
For example, cotton requires at least 7,000 liters (L) of water for
every 1 kilogram (kg) of fibers produced (Well Dressed 2006).
In recent decades, policies designed to increase cotton produc-
tion in the Aral Sea area (once the fourth largest lake in the
world) has caused water shortages (the lake shrinking by over
75%), dust storms, and salt contamination of agricultural land
(Micklin 2007). If reuse could prevent materials from otherwise
being sent to landfill, it may help alleviate water/land stress and
the demands on the mining industry.
Material production often requires toxic chemicals that can
cause environmental damage. For example, toxic red sludge is
produced in the Bayer process (for refining aluminum ore), and
sodium cyanide is used in gold extraction. In 2010, an accident
at Hungary’s Ajka alumina plant saw the release of red sludge
onto adjacent agricultural land and into waterways, causing ten
deaths and extensive loss of marine life (BBC 2010). Reusing
existing materials may allow society and/or industry to bypass
such hazardous processes.
Scope of This Review
This article presents an overarching review of the environ-
mental impacts of reuse in each stage of a product’s life cycle
and its effects on the wider economy. In sections Returning a
Product . . . and Operating a Reused Product, the literature on
the energy required to restore a product at end of life (EOL)
to a usable condition (equivalent to “[re]manufacture” in con-
ventional life cycle assessments [LCAs]) and then operate a
reused product (use phase) is reviewed. In the section Reuse
and the Production of New Goods, this article reviews the eco-
nomic and material-flow literature on reuse, challenging the
belief that reusing an item displaces new products made from
virgin materials.
This review will assist businesses in understanding the en-
vironmental impacts of their actions, policy makers in making
informed decisions, and academics in researching numerous
gaps in current knowledge, which are highlighted throughout
this article. There are many metrics by which to measure en-
vironmental impacts. This article focuses on energy demand,
the scale of which is a good indicator of other environmental
impacts, such as CO2emissions (Ashby 2012). Some of the
research reviewed is on existing reuse activities, and some is
on prospective reuse activities; we make this distinction clear
throughout the article. Many articles recommend design guide-
lines to make reuse easier in the future. The potential impacts
of following these guidelines are also reviewed throughout.
Reuse Activities
In order to evaluate the environmental impacts of reuse, it
is necessary to understand the different types of reuse that can
occur.
Types of Reuse
Product reuse is already prominent in many economic
sectors. For example, in the United States, 2.5 times as many
electric motors are repaired as sold new, driven largely by
reuse of large industrial motors (Nadal et al. 2002). Elsewhere,
almost 5 times as many houses and 2.5 times as many cars are
sold used as new (U.S. Census Bureau 2010) and, in Germany,
ferrous food containers and plastic drink bottles are reused an
average of at least 25 times (Tsiliyannis 2005). In contrast,
component reuse, though widespread, is typically limited to
small-scale activities. For example, according to Kay and Essex
(2009), salvaged steel supplied only 1.5% of UK construction
steel in 2007. The only prominent industry-wide examples of
component reuse identified in the literature are the rerolling
of steel plate dismantled from decommissioned ships in Asia
(Tilwankar et al. 2008; Asolekar 2006), where the majority of
discarded ships are broken, the retreading of truck tires, which
in the late 1990s supplied 85% of the replacement market
(Ferrer 1997b), and the reuse of small car parts, such as starters
and alternators (Steinhilper et al. 2001; Steinhilper 2011).
2Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Several researchers have proposed a framework for assessing
the different physical methods of reuse. Allwood and colleagues
(2010b) distinguish between longer-life products, product re-
manufacturing, and component reuse, suggesting a classification
of the latter based on the structural changes undergone during
reuse. In construction, Addis (2006) distinguishes between in
situ building adaptation and reuse of reclaimed components,
such as beams and hot water radiators, whereas Gorgolewski
(2008) notes that sometimes whole buildings (particularly in-
dustrial buildings and warehouses) are relocated. In an analysis
of metal component reuse, Cooper and Allwood (2012) differ-
entiate between extensive and superficial reconditioning, and
whether the component is reused in the same or different type
of product. They cite several articles that describe the “cascad-
ing” of components to lower-value applications. For example,
uncertainty about the origin of structural steel means it is not
typically reused in another building, but as temporary shoring
during construction (Gorgolewski et al. 2006). Cooper and All-
wood (2012) also describe reuse in which a component’s geom-
etry is changed (e.g., the rerolling of ship plate) as “reforming”.
Allwood and colleagues (2010a) organize examples of reuse they
have identified in the UK in a chart along two axes, one depict-
ing the size of the reused item and another split into different
types of reuse. In this article, we have extended this framework
into table 1, including more reuse classifications and populated
with examples of reuse we have identified in the literature.
As can be seen in table 1, few examples were found of small,
consumer products being reused unless they could be directly re-
located; for example, around 30% of the UK’s discarded clothing
is “relocated” through charity shops and sold on the interna-
tional market (Well Dressed 2006). Similarly, the majority of
reused cell phones are sold in the emerging markets of Africa
and South America (Skerlos et al. 2003), and nearly 900,000
deregistered cars were exported out of the European Union
(EU) in 2008, mainly to Africa (EP 2010). When significant
refurbishment work is required, table 1 suggests that smaller
products are generally not reused. For instance, in the UK it is
cheaper to buy a new pair of trousers than repair a hole in the
pocket (Well Dressed 2006). Because larger items tend to be
owned by businesses, table 1 implies that items owned by busi-
nesses are more likely to be refurbished than products owned by
individual consumers. Larger components can be cascaded to a
different use (e.g., steel pipes can be reused as building piles) and
reformed into a different geometry (e.g., ship plate rerolled into
reinforcing bars). However, when whole products are reused,
they tend not to be cascaded in function; rather, they are often
sold to a less affluent customer (e.g., secondhand cars).
Of all the activities presented in table 1, remanufacturing has
spawned the most literature. Lund (1984, 19) defines it as an
industrial process where “worn-out products are restored to like-
new condition” by deconstructing the product/subassembly,
cleaning and refurbishing usable components, and reassem-
bling with any new parts, if required. These labor-intensive
processes mean that remanufacturing is typically restricted to
the refurbishment of high-value subassemblies, such as cellu-
lar phones (Skerlos et al. 2003), photocopier modules (Kerr
and Ryan 2001; King et al. 2006), industrial equipment com-
ponents (Parker and Butler 2007; Butler 2009), some domestic
appliances (Sundin and Bras 2005), and numerous car parts
(Steinhilper et al. [2001] provides a list), including tires (Ferrer
1997b) and engines (Sutherland et al. 2008; Adler et al. 2007;
Smith and Keoleian 2004). Lund and Hauser (2010) find that
remanufactured products are typically priced between 45% and
65% of new product costs. No examples have been found of
remanufactured subassemblies (engines, and so on) being used
in the manufacture of a new product. Rather than being sold as
new items, it appears that most existing remanufacturers pro-
vide one or more of three services: (1) supplying spare parts for
existing products (Allwood et al. 2010b); (2) repairing prod-
ucts that have failed during manufacture or within warranty
(Steinhilper 2011; Sundin and Bras 2005); and (3) repairing or
upgrading expensive subassemblies within a valuable machine
that might otherwise require complete replacement (e.g., repair
of large truck and locomotive engines).
The Potential to Reuse Goods
A few researchers present benchmarks or systematic meth-
ods for evaluating maximum reuse rates. For products, Cooper
and colleagues (2014) evaluate the current average life span of
steel products (35 years) and present a framework in which to
address product failure. Allwood and colleagues (2012) evaluate
potential increases to the life span of steel and aluminum goods
across construction, transport, industrial equipment, and metal
products, finding that they can often be doubled. Umeda and
colleagues (2006) and ¨
Ostlin and colleagues (2009) present
a framework that can be used to assess the maximum reuse
rate for products based on the falling demand for older, obso-
lete products. For component reuse, Sherwood and colleagues
(2000) analyze the waste streams of remanufacturing compa-
nies and report that most discarded parts are worn and unus-
able, suggesting that remanufacturing is efficient. This analysis,
however, focuses only on existing remanufacturers. Cooper and
Allwood (2012) present a global analysis on the potential to
reuse steel and aluminum components, calculating that around
30% of current production of both metals could technically be
reused with immediate and significant opportunity in the re-
location of steel building components, particularly hot rolled
structural steel beams.
For reuse to occur, there needs to be both a supply of used
items and a demand for these goods. Both depend on busi-
ness factors (e.g., access to used goods and labor prices) and
physical factors (e.g., the physical condition of goods at EOL).
Table 2 distills the lessons learned from the literature. Some
of the physical factors can be designed for, such as durabil-
ity and standardization. Implementing these strategies might be
encouraged by a shift from consumer product ownership to leas-
ing, incentivizing the owner (manufacturer) to refurbish their
product. This may be done voluntarily or mandated as part of
an extended producer responsibility policy, such as the German
Einwegpfand on single-use glass bottles. This has been reported
by many researchers, such as Ayres and colleagues (1997) and
Nasr and Thurston (2006, 17), the latter arguing that “a prod-
uct delivery model in which the product manufacturer has a
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 3

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 1 Types of reuse
Reused
for…
Reuse activity (applied
to products or components)
Construction –
buildings and
infrastructure
Industrial
equipment
Transport Appliances Paper and
packaging
Textiles
…the
same
purpose:
prod.s &
compon.ts
…a
…
…a
different
purpose:
individual
compon.ts
Relocation Portal frame buildings,
steel beams, purlins, or
piles1
Large equipment such as
rolling mills1
Used car sales for
export2,
Reuse of alloy wheels3
Consumer
electronics resold
on eBay4
Shipping
containers1
Clothing re-
sold through
charity
shops5
Remanufacturing
Re-fill skn
at
s
a
gd
iuqi
L6se
g
di
rt
ra
c
r
e
n
o
T7
Domestic propane
tanks25, 26
Reusable
drink
containers8
Refillable
containers6
Module reuse/
replacement with
or without upgrade
BP’s North West Hutton
oil rig: living quarters
were reused onland1
Pre-cast concrete slabs
reused in other
buildings17.
Industrial food processing
equipment9
Air-conditioning units10
Re-grinding machine tools10
Industrial electrical
equipment, farm equipment,
turbines16
Swedish capped rail
system, ReRail11
Engine remanufacture
– recovery (welding) of
worn cylinder heads12, 13
Photocopier
modules14
Cell phones15
Remanufacture of
refrigerator
compressors16
Remediation of
component
properties
Aircraft parts, railroad
equipment16
Retreading tires18
Lawn mowers16,
white goods19
Toner removal
from paperA
Adaptive reuse Buildings renovated or
extended for a different
purpose1
Reused building
foundations20
Gas pipe welded to form the
supporting truss of the
London 2012 Olympic
stadium1
Discarded tires reused
as footwear21
Repurposing of
smartphonesF
Cascade Reuse of structural steel
as shoring in
construction1 and of
concrete for sea wave
protection (Rip-Rap)22
Reuse of steel pipes as
building piles17
Worn mainline rails are
reused on branch-lines1
PC chips reused in
toys23
Reform Ship plate re-rolled into
rebar24
Large diameter steel pipe re-
rolled into sheetB, solid
bonding of metal machining
chips by extrusionC
Re-forming of car
panelsD, E
Re-forming of
appliance
panelsD, E
Typical materials: ,m
u
n
i
mu
la
,
le
e
t
S
s
l
a
t
e
M
tn
emec
,
m
u
n
i
mula
,
l
e
e
tS
plastic
Steel, aluminum,
plastic
Paper, steel,
alum., plastic
Fabrics
Current reuse: 1. Allwood et al. (2010a) 2. EP (2010) 3. Cooper and Allwood (2012) 4. Clausen et al. (2010) 5. Well Dressed (20 06) 6. Kelle and Silver (1989) 7. Ostlin and Ekholm (2007) 8.
Mata and Costa (2001) 9. Butler (2009) 10. Parker and Butler (2007) 11. Rerail (2010) 12. Adler et al. (2007) 13. Venta et al. (1978) 14. Kerr and Ryan (2001) 15. Skerlos et al. (2003) 16.
Bollinger et al. (1981) 17. Addis (2006) 18. Ferrer (1997b) 19. Sundin and Bras (2005) 20. Cooper et al. (2014) 21. BBC (2014) 22. FHWA (1989) 23. Geyer et al. (2007) 24. Tilwankar et al.
(2008) 25. Ferrellgas (2015) 26. Oliver-Solà et al. (2009) Prospective reuse: A. Leal et al. (2012) B. Cooper and Allwood (2012) C. Tekkaya et al. (2009) D. Takano et al. (2008) E. Tekkaya et
al. (nd) F. Zink et al. (2014)
Business purchases,
large ite ms Consumer pu rchases,
small ite ms
products &
components
individual
components
4Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 2 Enablers and barrier s to reuse
Enablers Barriers
Physical factors Physical durability1
Standardized components1
Mature technology and design1,2,3
Modularity allowing upgrade and
repair1,4
Reversible joints allowing easy
disassembly1
Degradation (wear, corrosion, fatigue, fracture, etc.)1,5
The technology is obsolete by end of life (e.g., computers and cell
phones)1,6
Old components incompatible with new designs (bespoke products)1
Components that are irretrievable (e.g., steel rebar in building
foundations)1,7
Business factors Cheap labor2
Lower capital costs than new
production2
Low scrap prices2,8
Knowledge of technical properties at
end of life1
Ability to protect a brand name and
intellectual property 4
Vertically integrated companies4*
Legislation (banning old products and health and safety concerns
favoring demolition over deconstruction)1
Cheap imports and expensive labor2
Customers likely prefer new product when remanufactured product price
exceeds 70% of a new product9
Dispersed (poor infrastructure) reverse supply chain10*
Obsolescence (aesthetics and fashion)1
In construction, time pressure from land owners can favor demolition
over slow deconstruction4
Tax policies that favor demolition and rebuild over refurbishment11
Planned obsolescence See below
*Srivastava (2007) provides a review of “green supply-chain management” including the issue of reverse logistics for reuse/remanufacturing.
1: Cooper and Allwood (2012); 2: Bollinger and colleagues (1981); 3: Stahel (1982); 4: Allwood and colleagues (2010b); 5: Ferrer (1997b); 6: Ferrer
(1997a); 7: Geyer and Jackson (2004); 8: Allwood and colleagues (2010a); 9: Ortegon and colleagues (2014); 10: Ferrer and Ayres (2000); 11: Power
(2008).
leading role in the entire product life cycle . . . promotes a
greater interest in more efficient material use and reuse.” Parker
and Butler (2007) describe business-to-business examples of this
model, including Rolls Royce’s “power by the hour” jet engines.
However, Intlekofer and colleagues (2010) analyze the effect
of product leasing on household appliance and computer sales,
finding that it can actually reduce product life spans because
consumers expect relatively new equipment.
The idea that producers might deliberately curtail the life of
products in order to increase new product sales was popularized
in Packard’s critique of consumerist culture, The Waste Makers
(Packard 1960). As outlined by Guiltinan (2009), this “planned
obsolescence” can take various forms, including limiting func-
tional life, designing for limited repair, choosing aesthetics that
age, and designing for functional enhancement making existing
products appear inferior. Such behavior is expected to be more
prevalent in less competitive markets (Waldman 2003), more
saturated markets (Guiltinan 2009), and in more technologi-
cally dynamic industries (Bayus 1998). These actions inhibit the
use of long-life products, but also result in a lot of EOL units that
could represent a resource for those pursuing component reuse.
Returning a Product at End of Life
to a Usable State or Location
The environmental impact of reusing an item depends on
the actions taken at product EOL. In order to determine the
environmental merit of reuse, these actions are best understood
relative to an alternative nonreuse scenario. The impacts are
therefore the net effect of “additional processes” required to
reuse the item, and “avoided processes” that would have been
required to make the product from new materials and to deal
with the old product waste.
If a product is not reused, then three options exist at EOL:
landfill, incineration, and recycling. In the United States in
2012, 54% of municipal waste was discarded in landfills, 12%
was incinerated with energy recovery, and the remaining 35%
was recycled, of which one quarter was composted (US EPA
2012).
Landfills are not only causing space concerns in densely
populated nations (prompting landfill taxes in Europe), but also
contaminating surrounding water courses with toxic chemicals
(e.g., lead and mercury) from discarded products such as
computers (Christenson and Cozzarelli 2003). Incineration
of waste (e.g., old car tires) can be used as an effective heat
source (e.g., in the cement industry) and reduces the depletion
of primary energy sources. However, burning the waste is often
inefficient, with moisture needing to be removed and com-
bustion incomplete (Ashby 2012). Burning also causes CO2
emissions and potentially toxic fumes and residues. Options
for disposing of the resulting ash include landfilling and use
in bricks and aggregates (Mendes et al. 2004). Many materials
are regularly recycled, but this is often an energy-intensive
process. Further, recycling (and landfill) of many products used
in the developed world takes place in the developing world.
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 5

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
These nations are often ill-equipped to handle toxic materials
(Skerlos et al. 2003). Premalatha and colleagues (2014, 1601)
report “gross pollution of air, soil and waterways” in many
places in the developing world where recycling of electronic
waste is occurring. They report manual dismantling of cathode
ray tubes, cyanide salt leaching of circuit boards to recover
gold, and open burning of cables to recover copper and of
circuit boards to separate components and recover solder.
Relocation or Direct Resale
For items that can be directly reused, the energy demands are
likely to be negligible if resold locally or approximately equal
to the transport impacts if relocated. Most studies typically ig-
nore transport impacts or assume them to be comparable to
the nonreuse scenario. Researchers do, however, often include
transport when considering the reuse of small, reinforced prod-
ucts (such as reusable packaging) that must be collected from
dispersed locations. This results in the inefficient use of heavy
goods vehicles. Reusable packaging (e.g., glass bottles) has been
studied by many researchers (Hannon 1973; Van Doorsse-
laer and Lox 1999; Mata and Costa 2001; Levi et al. 2011;
among others). Hannon (1973) studies reusable and disposable
soft drink, beer, and milk containers, where the distance be-
tween the end user and distribution/refilling center is 230 miles
(370 kilometers [km]). He finds that reusable bottles require
only one third of the energy of their throwaway counterparts.
Levi and colleagues (2011) consider varying transport distances
in their LCA of disposable and reusable grocery packaging, find-
ing that a “crossover distance” exists: When the distance be-
tween the end users and the distribution center is shorter than
this, the benefits of avoiding new production make reuse benefi-
cial. When the distance is longer, then the emissions from inef-
ficiently transporting reusable packaging dominate. The calcu-
lated crossover distance was 1,200 km, suggesting that reusable
packaging is advantageous for all but sparsely populated areas.
Larger components usually represent greater residual value
than smaller ones because they can be cascaded to a less de-
manding function or oversized in the new application. For ex-
ample, in the absence of a material specification, steel beams are
reused under the conservative assumption that they were made
from the lowest structural steel grade (Lazarus 2003). This can,
however, lead to larger foundations and supporting structures
being required to support oversized beams. Astle (2008) pos-
tulates that oversizing reused beams by as little as one third
leads to greater energy requirements and carbon emissions than
recycling the beams. This is because the shortfall in scrap re-
turning to the steel supply chain has to be supplied using new
steel (primary) production, which is 3 times more energy and
carbon intensive than recycling. In order to prevent oversizing
and encourage reuse, the actual specification of the steel can
be determined using mechanical tests on “coupons” of mate-
rial (Gorgolewski et al. 2006), though this may be currently
prohibitively expensive. Gorgolewski and colleagues (2006)
recommend stamping structural steel with a permanent bar-
code representing the grade. More generally, Gray and Charter
(2007) recommend labeling components in a product with a ra-
diofrequency identification, a concept explored further by Saar
and Thomas (2003). A critical future development is to either
retain a product’s/component’s original specifications or to de-
velop cheap testing methods that determine the specifications
before reuse.
Remanufacturing
The best indication of average remanufacturing energy
requirements comes from Bollinger and colleagues (1981).
They collate data from surveys sent to 258 North American
remanufacturing companies. Respondents revealed the direct
energy (fuels and electricity) needed to remanufacture their
products and the mass of new components bought to replace
worn parts. The surveys are from over 30 years ago, but remain
the most comprehensive analysis of the industry to date.
Bollinger’s broad findings, discussed below, are consistent with
more recent analyses on the remanufacture of specific products,
such as diesel engines (Adler et al. 2007) and electric motors
(Gutowski et al. 2011).
The data presented by Bollinger and colleagues suggest av-
erage energy savings of approximately 80% compared to new
production. However, the savings appear to be very sensitive to
the product being remanufactured. For example, Kerr and Ryan
(2001) found savings between 27% and 68% for photocopier re-
manufacture. Figure 1 summarizes the calculated energy savings
presented in the literature.
As an illustration of a remanufacturing process, Boustani
and colleagues (2010b) describe the physical processes needed
to retread a car tire: (1) buffing of the old tires (shaving off
the remaining tread); (2) adding the new tread; (3) the applied
tread and the casing are wrapped around a rubber envelope and
a vacuum is generated; and (4) the new tire is cured at ap-
proximately 300°F. Remanufacturing requires some energy and
materials, but saves more from avoiding new product manufac-
ture. In the case of retreaded tires, Ferrer (1997b) reports that
it takes, on average, 26l of oil to produce a new passenger car
tire, but only 9l to remanufacture one.
Most of the energy required to remanufacture a product is
embodied in replacement parts. Bollinger and colleagues’ survey
suggests that, on average, around 20% of all parts received by the
remanufacturer are discarded, with reused material accounting
for 85% of the final product mass. Consistently, Boustani and
colleagues (2010b) report that 10% to 20% of a retreaded tire
is new material, and Adler and colleagues (2007) find that 70%
of the energy required to remanufacture engine cylinder heads
is embodied in new parts. Material savings can be increased if
the original product is more modular so that only the “failed”
material needs to be replaced. For example, Kerr and Ryan
(2001) found that energy savings on a Xerox remanufacturing
line more than doubled as a result of design changes that made
the original product more modular.
Component failures often occur on the surface (wear,
corrosion, and so on). Remanufacturers may choose to: (1)
replace the component; (2) remove the damaged surface (e.g.,
6Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Figure 1 Energy savings in remanufacturing. Accounting for direct energy (fuels) and embodied energy (material production), excluding
the use phase. The error bars indicate a range of presented values. *Oil savings (oil used as a fuel and constituent of rubber); ** carbon
emission reduction. 1: Bollinger and colleagues (1981); 2: Sutherland and colleagues (2008); 3: Adler and colleagues (2007); 4: Smith and
Keoleian (2004); 5: Venta and Wolsky (1978); 6: Kerr and Ryan (2001) 7: Ferrer (1997b); 8: Gutowski and colleagues (2011); 9: Leal-Ayala
(2012); 10: Skerlos and colleagues (2003).
reboring engine cylinders and using a larger piston); (3) replace
the surface with a sacrificial component (e.g., sacrificial engine
cylinder liners; Krill and Thurston [2005]); or (4) repair the
surface using additive “surface engineering” techniques (Xu
2004). Energy-intensive material deposition processes exist for
metals (e.g., thermal spraying for thick coatings and chemical
and physical vapor deposition for thinner coatings) that may be
used to repair damaged surfaces. There is evidence that these
are being used to remanufacture some products. For example,
the Center for Remanufacturing in Rochester, New York
remanufactures expensive marine shafts where the corrosion-
protective coating has failed: The original coating is first
removed using a lathe, an abcite coating is then applied using
thermal spraying techniques, and the shaft is machined to the
desired diameter and surface finish (RIT 2013). Gutowski and
colleagues (2001) state that similar processes are used to reman-
ufacture some engine components and there is evidence that
they could be used to remanufacture worn ball bearings (Kelsey
et al. 2014), among other metal components (Yao et al. 2012).
Surface remediation of used paper (removing the toner from the
used sheets) has also been shown by Leal-Ayala and colleagues
(2012) to be almost commercially viable. The technology uses
a short pulse laser to ablate the toner and Leal-Ayala (2012)
calculates emissions reductions of 50% to 80% over recycling.
Energy requirements can be very low when no new compo-
nents are needed. For example, during phone remanufacture,
energy is only required for sorting (driving a conveyor belt),
battery testing/reconditioning, and software updating (standard
personal computer [PC] usage). These requirements amount to
less than 1% of the total energy in material production and man-
ufacturing of a new phone (Skerlos et al. 2003). On average, the
direct energy (fuels and electricity) used by remanufacturers is
4% to 5% of the energy required in new production (Bollinger
et al. 1981), and is mainly used to clean components, often by ul-
trasonic cleaning or immersing in heated (salt) baths. This may
be because most products and components that are currently
reused are in a relatively good condition, and require little re-
furbishment; several researchers have recognized that variation
in the energy needed to remanufacture a part is dependent on
the degradation of the component at EOL. Fatigued or worn
components (such as some cylinder heads) may be refurbished
by welding and grinding operations, but require greater energy
inputs than those subjected to less-severe conditions, such as
pistons and connecting rods (Sutherland et al. 2008).
Adler and colleagues (2007) were the only researchers listed
in figure 1 able to report energy requirements directly from fa-
cility and process energy measurements. They compared the
original manufacture and remanufacture of Caterpillar engine
components, recording that the remanufacturing process en-
ergy requirements were 41% to 55% of original manufacturing.
In the case of 100% reusable material, the energy requirements
dropped to 5% to 25% of original manufacturing. Other re-
searchers have had to infer energy requirements from knowledge
of the remanufacturing process. Such inferences are common in
LCAs and have been used, for example, by Venta and Wolsky
(1978) to calculate energy savings for gasoline engine reman-
ufacture based on economic input-output data. In Gutowski
and colleagues’ (2011) analysis of motor rewinding, they only
include the energy required to produce the copper and paint
for the new windings and outer case, respectively, ignoring the
energy needed to “burn-out” the old coils, testing, and var-
nishing, owing to lack of available data. If the direct energy
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 7

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Figure 2 Life cycle contributions for different products (data from Ashby [2012]).
of remanufacturing remains low (4% to 5% of new production
as found by Bollinger and colleagues), then such inferences
are acceptable; however, if greater reuse leads to the use of
more energy-intensive additive and subtractive processes (as
discussed above), then there will be a need for more rigorous
studies that measure the energy required to perform remanufac-
turing operations.
Adapting, Cascading, and Reforming
Environmentally motivated research on adapting products
is dominated by case studies on modifying building struc-
tures. Gorgolewski and colleagues (2006) present several case
studies in which a building’s steel frame has been either re-
tained or extended including, for example, the addition and
removal of floors and frame reinforcement. Milford (2010) col-
lates data on Gorgolewski and colleagues’ case studies, calculat-
ing the emissions avoided by adapting, rather than rebuilding,
these structures. For example, Milford considers Parkwood in
Oshawa, which required the adaptation of an old office complex
into a new residential complex. Ninety percent of the original
steel frame was retained, reusing 350 tonnes (t) of steel and
saving 269 t of CO2-eq (CO2equivalents). Elsewhere, Zink
and colleagues (2014) consider “repurposing” a smart phone for
use as an in-car parking meter, finding it would save between
23% and 55% of the CO2emissions associated with primary
production of a new parking meter.
No literature has been found on the environmental impact of
cascading components through different applications. The im-
mediate impacts are, however, likely to be those associated with
transport (e.g., transporting worn mainline rails to branch line
routes). The transport impacts are likely to be small compared
to the impacts of new production, but there is a danger that, as
described in the section Relocation or Direct Resale, significant
oversizing in the new application could lead to increased pri-
mary production of the material or displacement of lower impact
materials, such as timber in the case of steel reuse. The most
prominent example of reforming found in the literature was In-
dian rerolling of ship plate into rebar. Tilwankar and colleagues
(2008) calculate that this process (ship breaking, transportation
to mills, and then rerolling) saves 60% of the energy and CO2
emissions needed to make rebar using virgin steel.
Operating a Reused Product
The environmental impact of reusing a product or compo-
nent depends not only on the processes used to return a good
to a useful state or location, but also the impacts of using the
item for a second time. The contribution of many products’ use
phase to its life cycle impacts has already been quantified in the
LCA literature (see figure 2). For “unpowered” products (such
as the carpet or parking lot), the life cycle will be dominated
by embodied impacts and then the use-phase efficiency of the
reused product is not such a concern; we can safely assume that
reusing such an item has a lower impact than discarding it to
landfill and producing a new product. In contrast, for many
“powered” products, such as white goods, the use-phase energy
requirements dwarf those in initial production, the benefits of
reusing these products being largely determined by any discrep-
ancy between the use-phase efficiencies of the reused product
8Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
E0
Enew
Ereuse
Unew
Ureuse
Egain
T1 T2
Time
Env.
impacts
Uoriginal
Reuse vs non-reuse scenario
Figure 3 Environmental impact of product replacement versus reuse.
and a new equivalent (see figure 3). The same applies to the
reuse of some critical components within a powered product.
For example, the rolling resistance of a retreaded tire has a di-
rect effect on the fuel efficiency of the vehicle (a case examined
by Gutowski et al. [2011]).
In the literature, the efficiency of a reused or new (equiva-
lent) product is often described with reference to the original
(reused) product efficiency when it was first sold. The efficiency
of the reused or new, equivalent product could be better than,
equal to, or worse than this original efficiency, as summarized
in table 3.
Efficiency of Reused Products
Very little data have been collected on the efficiency of
reused products. Nadal and colleagues’ handbook on energy-
efficient motor systems contains a rare example of collated mea-
sured data on the efficiency of remanufactured products (Nadal
et al. 2002). For products that are simply relocated without
extensive repair (such as a secondhand fridge purchased on
eBay), then the efficiency will be equal to that at the end of
the product’s first life span. Regular maintenance may enable
original efficiencies to be maintained (Ortegon et al. 2014);
otherwise, efficiencies can decrease. For example, Kim and col-
leagues (2003, 2006) point out that for a refrigerator, degassing
of insulation foam, dirty coils, and worn-out gaskets can cause
energy requirements to increase by 60% over the life span of the
fridge. Remanufacturers typically distance themselves from such
simple reuse and define their practices as returning a product to
a “like-new” condition, with a warranty to match (Ijomah et al.
2007). This definition has been accepted by British Standards
(BS 2010). There is also evidence that some remanufactur-
ers upgrade their products to higher efficiency standards than
when the products were first made. Bollinger and colleagues
find that the majority of firms perform some sort of techno-
logical updating (Bollinger et al. 1981). More recently, several
researchers echo Parker and Butler’s (2007, 3) sentiment that
remanufacturers upgrade “products from old to current [energy
efficiency] standards,” such as Blazek and colleagues (1998)
and Linton and Johnston (2000) with respect to telecommuni-
cations equipment, Atasu and colleagues (2010) with respect
to photocopiers, and Galbreth and colleagues (2013) for fast-
moving consumer goods.
Several practical case studies have been reported in the lit-
erature, including studies on retrofitting buildings (Brown et al.
2014; Harvey 2013), repairing and upgrading various steel prod-
ucts (Cooper et al. 2014), and the remanufacture of electric mo-
tors (Nadal et al. 2002; Easa 2003), print cartridges (Hewlett
Packard 2008), tires (Boustani et al. 2010b), and wind turbines
(Ortegon et al. 2014). Their findings can be summarized as:
rEfficiency drops during remanufacturing: In theory, many
products can be restored to their original efficiency. To
do so, remanufacturers must typically ensure that they:
(1) avoid practices that degrade efficiency and (2) con-
duct appropriate testing before and after remanufactur-
ing to ensure quality. For example, when rewinding an
electric motor, baking the stator loosens the old wind-
ings. High temperatures will speed up the process, but
can damage the magnetic properties of the core and dis-
tort the motor. Nadal and colleagues (2002) and Easa
(2003) both review multiple studies that have measured
the efficiency of rewound motors (for motors less than
150 horsepower) finding an average decrease in full load
efficiency of 1% compared to original specifications. Else-
where, Hewlett Packard (2008) report that a new printer
cartridge has a 1% misprint rate, whereas a remanufac-
tured cartridge has a 12% misprint rate. A Michelin tire
report also suggests that retreaded tires have a 7% to 9%
higher rolling resistance than new equivalents (Boustani
et al. 2010b). It should be noted that these last two reports
were produced by original equipment manufacturers that
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 9

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 3 Use-phase efficiency of reused products
...lowerthantheoriginalefficiencyof
the reused product
...thesameastheoriginal
efficiency of the reused product
...higherthantheoriginal
efficiency of the reused product
Efficiency of the
reused product
is . . .
Item deteriorated during first life span,
potentially owing to wear and tear
(e.g., unrestored refrigerator1)
Item did not deteriorate during
first use (e.g., steel beams2)or
was restored during reuse (e.g.,
some remanufactured
products3)
The item has been upgraded
during reuse (e.g., retro-fitted
building4or upgraded
photocopiers5and engines6)
Efficiency of the
new equivalent
product is . . .
Lower (relative) energy prices may
decrease the economic incentive for
efficiency (e.g., cars and trucks were
less efficient in early 2000s than late
1980s7)*
New products may be powered whereas
the original was not (e.g., new snow
blowers vs. old snow shovels8)
There has not been a significant
change in technology or the
use-phase impacts are small
enough to be ignored (e.g.,
steel beams2)
New, more efficient technology
and/or efficiency standards
(e.g., refrigerators owing to
energy standards9)
*Component level savings that do occur (e.g., improved engines and motors) may be eradicated by increasing the product service (e.g., bigger vehiclesor
white goods).
1: Kim and colleagues (2003, 2006); 2: Cooper (2013); 3: Parker and Butler (2007); 4: Harvey (2013); 5: Atasu and Wassenhove (2010); 6: Claimed by
DEI (2013); 7: US EPA (2008); 8: Gutowski and colleagues (2011); 9: Meyers and colleagues (2003).
may compete with remanufacturers. No detailed studies
have been found on the fuel efficiency of remanufactured
engines or other car parts. Research on this topic would
be a valuable addition to the literature given the size of
the market for remanufactured car parts.
rEfficiency upgrades: For some products, the component
that determines the efficiency of the product may be re-
placed and upgraded independently of the rest of the
product. The replaced component or subassembly may be
nonphysical. For example, Cooper and colleagues (2014)
present evidence of steel rolling mills that are renovated
(either in situ or as part of a relocation) by upgrading
the control system. On the other hand, the components
can be physical. For example, by retrofitting ventilation
systems and replacing windows, buildings are now rou-
tinely upgraded to higher use-phase efficiencies. Harvey
(2013) has collated data on building energy requirements
pre- and postretrofit, finding that retrofits often improve
energy efficiency by at least a factor of three. Pandey and
Thurston (2009) introduced the concept of an effective age
for remanufactured products (emphasizing the age of the
critical subsystems rather than the product as a whole).
The effective age is an intuitive means of conveying the
technology present in a remanufactured product (Orte-
gon et al. [2014] use it when considering the technology
present in a remanufactured wind turbine), but determin-
ing the criticality of each subsystem may be subjective.
rImpact on reuse’s environmental merit: Most studies do not
consider reusing a product with a lower use-phase effi-
ciency than its original specification. In this respect, they
are favorable to reuse. On the other hand, most quan-
titative analyses also ignore the possibility of upgrading
reused products to current efficiency standards. This is,
at times, sensible because, as noted by Gutowski and
colleagues (2011, 4546), efficiency improvements are
sometimes not “incremental but radical, with major trans-
formations in the product architecture.” The main excep-
tions to the above assumptions are studies on the bene-
fits of building renovation versus replacement. For exam-
ple, Brown and colleagues (2014) calculate that, because
of improved use-phase efficiency, the emissions payback
time for retrofitting most buildings is only around 3 years.
Elsewhere, only Gutowski and colleagues (2011) con-
sider efficiency drops during remanufacture, calculating
that the efficiency drops in motor rewinding are likely to
make buying new, in terms of energy use, favorable. They
also calculate that a change of only 0.025 miles per gallon
during remanufacture of a diesel engine is likely to have
the same effect.
The efficiency of a repurposed product (adaptive reuse)
could be better than, equal to, or worse than the original effi-
ciency given that it depends on the new function and operating
conditions.
Efficiency of New Products
The efficiency of many “powered” products has improved in
recent years, driven by innovation and legislation on energy
efficiency. For example, Meyers and colleagues (2003) find that
U.S. regulations on domestic appliances (since the late 1980s)
resulted in annual energy savings of 0.75 exajoules by the year
2000. They project that in 2020 regulations will have reduced
residential CO2emissions by 8% to 9% compared to levels
expected without any standards. Table 4 shows the efficiency
improvements of some common products used in the literature.
Environmental studies on the use-phase impacts of product
reuse analyze the trade-off between saving the embodied energy
10 Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 4 Historic use-phase energy improvements used in the literature on reuse
Product Time period Efficiency improvement (%) Reference
Car Theoretical annual
improvement
+3.2 Skelton and Allwood (2013)
Refrigerator 1947–1974
1974–2008
–530
+76
Gutowski and colleagues (2011)
Dishwasher 1981–2008 +45 Boustani and colleagues (2010a)
Clothes washer 1981–2008 +70
Refrigerator 1981–2008 +62
Clothes washer 1981–2003 +88 AHAM (2005) cited in Bole
(2006)
Cell phone, LCD
monitor, CD player
Theoretical 1991–2001 Variable but nominal +20 Rose and Stevels (2001)
Note: LCD =liquid crystal display; CD =compact disc.
associated with new production and taking advantage of the
latest efficiency improvements. Figure 3 depicts this trade-off,
showing the total environmental impact of two scenarios, one
in which a product is replaced with a modern equivalent and
another where it is reused. Manufacturing new products requires
energy, represented in figure 3 as a step in the line graph (Enew).
Reusing a product (remanufacture, and so on) may also require
energy and is represented as a smaller step in the graph (Ereuse).
Once manufactured the new and reused products may operate at
different efficiencies, represented in figure 3 with different line
gradients after the replacement/reuse step (Unew and Ureuse).
The “Egain” presented in figure 3 is therefore a function of the
relative embodied and use-phase energy requirements and their
improvements over time.
Studies that examine this trade-off fall into two broad cate-
gories. (1) Studies that assume product life spans are fixed and
that the second life span of a reused product is equal to its
first (T1=T2in figure 3). This is a reasonable assumption for
remanufactured products at least, which are often sold with a
warranty equivalent to new products (Ijomah 2002; Parker and
Butler 2007). Studies in this category include Gutowski and
colleagues (2011) with respect to furniture and clothing reuse
as well as tire, prime mover (internal combustion engine and
electric motor), and domestic product remanufacture; Boustani
and colleagues (2010a) and Truttmann and Rechberger (2006)
for white goods, Sahni and colleagues (2010) for personal com-
puters, and Rose and Stevels (2001) for consumer electronics.
(2) Studies that calculate optimum product life spans in or-
der to minimize environmental impacts (Ereuse→0andT
1does
not have to be equal to T2in figure 3). Studies in this cate-
gory include Kiatkittipong and colleagues (2008) for electronic
goods, Bole (2006) for residential clothes washers, Kim and col-
leagues (2003) for cars, Kim and colleagues (2006) for fridges,
De Kleine and colleagues (2011) for air-conditioning (AC)
units, and Skelton and Allwood (2013) for cars, planes, of-
fice buildings, and washing machines. Summarizing the lessons
learned from these studies:
rShould products be reused? Products with a high use-phase
energy requirement and improving efficiencies over time
have low optimal life spans (from an environmental per-
spective) and should not be reused. This is because the
emissions associated with powered products, which re-
quire an energy source, are dominated by the energy re-
quirements in use (Gutowski et al. 2011). As a result,
improvements in use-phase energy mean that frequent
replacement with new products causes the lowest energy
requirements and emissions. Studies on optimal life spans
suggest that such products should often be replaced more
frequently than they already are. Skelton and Allwood
(2013) find that the optimum life spans for a car and an
airplane are only 10 and 12 years, respectively, whereas
average current life spans are 14 and 25 years, respec-
tively. De Kleine and colleagues (2011) find that AC
units should have been replaced up to 12 times since
1985. Kim and colleagues (2006) consider refrigerator
replacement between 1985 and 2020, calculating that
(depending on the model year) the optimum product life
span was as low as 2 years. Conversely, products with
low use-phase energy requirements and low use-phase ef-
ficiency improvements should be reused. Gutowski and
colleagues (2011) find that products such as clothing and
furniture should be reused. Consistently, studies on op-
timal life spans indicate that such products are currently
discarded too early. For example, total CO2emissions as-
sociated with a building structure is dominated by the
production phase; Skelton and Allwood (2013) find the
actual life span of a typical office building (60 years) is
less than half the optimal life span (135 years).
rCan new products be less efficient than old equivalents?
Most literature claims that new products are at least as ef-
ficient as older goods. This appears to be true for products
with high use-phase energy requirements that are now
(or have recently been) subject to environmental legis-
lation (e.g., refrigerators). This has not always been the
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 11

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Figure 4 Passenger vehicle efficiency standards, data from ICCT (2013).
case, however, with, for instance, both passenger cars and
trucks being less efficient in the early 2000s than the late
1980s (US EPA 2008), and refrigerators less efficient in
the 1970s than the 1940s (Gutowski et al. 2011). These
energy-intensive consumer products have been subject
to increasingly strict energy performance standards in re-
cent years; however, elsewhere in the home new prod-
ucts have been “powering up.” Gutowski and colleagues
(2011) note that leaf blowers, snow blowers, and power
tools have replaced rakes, snow shovels, and hammers.
As these powered tools develop in the future, new ver-
sions are likely to become more efficient, rendering reuse
of old powered models more energy intensive than buy-
ing new (unless upgrades can be incorporated as part of
reusing them). However, the initial switch to powering
previously manual items is a shift toward increasing use-
phase emissions for these products. These new tools may
reduce human toil, but from an environmental perspec-
tive, convincing consumers to reuse nonpowered items
could be doubly environmentally beneficial, saving on
both embodied and use-phase impacts.
Designing for Reuse
A product with an unchanging design, such as a steel beam,
is best suited for reuse. For powered products, with changing effi-
ciencies, the environmental merits of reuse are likely to change.
This was illustrated by Gutowski and colleagues (2011), who
performed retrospective LCAs on reusing versus buying new re-
frigerators, finding that reuse would have been environmentally
beneficial in the 1960s, but in no decade since. A prediction of
future new product efficiencies is needed in order for a designer
to understand the environmental merits of reusing his or her
product in the future. The designer can then perform a prod-
uct specific calculation on the trade-off presented in figure 3.
Predicting efficiency improvements can be aided when preemp-
tive legislation has already been enacted forcing manufacturers
along a roadmap toward lower use-phase efficiencies. This is
most likely in well-regulated industries. For example, figure 4
presents either enacted or proposed target efficiencies for pas-
senger cars and light commercial vehicles in several countries.
Similarly, Borg and Kelly (2011) collate data from the UK’s
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, calculat-
ing likely efficiency improvements by 2020 for several domestic
products (washing machines, electric ovens, and so on). If prod-
uct efficiencies are unlikely to change, then the designer may
choose to make his or her product more durable. If an upgrade
would be required to maintain a high efficiency, he or she may
be able to redesign the product to make it more modular. If he
or she is working in a fast moving industry (such as informa-
tion technology [IT]), where the product is likely to become
obsolete, then designing for effective component reuse or recy-
cling (e.g., designing for disassembly) may be the best choice.
Table 5 presents a suggested classification of these design op-
tions.
Design strategies that increase the reusability of a product or
component (greater durability, modularity, or standardization)
will often require the use of additional material and so increase
the initial impacts in production. This has been recognized by
Okumura and colleagues (2003) and examined by Skelton and
Allwood (2013). They model the life cycle emissions associated
with a product that takes account of embodied energy, use-phase
12 Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 5 Proposed framework for evaluating design for reuse
options
Lightweight design &
design for recycling
Minimize bending moments
Limited range of materials
and coatings used
Component reuse Easy to disassemble and
standardized components
and joints
Sub-assembly upgrade Modularity and easy
disassembly
Simple repair Durability and easy access
to worn components
Technological
change and
efficiency
improvements
(Obsolescence)
Recycling
Life
extension
efficiency, and life span. They find that “built-in redundancy”
that increases the product’s embodied emissions by 10% can
only be justified if it already fails before two thirds of its optimal
life. For example, Skelton and Allwood (2013) calculate that
additional embodied emissions may be justified to increase a
washing machine’s life span (actual life: 6 years; optimal life:
21 years) or office block (actual: 50 years; optimal: 135 years),
but not a car (actual: 13 years; optimal: 10 years) or an airplane
(actual: 25 years; optimal: 12 years). The environmental case
for increasing the overall reusability of a product is therefore
dependent on the rate of new product efficiency improvements,
which are often unknown.
Reuse and the Production of New Goods
The studies reviewed so far have focused on the energy
needed to reuse (and operate) an old product versus making
it from new (primary) materials. For any calculated savings to
translate directly into a global reduction in energy use requires
the sale of a reused product to displace the sale of a new product
made from primary material. The following subsections review
the literature examining these two requirements respectively.
Rebound Effects: Does Reusing Reduce Producing?
Very little research has been done attempting to deduce the
degree to which reusing a product displaces new production.
Evidence of the belief (or fear) that reuse does displace some
new product sales is the restrictions many nations place on the
import of used goods in order to protect native manufacturers.
Many nations have imposed bans, licensing requirements, or
high tariffs (Navaretti et al. 2000); for example, on clothing
imports in South Africa (Thomas 2003) and car imports in
Latin America (Pelletiere and Reinert 2002). At a company
level, Guide and Li (2010) present evidence that firms may
be apprehensive of reusing their own products for fear of dis-
placing new product sales, often termed “demand cannibaliza-
tion.” They cite a telecommunications company that scrapped
US$800 million worth of returned equipment based on the
fear that reusing it would displace their new product range.
The above evidence from governments and original equipment
manufacturers, however, does not confirm that reused goods
displace new sales on a one-to-one basis nor does it reveal the
potentially complex dynamics between the sales of new and
reused products.
The academic literature on new product displacement con-
sists of behavioral tests and surveys on consumer willingness to
purchase new and reused products (Ovchinnikov et al. 2014;
Ovchinnikov 2011; Guide and Li 2010; Farrant et al. 2010) and
analytical studies that attempt to maximize utility functions
based on rational consumer practices (Thomas 2003; Yokoo
2009; Thomas 2010; Scitovsky 1994; Fox 1957). The behav-
ioral studies conclude that reuse can displace new product sales,
but that it is not on a one-to-one basis. For example, Farrant
and colleagues (2010) use surveys to assess the extent to which
shoppers in secondhand clothing stores are only purchasing ad-
ditional items that they would not consider buying at a new
product price. They find that for every 100 garments that are
reused, one could expect to see a decrease in new clothing sales
of between 60 and 85 garments. Ovchinnikov and colleagues
(2014) use results from a survey judging respondents’ willing-
ness to pay for a new and refurbished cell phone to conclude that
nearly three quarters of the sales could come from new equiva-
lents, but that this would drop if the phone company used the
profits from reused sales to lower the price of new equivalents.
Guide and Li (2010) use data on eBay bidding of new and reused
products to infer the additional market (first-time buyers) cre-
ated by a lower reuse price. They are only able to compare two
products, making their results at best indicative, but they find
that few people bid on both types of products, suggesting little
new product displacement.
Studies that use economic utility models to predict the dis-
placement of new products have often found that the sale of
reused products could be subject to a rebound effect. Rebound
effects (reviewed by economist Saunders [1992] and industrial
ecologist Hertwich [2005]) are where improvements in eco-
nomic efficiency (providing a cheaper good or service) lead to
either a direct rebound, increasing the demand for that good
or service, or an indirect rebound, where the money saved is
spent elsewhere in the economy (the Khazzoom–Brookes pos-
tulate), stimulating economic growth and resource use. With
respect to reuse, several researchers have postulated that it al-
lows first-time buyers the opportunity to own products that
they would otherwise have done without (Thomas 2003; Sker-
los et al. 2003). This may be considered a positive social result,
but the effect is not to displace new production and reduce its
environmental impacts. On the contrary, some researchers have
argued that reuse may stimulate new production by allowing the
seller of a used item the economic opportunity to replace their
goods early (Scitovsky 1994; Fox 1957; Thomas 2003), effec-
tively making consumer products “liquid assets” (Fox 1957).
Recent attempts to analytically model the rebound effect for
reuse include Thomas (2003). She finds that the only scenario
in which reuse can fully replace new product sales is when
the secondhand price is zero and the value customers place on
the newness of the product is low. These conditions for “perfect
substitution” are largely contradictory: If the value on “newness”
is low, it is likely that the secondhand price will be above zero.
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 13

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Ta b l e 6 Environmental impacts of production
Primary production Secondary production
Material
Primary energy
(Ep) MJ/kg
Carbon dioxide
kg CO2/kg
Water
usage L/kg
Primary energy
(Es) MJ/kg
Carbon dioxide
kgCO2/kg
Recycled content
(r%)
Dominant materials for industrial energy demand and carbon emissions
Steelb31–34 1.9–2.1 37–111 7.7–9.5 0.47–0.57 40–44
Aluminum 200–220 11–13 495–1,490 22–30 1.9–1.3 41–45
Paper and cardboard 49–54 1.1–1.2 500–1,500 18–21 0.72–0.8 70–74
Plasticc77–85 2.6–2.9 38–114 45–55 2.7–3.0 8.0–9.5
Concrete 1.0–1.3 0.09–0.12 1.7–5.1 0.7–0.8 0.063–0.07 12.5–15.0a
Additional materials dominant in U.S. municipal waste
Textiles—cotton 44–48 2.4–2.7 7,400–8,200 N/A N/A N/A
Textiles—wool 51–56 3.2–3.5 160,000–180,000 N/A N/A N/A
Woodd8.8–10.9 0.36–0.94 500–750 N/A N/A N/A
Glasse10–11 0.7–0.8 14.0–20.5 7.4–9 0.44–0.54 22–26
Source: All data compiled from Ashby (2012).
aAggregate.
bLow alloy steel.
cPolyethylene (PE).
dHard and softwoods, excluding plywood.
eSoda-lime glass.
MJ/kg =megajoules per kilogram; kg CO2/kg =kilograms carbon dioxide per kilogram; L/kg =liters per kilogram; N/A =not applicable.
Thomas therefore concludes that one of the few scenarios that
would result in perfect substitution is the reuse of valuable items
that are otherwise being left unused in storage or being thrown
away. Products with a steady long-term value, such as furniture,
may fall into this category. Thomas (2010) applies her utility
model from Thomas (2003) to the reuse of books, finding that,
when the used goods market is small, a general rule is that the
fractional decrease in sales of new goods is approximately equal
to the ratio of the used to new good price.
The above studies suggest that, although reusing goods can
displace new production, it is typically less than one to one.
The reuse rebound effect requires greater research and is criti-
cal to understanding the holistic benefits of reuse. By drawing an
analogy with the more studied rebound effect caused by cheaper
energy, we may cautiously hypothesize that reuse is more likely
to displace new production in the developed, rather than devel-
oping, world. Previous research has found that the direct energy
rebound in developed countries is relatively low (Greening et al.
2000) compared to developing countries (Antal and van den
Bergh 2014; Roy 2000). Given steel stocks’ saturation, despite
rising prosperity, in developed nations (M¨
uller et al. 2011), it
is possible that steel reuse in these countries will directly dis-
place new steel production. Zink and colleagues (2014) argue
that repurposing (adaptive reuse) may allow the reuser to target
final applications with a high “displacement potential.” It must
be emphasized, however, that a reuse specific study on rebound
effects is the only way to establish real trends.
Rebound considerations need to be included in LCAs of
product reuse. Thomas (2010) does this in a stylized analysis of
book reuse, and a few other researchers have acknowledged that
the savings implied by their reused product versus new product
analyses will likely be reduced by the rebound effect, notably
Skerlos and colleagues (2003) and Schischke and colleagues
(2003) for cell phone and PC remanufacture, respectively. A
report by the UK’s Waste and Resources Action Programme,
in which a formal LCA methodology for assessing reuse is pre-
sented, also acknowledges “information on the propensity of a
[reused] item to replace an alternate item or service should be
gathered and used” (James 2011, 13).
Does Reusing a Product or Component Prevent
Primary Material Production?
If selling reused products displaces new product sales, it will
also displace the production of new material. New materials
can, however, be produced from either natural resources, such
as metal ores (primary production), or from recycling scrap
(secondary production). With this is mind, how should the
“saved” impacts of new material production be calculated?
Table 6 presents the energy requirements and CO2emissions
associated with primary and secondary production, along with
recycled contents, for several key materials: the five materials
whose production dominates global industrial energy demand
(IEA 2008), and the three materials that dominate municipal
waste destined for landfill in the United States (US EPA 2012).
For materials with negligible recycling, such as textiles, the
new product would have to be made from natural resources
(primary production). Many materials, though, such as metals,
are produced from both primary and secondary scrap sources (r%
recycled content). The impact of making materials for the new
14 Journal of Industrial Ecology

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
product (E) may then be attributed proportionally to primary
(Ep) and secondary production (Es), as shown by equation (1).
E=(Es×r)+(Ep×(1 −r)) (1)
When the consequences of reusing a product on the material
supply chain are taken into account, the comparison between
the reuse and nonreuse scenario can be further complicated.
By enlarging the scope of the analyses, and assuming one-to-
one displacement of new products by reused items, it is apparent
that the energy savings associated with reuse are then dependent
on whether or not the product would have been landfilled or
recycled:
rProduct would have been landfilled: Reusing the product
saves the energy and other impacts of primary production
because the material would otherwise have been lost. This
assumes that reusing the item does not affect the recycling
of other products.
rProduct would have been recycled: The savings approach
those of avoiding secondary production. This is because,
even in the absence of reuse, the material in the product
would have been recycled, contributing to the flow of ma-
terial now being displaced. It should be noted, however,
that reusing material might not displace recycled mate-
rial on a one-to-one basis. For example, during recycling,
some primary material might have to be added to the melt
to correct for alloy composition.
In Allwood and colleagues’ (2010c) material flow analy-
sis, they assume a one-to-one displacement of new products
by reused items and calculate that a 92% diversion of scrap
away from recycling and into reuse would allow steel industry
emissions to be halved by 2050. They do not assess the via-
bility of achieving this percentage, but Milford and colleagues
(2013) determine the theoretical maximum steel reuse rates
for different product categories, none of which are above 30%.
As discussed in the section Rebound Effects: Does Reusing Re-
duce Producing?, the underlying assumption that reused products
perfectly displace new items may often be incorrect. In circum-
stances where reuse stimulates new production, primary and
secondary production might increase.
Conclusions
Many prominent consumer goods (refrigerators, cars, and
so on) are becoming increasingly efficient. As these products’
use-phase impacts further decline (potentially plateauing) and
consumers become more affluent, perhaps coming to own sev-
eral of the same product (such as a freezer in both the basement
and kitchen), the relative importance of the embodied impacts
will become more significant. Longer term, therefore, the im-
portance of reuse as an abatement strategy is likely to grow.
The case studies recorded in the literature indicate that the
energy and materials needed to return a product or compo-
nent at EOL to a usable condition or location are typically
minimal compared with new production. There are some im-
mediate opportunities, posing few technical challenges, to reuse
energy-intensive unpowered products, such as structural steel,
packaging, and furniture. If the product is powered, the envi-
ronmental impact of the use phase is often dominant. In this
case, it is important that short-lived products are fully restored
to their original efficiencies. For longer-lived products, there
is the possibility that more-efficient, new products now exist,
and unless an upgrade to modern efficiency levels is possible,
it may be better to replace the old product and pursue reuse
of its components. When new product efficiency trends can
be predicted with some confidence, it appears that designers
can justify adding material in the production stage (increasing
durability, standardization, or modularity) to facilitate reuse at
EOL.
Reusing an item does not guarantee environmental benefits.
Whereas numerous studies have shown that, under the right
circumstances, the life cycle energy of a reused product may be
lower than that of a new product, for this to translate into a real
reduction in environmental impacts, sales (or gifts or continued
use) of reused products must displace sales of new products. This
reflects the extent to which the reused products are utilized by
consumers who would otherwise buy new, displacing new sales,
or from consumers who would not buy new, which does not
displace new sales. Based on the limited research conducted
so far, it appears unlikely that, without regulatory pressures,
an increase in the reuse of products will translate to an equal
decrease in the sale of new products.
In order to encourage reuse, policy makers should first ensure
that existing legislation does not present disincentives. For ex-
ample, Power (2008) notes that the UK charges a value-added
tax on refurbishments, but not new-build construction projects.
Government could stimulate demand and an effective supply
of reused products by mandating some reuse in their purchas-
ing and construction decisions. In academia, further research is
needed in order to understand how reuse could maximize the
displacement of new products.
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About the Authors
Daniel Cooper is a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, USA. Timothy
Gutowski is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
Cooper and Gutowski, The Environmental Impacts of Reuse: A Review 19