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I'm not so sure. We must consider the whole lifecycle.

My buddy, with genuine compassion, recycles used PCs and gifts them to communities in the third world. I've read some pretty strong arguments that it'd better for everyone if they simply received the newest, cheapest PCs.

Sweden's efforts could help (symbolically) by influencing the design of future goods, to be more serviceable, upgradeable.

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Not sure what service your friend uses for gifting his electronics to African countries, but I believe most electronics are sent to Ghana then burned for various metals.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/

He and his students are the service. They deliver the PCs personally and then hang out to help set things up and train the locals.

Edit: Ah. I probably should have wrote that my friend refurbishes PCs for donation. My bad.

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