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Recycling for Precious Resources – The Future of Waste
Recycling for Precious Resources – The Future of Waste
The role of the waste management is rapidly evolving and heading towards becoming a pivotal resource industry. In recent years the industry has developed from just waste collections, rudimentary recycling, and landfill, and it’s very encouraging to see how innovations in processing are reshaping the industry.
It is estimated that currently there are more reserves of precious metals such as gold in e-waste, than there are in the ground. Aside from the obvious environmental benefits of reducing mining activities, it is providing a very compelling reason to step up e-waste recycling capabilities.
Making the most of recycling opportunities
The Royal Mint recently announced that they’ll be building a new “urban mining” recycling plant with the objective of extracting gold and other precious metals from e-waste. It’s an innovative project that aims to invest in the local economy by creating jobs and using low carbon recycling processes. This is seen as a preferred alternative to exporting e-waste which is then processed abroad in carbon heavy smelters. The patented recycling process uses chemistry rather than smelting and is able to process 99% of e-waste. The aim is to process upward of 90 tonnes of e-waste per week to extract hundreds of kilograms of gold.
Those volumes may sound like a significant amount, until you discover the extent of global e-waste that is generated. Statistics from 2019 highlight that 53 million metric tonnes of e-waste were produced of which only 17,4% were recycled. At that stage the increase in volume of e-waste over a period of 5 years was 44 million tonnes. Not recycling e-waste is an environmental disaster as many of the metals and composites are toxic to ecosystems and human health. As much as digital transformation has made modern life easier, it’s not without a cost.
Beyond recycling
As much as this may seem like a golden opportunity for recyclers, one still needs to take into consideration what a more sustainable longer term solution might be. The culture of continually upgrading electronic devices has become entrenched in modern culture and is a significant contributing factor to the ever growing volume of e-waste. To achieve sales targets, manufacturers have planned obsolescence with the objective of being able to sell more new products in future. The belief consumers have that they need to have the latest model or the latest device continues to contribute to the problem.
Add to that the growth in home appliances and how often they need replacing. Electronics are no longer built to last and this is compounding the problem. Even solar panels and heat pumps have a finite life cycle and are currently difficult to recycle items. They may have an important role to play in a more sustainable low carbon future, but how are manufacturers and the recycling industry preparing for the end of life product stage?
As an example: Recently, big fanfare was made about the news that Siemens have now created a design for wind turbine blades that will in future be fully recyclable. This news came as a surprise to many that assumed anything involved in generating clean energy would also be designed with sustainability in mind. It’s a harsh reminder that we’re still a long way off from achieving true circular economies – even in the renewables sector. Until that can be achieved, recycling innovation will continue to play an important role. For the wind turbine example, one recycling solution has been to shred the blades to create aggregates used in construction. This highlights the importance of cross industry collaboration – understanding what resources are in demand and for what applications.
We may want to look forward to a circular economy future, free of waste accumulating in landfill, but the reality is that’s still a very long way off. In the meantime the waste management and recycling sectors have a critical role to play to bridge the gap between resources and waste. A renewed focus on e-waste and innovation in recycling methods holds promise. Will it be enough to transition electronics to the circular economy.