End of service scenario for universities’ informatic equipment: Recovery and repair as educational and research tool for circular economy and urban mining

The urgent need to change unsustainable patterns of consumption, natural resources depletion rates, together with environmental impact and CO2 emissions requires tangible initiatives that can accelerate the transition towards sustainable practices and provisions. Universities have the possibility to teach, operate and contribute to the improvement of global knowledge. They have the special responsibility of provid-ing leadership on education and developing virtuous circles of “learning-by-doing” to demonstrate how to face the multiple challenges of sustainability. Considering electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) management at their end of service life, a Universities’ laboratory can have a strategic role to promote circular economy and urban mining together with students’ involvement in research and education path-ways. In this paper, the case study is going to do an overview on RAEE generation at Italian University. Focusing on University of Bologna, an unusual solution has been provided by experimenting a new circular economy lab working, at first, on this type of products. In particular, the lab has investigated the possibility to valorize disused EEE thanks to restoration, preparing for reuse and refurbishment of obsolete informatics electrical and electronic equipment at the University of Bologna.