Owing to increasing demand of rare metals present in ICT products, it is necessary to promote the rare metal recycling industry from an environmental viewpoint and to prevent climate change. Despite the fact that information for toxic substances is partly indicated, a legal basis and an international standard indicating usage of rare metals is insufficient. In order to address this issue, a newly created study group of environment and climate change at the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is doing research to develop methodologies for recycling rare metals from ICT products in an eco-friendly way. Under this group, the Republic of Korea has established two international standards related to rare metals present in ICT products. The first is ‘Release of rare metal information for ICT products (ITU-T L.1100)’ and the other is ‘Quantitative and qualitative analysis methods for rare metals (ITU-T L.1101)’. A new proposal for recommending the provision of rare metal information through a label by manufacturers and consumer/recycling businesses has been approved recently and is supposed to be published later in 2016. Moreover, these recommendations are also being extended to IEC, ISO and other standardization organizations and a strategy to reinforce the ability for domestic standardization is being established in accordance with industrial requirements. This will promote efficient recycling of rare metals from ICT products and will help improve the domestic supply of rare metals.

In the past, radio astronomers have sought isolation from man-made signals by placing their telescopes in remote locations. These measures may no longer safeguard scientific observations, since NGSO satellite systems, particularly low-Earth orbit (LEO) systems, are usually designed to provide global or wide regional coverage. Further, radio astronomers have historically made their observations in the frequency bands allocated for their use by the member countries of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The science of radio astronomy could be adversely impacted by the deployment of large constellations of new non-geostationary orbiting (NGSO) satellites for telecommunications, navigation and Earth observation, and the proliferation of new, high-power broadcasting and telecommunication satellites in geostationary (GSO) orbits. Radio telescopes are extremely sensitive, and, in certain situations, signals from satellites can overwhelm the signals from astronomical sources. This paper describes the problem in detail and identifies ways to mitigate it without adversely affecting the continued vigorous growth of commercial space-based telecommunications.