Economic Benefits of Electronics Recycling

Economic Benefits of Electronics Recycling make Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. General Services Administration toured e-Green Management of Islip Terrace, New York to highlight.

This is due if federal government is the nation’s largest consumer of electronics and GSA can and will ensure that it becomes the most responsible user of these items. 

We must know every year, U.S Countries generate almost 2.5 million tons of used electronics, which are made from valuable resources such as precious metals and rare earth materials, as well as plastic and glass. From computers and cell phones, to portable communication and music devices, the U.S. is a global leader in designing and developing new and improved electronic technologies. The responsible management of electronics provides an opportunity to promote economic development and jobs by developing a strong domestic electronics recycling market while preventing pollution.

MMS Electrochemistry Of GOLD

The MMS electrochemistry of gold is concerned with the behavior of unstable, high-energy, protruding surface gold atoms that undergo oxidation to yield a more dispersed (low-density), hydrated, largely amorphous, hydrous () gold oxide (a review of metal hydrous oxide electrochemistry was published earlier). Multilayer hydrous oxide deposits may be produced on gold in aqueous media by subjecting the electrode to either severe dc polarization , e.g., 3 min at 2.2 V, or to repetitive potential cycling using appropriate upper and lower limits [26,27], e.g., 0.90–2.40 V at 50 V s−1 for 1200 cycles (the efficiency of the oxide growth reaction is dependent on many factors,including the solution pH).

Thick deposits are not produced in a single sweep because the precursor state (MMS gold atoms) exists at the metal surface only at a very low coverage. In the dc procedure oxygen gas evolution occurs quite vigorously initially at an oxide–coated gold surface,and oxide formation apparently occurs as a side reaction, i.e., the gas evolution involves repetitive formation and decomposition of an unstable higher oxide (probably AuO2), and the resulting disturbance of the oxide film leads to a gradual accumulation of an outer, porous, gold oxide deposit. In the potential cycling procedure each cycle results in formation and reduction of an oxide film. Again, there is a side reaction involved, reduction of the place-exchanged oxide in the negative sweep leads to the formation of some MMS atoms which, in the next positive sweep, are converted to oxide species. It is important that, at the lower limit used for oxide growth, virtually all of the, but none of the, oxide is reduced; in this manner the oxide deposit can attain multilayer coverage.

Gold hydrous oxide is not particularly stable; according to Pourbaix’s thermodynamic data it should undergo reduction to the metal in acid solution at ca. 1.4 V. However, in practice oxide reduction occurs only under conditions of considerable cathodic overpotential and invariably at a lower potential than the peak for the reduction of the thin inner oxide film at the same gold surface (after multilayer oxide growth the layer configuration at the interface is usually gold/ oxide/ oxide/aqueous solution; there may be some degree of intermingling of the oxide and aqueous phase). The oxide reduction responses in the negative sweeps are often complicated by the presence of several oxide reduction peaks [27,29], plus the fact that (even in terms of the RHE scale) the  oxide reduction peaks tend to occur at a lower potential in base as compared to acid; this effect is highlighted by the observation, of a sharp oxide reduction peak at E≈ –0.2 V in the case of gold in base. This type of behavior is not confined to gold. Platinum [30,31] and iridium  oxides also show similar behavior.

In a piece of computer equipment, some components cannot be recycled

In a piece of computer equipment, some components cannot be recycled. These components, mainly plastics and resins containing flame retardants, must be burned or buried in and environmentally sound manner. However,in some countries, the burial of waste is prohibited. According to the Basel convention, these materials should preferably be burned for energy recovery rather than buried or incinerated without energy recovery. The incinerator or the combustion unit must be designed to limit the formation and emission of furans and dioxins and must be equipped with state-of-the-art flue gas cleaning systems. Ashes resulting from the combustion of materials, or materials that cannot be valorised “should be disposed of in an environmentally sound and appropriately authorised landfill”.

Flat Screen Monitors

Flat Screen Monitors

According to a document issued by the OECD working group on waste prevention and recycling, entitled “Technical Guidance for the Environmentally Sound Management of Specific Waste streams: Used and Scrap Personal Computers” LCD screens can be sent to a smelter for recovery of non-ferrous metals on the condition that the smelter is equipped with flue gas cleaning systems (to minimise dioxin emissions), and prepared to carry out the separation or immobilisation of mercury.

Flat panel screens should be sent for either recovery operation or thermal treatment at an environmentally sound and appropriately authorised incinerator with modern flue gas cleaning systems. When discharge lamps are removed, they should be sent to a specialised mercury recovery facility or to an environmentally sound and appropriately authorised hazardous waste incinerator with modern flue gas cleaning systems that guarantees the proper separation or immobilisation of mercury. The WEEE Directive requires that liquid crystal displays of a surface area greater than 100 cm2 are managed separately, as they are back lighted with gas discharge lamps containing mercury.

Cables can be shredded before being sent to specialised industries

Cables can be shredded before being sent to specialised industries or burned in a facility where every measure is taken to prevent the formation of harmful substances, such as chlorinated dibenzofurans and dibenzodioxins. Those cables (or cable residue) can be recovered by industries specializing in the separation of copper wires from their plastic sheaths. These industries usually use various physical means to separate these materials in order to obtain perfectly homogeneous pieces of copper and plastics.

Batteries and Accumulators

Batteries and accumulators are not necessarily hazardous as they are.However their content can have an impact on the environment. Therefore, the enterprise must be careful to ensure the security of the storage area before disposal. In a PC, the coin cell is often composed of a lithium anode.If some of the lithium is exposed, it may react with oxygen or moisture,generating heat and possibly hydrogen gas. A fire can occur during the shredding operation.

A lithium coin cell can be recovered, after it has been fully discharged to eliminate potential reactivity, by shredding and gravity separation. The entrepreneur is therefore advised to resell these batteries to industries that possess the equipment and technologies necessary to recover them. However, some batteries do not have any value and the entrepreneur is responsible for having them recycled by a specialised industry.

Printed Circuit Boards PC Contain 100 g of Gold per tonne

Some circuit boards (such as power supply boards and electronic boards found in monitors) contain on average less than 100 g of gold per tonne. They are «low grade» boards. However, some boards (e.g. graphic boards, audio boards and network boards) contain a lot more precious metal. «high grade» boards contain between 400 and 500 g/tonne, and are found in laptops and mobile phones. «Very high grade» boards, containing more than 500 g/tonne, come from large mainframe computers or phone centres.

Once at the smelter, the different metals (gold, copper, silver, selenium,tellurium, lead, palladium, etc.) are recovered through complex processes. Due to the complexity of the technologies used and given that recovery practices can be highly polluting, the entrepreneur must sell the printed circuits to appropriate industries that can conduct recovery operations in an environmentally sound manner.

Recycling Cell Phones

What products can be made from the materials recovered by recycling cell phones?Almost all of the materials used to manufacture a cell phone can be recovered to make new products. Metals, plastics, batteries and the packaging materials can be recycled and turned into new products.


Cell phones contain a number of different metals - gold, silver,platinum,palladium, rhodium,copper, tin, lead, brass and zinc - that can be extracted and recovered in the recycling process.


The recovered metals can be used by a number of different industries such as jewelry, plating, electronics, plumbing, automotive, and art foundries. Products that can be manufactured from the recovered materials include automotive catalytic converters,plumbing faucets and piping, and gold or silver jewelry.


The plastic on the cell phone can also be recycled. It can be recycled into new products as garden furniture, license plate frames, non-food containers and replacement automotive parts.


Due to its high thermal value, the plastic could alternatively be used as a fuel.The cell phone packaging materials can also be recycled and made as a component of fiber board manufacture. When the rechargeable battery can no longer be reused, the battery can be recycled into other rechargeable battery products.

Gold is Used for Electroplating of Connectors

In electronic components, gold is used for electroplating of connectors and contacts because it has excellent corrosion resistance and high electricalconductivity. In addition, gold is used in hybrid links and solders.

As the number of electronic products in use increases, so does the need to dispose of defective and obsolete equipment including printed circuit boards. Thus, the gold content from electronic components has become a candidate for recovery.

The Metals are Found in Many Electronic Components

In general, electronic scrap is composed of plastics (~30%), refractory oxides (~30%), and metals (~40%).

The metals are found in many electronic components such as edge connectors, integrated circuits, and transistors with the following compositions: Au 0.1%, Ag 0.2%, Pd 0.005%, Cu 20%, Ni 2%, Sn 4%, and Pb 2%. The physical forms of these precious metals maybe plated gold or palladium on copper laminate and plated gold or silver on nickel or iron. Thus, the main economic driving force for the recycling of electronic scrap is the recovery of precious metals, particularly gold.

However, environmental considerations are also important in electronic scrap recycling. The disposal of obsolete electronic equipment is a problem of considerable magnitude. Additionally, the waste solution and other scrap from manufacturing plants should be rendered harmless before they are discharged into the environment.

Pricing Refining Services

First off, do you really know how to refine? Can you produce gold of acceptable quality? If not, accepting his material can prove to be a fatal mistake. One of my best advertisers was a friend that was slip shod in his refining techniques, and refused to change. As he supplied low quality gold to his customers, who he had pursed with vigor, they slowly quit using his services, at which time he'd give them my name. I ended up with his entire customer base because he was inept. Please keep that in mind. You must be able to walk before you can run. OK--my sermon is over----I hope it served a purpose. I charged 10% for refining bench sweeps and solids unless the yield exceeded 10 troy ounces,at which time I made an adjustment, and did the work for 8%. It is a fair fee, but there were no other hidden charges, and I DID NOT steal customer values. That's the other big mistake refiners like to make. My fee was in the way of withholding the metal. I did not accept cash payment. That insures you get paid. I refined polishing wastes and floor sweeps for a 15% fee. You earn the money on this stuff, it's labor intensive. Carpet fee was 50%----and it can be a losing proposition at that price. All depends on the carpet.

Data Security

When equipment is collected, the owner may want the data which is written on the hard drives to be disposed of. This operation can be carried out either on the collection site or on the recycling site. Even if the owner does not specifically request the data disposal, in numerous countries, the recycling centre is legally obliged to do it, in compliance with regulations on private and intellectual property. The company may communicate about the reliability of its data disposal methods, to reassure the equipment suppliers.

To remove data from a computer, the recycling centre carries out several hard drive formattings, either at the hard drive test bench, or directly on the computer. There are various software programmes on the market enabling the retrieval of data erased from the computer by the user or during the formatting. Therefore, the recycling centre must be equipped with efficient data disposal and formatting tools, and must repeat the operation several times on each hard drive to make sure that no trace of former information remains on the hard drive. There are several data disposal software products available on the market, among which the free software Root Boot, under Linux.

If hard drives are pierced to secure the data disposal, this operation should be carried out under an aspirator, as the smoke resulting from it may contain harmful substances.

Traceability

Once a piece of equipment has been tested, its track sheet must be updated,indicating its condition, the possible repairs and the name of the technician who carried them out, and lastly its next destination (i.e. the refurbishment workshop, the dismantling workshop or the sales area). If the equipment is broken up into spare parts, it is recommended to create a track sheet for these parts.

Monitor Testing

Contrary to the other components testings, monitor testing is based only on the tester’s own assessment. His job is to evaluate the quality, the brightness and the contrast of the monitors. He must also detect potential problems, such as image distortion. Therefore, the technician in charge of these tests must have a lot of experience. He may use a working computer as a point of reference.

If the monitor is in good working order, it is stored, waiting to be resold. If the case is damaged, it is sent for repair. Finally, if the monitor is out of order, it is sent for dismantling. The technician may sever the cables of faulty monitors, so that they cannot be mixed up with monitors in working order or those waiting to be tested.

RAM Testing

It is usually recommended to test the RAM modules on their original motherboard, due to important risks of incompatibility between the different models. The module testing process is similar to that implemented for hard drives. It requires the use of a functioning computer, equipped with a motherboard compatible with the modules to be tested. The technician must install these modules in the computer, switch it on and run tests thanks to the appropriate software. If the RAM modules are faulty, they are sent for dismantling. If they are fit for reuse, they are stored once their characteristics have been carefully registered.

Hard Drive Testing

It is recommended to set up a workstation devoted to hard drive testing,equipped with a computer in perfect working order. To assess the condition of hard drives (up to four at the same time), the technician must connect them to the available IDE connectors. Once connected, the technician uses specific software to test hard drives and repair them if need be. Once a hard drive has been tested, it is either sent for dismantling (if it is faulty), or stored to be used later as a spare part.

Computer Testing

Before opening the computer and individually testing its parts, the technician must try to switch the computer on. If it starts, the technician will be able to run tests directly on the machine to assess the condition and capacity of the various components. To test components such as the motherboard or the RAM, the technician will often have to use programmes specific to the brand of these components. For this reason, the entrepreneur is advised

to provide his company with a programme library, where technicians can quickly find the appropriate software.

If the equipment does not work, it is important to determine if it would be worthwhile repairing it or using it for spare parts. If it is the type of equipment often asked for by clients, its subsets should be tested either to identify the failure or to extract spare parts.

The Composition of Electronic Equipment

The materials contained in scrap electronic equipment are large in number and value; some are valuable and some are toxic or hazardous. Typical chemical elements found include:Precious metals such as gold, silver and palladium, and to a lesser extent, platinum and ruthenium

1. Base and special metals such as iron,copper, aluminium, nickel, zinc, tin, cobalt, indium, gallium and selenium

2. Hazardous metals such as mercury,beryllium, cadmium, arsenic and antimony

3. Halogens – bromine, fluorine and chlorine

4. Other substances such as organics/plastics, glass and ceramics.

If such scrap is landfilled or not treated in an environmentally sound way, then it poses a high risk of environmental damage. The valuable materials that it contains are not recovered and reused, and so this increases the need to mine new metals from primary resources.

Table.1

Typical compositions of a number of electronic items are shown in the upper part of Table 1. We should note that these figures are indicative; actual content can vary significantly but the magnitude is correct. In terms of weight, plastics and steel tend to dominate, but in terms of value, the lower part of Table 1, gold and the other precious metals dominate.

Gold and other precious metals makes up more than 80% of the value in PC boards, cell phones and calculators, and around 50% of the value in TV boards and DVDs. We note copper is next in value terms.

Hence, it is very evident that any net decrease in precious metal content substantially reduces the net recoverable value from the electronic scrap and, thus, the motivation to recycle scrap. It is worth noting that the complete recycling chain needs to be renumerated, as Hagelüken and Corti discuss in their paper.

The recycling requirements – technical processes and emission controls – depend on the composition of the scrap, and taking the various values between types of scrap into account, means that the mixing of different types of scrap in the collection and pre-processing stages can influence the recycling returns in a negative manner.

Gold’s Importance to The Economics of Recovery

Recovery of gold and other valuable metals from such scrap involves a complex metallurgical flowsheet and requires state-of-the-art recovery technologies that are available in large-scale, integrated smelter-refinery operations. At the Umicore plant in Belgium,for example, pure gold and 16 other metals are recovered with high yields. Perhaps what is not adequately appreciated is that the recovery of gold is important to the economics of recycling electronic scrap. It is the gold that makes the recovery of all the valuable metals economically worthwhile.

Thus a ‘design for recycling’ approach to the use of gold in electronic equipment assumes an importance when material choices are being made by OEMs; simply seeking use of cheaper alternative materials as substitutes for gold can damage the economics of recycling devices at the end of their life. One needs to take the complete life cycle costs into account at the design stage.

The European Directive on Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) aims to provide a ‘closed loop’ economy, that is, to foster environmentally sound reuse and recycling, and to preserve natural resources. This is about sustainability of resources.

However, in Europe and elsewhere, there are currently severe deficits in the recycling chain that hinder the achievement of a high overall recovery rate of gold and other metals. This is due in part to substandard processing of scrap in many ‘backyard’ recycling operations, often through the illegal and dubious export of end-of-life electronics to many developing/transition countries around the world. There is also an environmental impact, as discussed below. We should also note that recycling of WEEE in the EU and elsewhere has become a legal requirement.

Response to the e-Waste Problem

Response to the e-Waste Problem.When communities became aware of the volumes of lead being placed in their sanitary landfills, they grew concerned. Some communities passed laws to encourage recycling and alternative waste management activities. Some banned such waste from landfills; others supported e-waste recycling.

About a quarter of the states passed laws treating CRTs as universal wastes. The universal waste rules are clear and simple standards for managing widely distributed hazardous wastes where the full hazardous waste requirements would be overly burdensome. The intent of the universal waste rules is to get hazardous waste out of the sanitary waste stream but without the rigorous requirements protections intended for industrial process wastes at factories and similar facilities. Essentially, the universal waste rules are a middle-ground between the household and conditional exempt generator rules, which exempts waste from controls and the full RCRA Subtitle C hazardous waste rules. EPA has established universal waste rules for items such as mercury thermostats, spent lead-acid batteries, unused pesticides, mercury thermostats and fluorescent lamps. An EPA advisory group that included state, federal, and environmental and industry representatives recommended to EPA that CRTs be added to the universal waste program to ensure responsible recycling. However, we have learned that instead of requiring universal waste protections, EPA plans to finalize regulations that essentially deregulate these wastes if sent to domestic recyclers. EPA’s proposed exemption from RCRA for CRT glass, if followed by the states, would represent a regrettable rollback in environmental protection.

The universal waste requirements that some states have in place for computers and CRTs provide for proper packaging, labeling, and tracking of shipments of CRTs sent and received to prevent illegal dumping and ensure legitimate recycling. The requirements also include notifying state regulatory officials of CRT waste management activities to allow necessary inspections and compliance. These requirements are appropriate and not unduly burdensome for companies engaged in the commercial collection, processing, and recycling of this type of hazardous waste. The practical and sensible approach is for EPA to apply universal waste standards to all CRT glass destined for recycling at the point of commercial collection. Other electronic waste, including computer hardware and cell phones should likewise be regulated under universal waste rules. The universal waste rules were promulgated for just this type of waste. Those who may argue that deregulation will lead to more recycling may be right. But such unregulated recycling will inevitably lead to improper recycling, taxpayer financed cleanups and public cynicism of recycling. These costs will dwarf the benefits of the possible chance of some increased recycling.

The risks are not imaginary. At the State Hazardous Waste Conference in 2002, many state regulators described the recycling industry as a “low-profit, risky business” with high turnover rates and inadequate insurance. The state regulators cited cases where low cost recyclers were merely sham operations that collected wastes fees, with no intention of doing any recycling. Many of these facilities have since gone out of business leaving contaminated sites for state agencies to clean up. One example occurred in Phelps County, Missouri. According to media reports, The Missouri Department of Revenue found 15,000 abandoned computer monitors. The DNR found someone was running a "computer recycling" business out of a rented building on the property. The owner of the business reportedly told customers he would take the monitors and dispose of them properly. Instead, state investigators say the man took the monitors, the cash and left. Hot sun melted the plastic coverings and rain can cause the lead to run-off into the soil and groundwater. It cost Missouri taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up the mess. By proposing to exclude CRT glass recycling from RCRA and the universal waste rule, EPA would be aiding and abetting this problem.

Despite EPA’s approach, many generators of computer wastes want recyclers to have some “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval. EPA responded by establishing fairly good guidelines in the document Plug-In to eCycling Guidelines for Materials Management. However, these Guidelines are only voluntary and their effectiveness as opposed to a promulgated universal waste standard is unconvincing.