And how long do you keep those phones?. We believe the current solutions and methods of recycling are outdated, said White. Conventional recycling requires about 220kg of CO2 per ounce of gold. While more electronic devices are part of the problem, they also can be a big part of the solution. In 2020, the company launched a campaign with Belgian telecommunications provider Proximus to persuade people to recycle their old mobile phones; their goal for 2021 is to collect 150,000 disused phones from households in Belgium to be recycled. There is nickel in the e-waste, although the amount depends on the particular electronic components being recycled. One of the economic highlights of this process is that the capital repayment period is under one year.. "One of the best policy supports for e-waste will be payment of a deposit to consumers who return their e-products like cell phones to central collection points," he says. And one of the most appeal aspects of Sahajwallas solution is that while traditional mining is labour-intensive, e-waste mining can be highly automated., At Sahajwallas micro-factory, for example, robots are used to identify and separate useful parts., She says e-waste passes through a sort of production line. There are different combinations that can be used, said White. In Europe, mining and smelting company Boliden has been recycling waste materials at its Rnnskr smelter in Sweden since the 1960s, and it currently recycles 120,000t/y of electrical material, including circuit boards from computers and mobile phones. We can tailor the DES to be selective to leach certain metals out of an ore, e-waste or other feedstock and the recovery can be selective too.. For more details, review our .chakra .wef-12jlgmc{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;font-weight:700;}.chakra .wef-12jlgmc:hover,.chakra .wef-12jlgmc[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-12jlgmc:focus,.chakra .wef-12jlgmc[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);}privacy policy. World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use. The discarded-waste devices are first placed into a module to break them down. Professor Veena Sahajwalla's mine in Australia produces gold, silver and copper - and there isn't a pick-axe in sight. "There could also be incentives paid to manufacturers to make their products more easily disassembled.". Especially on carbonaceous ores, its up to 80 times faster than cyanide, he said. The amount of e-waste being generated certainly suggests that the business opportunities for recycling will increase. At Prof Sahajwalla's micro-factory, for example, robots are used to identify and separate useful parts. But now e-waste mining has the potential to become big business. At the same time, the increased demand for electronic devices has created the worlds fastest-growing waste stream: e-waste. |, In fact, research indicates that such facilities can actually be far more profitable than traditional mining. Its precious metals refining plant located in Hoboken, a district of the city of Antwerp in Belgium, recycles and refines precious metal bearing materials such as electronic scrap, spent industrial and automotive catalysts and old mobile phones. DES consists of non-toxic, environmentally benign and chemically stable ionic liquids that can be used to extract a wide range of metals. By Emma WoollacottTechnology of Business reporter. The Sydney-based expert in materials science reckons her operation will become efficient enough to be making a profit within a couple of years. Marketing Specialist for HOBI International, Inc. In fact, research indicates that such facilities can actually be far more profitable than traditional mining. A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda. Recovery is quite complex, as nickel is a social metal, mixing well with most other metals. HPAL is an expensive, capital-intensive and often difficult process to run.There are high OPEX and maintenance costs attached, and funding a project with HPAL can be tricky, said White. When we spoke in July, White had just returned from a site visit with Argos development partner, the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in Teesside, northern England. Argo is commercialising Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES), a chemistry that has been under research and development at the University of Leicester for nearly 20 years. There have been some innovations, but fundamentally its a very energy and capital-intensive process which can have a significant environmental impact. That is the staggering amount of new electronic waste that we generate every year. Embracing durable designs can ensure that electronic devices are kept in circulation for longer. This makes it possible to obtain high quality steel from old washing machines or precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum or palladium from old mobile phones and computers. Are Instagram stars facing a brand backlash? Professor Mathews says more manufacturers should be making an effort to ensure their products can be mined at the end of their useful life.One of the best policy supports for e-waste will be payment of a deposit to consumers who return their e-products like cell phones to central collection points, he says. A typical iPhone is estimated to house around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, 0.015g of palladium and less than one-thousandth of a gram of platinum. This is why economically its a really interesting prospect. The privacy policy of Google Analytics can be found here. Just looking at the market size, its quite significant, and the rate of growth is enormous its projected to grow by 40% over the next 10 years. However, once you start thinking on a large scale, it looks a lot more attractive: one million mobile phones could deliver nearly 16 tonnes of copper, 350kg of silver, 34kg of gold and 15kg of palladium. At the end of the day, maybe you dont need to buy a new phone every year or two. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The company is now working on establishing a green zone around the plant by offering to purchase the houses located closest to the plant on a voluntary basis, which will increase the distance between the plant and residential areas. Expenses included the costs of waste collection, labour, energy, material and transportation, as well as capital costs for the recyclers' equipment and buildings. Like what you see? He provides technical nickel-related education and training internationally for various industries including the chemical, petrochemical, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, water and engineering sectors. This is a growing problem, as most e-waste ends up in landfill where it can cause environmental contamination due to metals leaching into the surrounding environment; just 17.4% of the global e-waste generated in 2019 was officially documented as being properly collected and recycled. With our process, using standard grid electricity, its only 6kg per ounce. And when these costs - and the effects of Chinese government subsidies for recycling - were taken into account, the team found that mining from ore was 13 times more expensive than e-waste mining. Ukraine seeks UN and Red Cross prison deaths probe, Top US judge mocks world leaders over abortion ban, Stop wearing ties to save energy, Spanish PM says, Thai cave rescue: 'At first it was difficult' VideoThai cave rescue: 'At first it was difficult', An American dream's tragic end 800 miles from home, False claims of 'deepfake' President Biden go viral, New Beyonc album a dance-floor hit with critics, Africa's top shots: Boat racing and record breakers, This curious geographic transaction has been going on for more than 350 years, The youngest in the labour market have a slew of demands. At the University of New South Wales (UNSW), she extracts materials from electronic gadgets instead of from rocks. In 2020, it was reported that children living close to Umicores Hoboken plant had elevated levels of lead in their blood. One of the primary stocks Argo seeks is e-waste, like printed circuit boards (PCBs) and motherboards, as they contain the highest proportion and value of metals. The International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency, estimates that about 45 millions tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2016, and is expected to top 50 million tonnes by 2021. The process can be used on a leach pad, but vat leaches are more likely, depending on the gold grade. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Professor Veena Sahajwallas conducts urban mining, which is simply defined as the process of reclaiming raw materials from spent products, buildings and waste. The future is bright! A system upgrade: a circular electronics system. According to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, a typical cathode-ray tube TV contains about 450g of copper and 227g of aluminium, as well as around 5.6g of gold. These schemes already exist and hopefully soon you will be able to get some money for your phone and recycle it in the nearest store. Already one recycler in China produces more cobalt than the country mines in one year. Gary also provides metallurgical support to the organisation worldwide. Umicore noted in a statement that it has been testing the blood levels of local children twice a year since 1978, and that there had been multiple years of steady decreases in lead detected, with historically low levels in 2019. In 2016 alone, 435,000 tonnes of phones were discarded, despite containing as much as 9.4bn (8.3bn) worth of raw materials. Using AI technology, a recycling equipment manufacturer has developed an automated sorting system that programs its, A new recycling technology currently in the pilot plant stage will allow recyclers to extract precious metals from, Data centers are one of the most important pieces of equipment a company can own, which is why proper decommissioni, Tired of updating your electronics when they get slow? Mined mainly in China, iridium has been in short supply, with the price rising steadily for months. DES is not a water-based chemistry, which is a key differentiator between it and almost any other leaching process. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Economic modelling shows the cost of around $500,000 Australian dollars for a micro-factory pays off in two to three years, and can generate revenue and create jobs, Sahajwalla comments. Companies and governments could work towards creating a system for closed-loop production in which all old products are collected and then the materials or components re-integrated into new ones. Apple, meanwhile, is trying to counter criticisms that its phones are difficult to recycle with the recent demonstration of a robot called Daisy that can disassemble up to 200 iPhones an hour.Daisy can handle nine different models of the phone, separating parts and removing useful components. It is time for companies to start investing heavily around the globe in technology that can help extract metals and minerals from e-waste. Why do some job adverts put women off applying? Daisy can handle nine different models of the phone, separating parts and removing useful components. "That is where the focus should be," says Prof Mathews. Last year the number of smartphones grew larger than the number of actual people on this planet, and the number of devices is projected to grow to 25-50 billion by 2020, reflecting lowering costs and rising demand. In a traditional supply chain goods move from the vendor to you - in other words companies develop products and you later on buy them in the shop. The process of recycling e-waste is not without its problems, however. Waste from electronic gadgets can be toxic, yet just 16% of e-waste is recycled, Prof Sahajwalla (right) at her recycling operation with New South Wales environment minister Gabrielle Upton, Thai cave rescue: 'At first it was difficult' Video, Thai cave rescue: 'At first it was difficult', in a joint study from Beijing's Tsinghua University and Macquarie University, in Sydney, The trick that turned seven bags of cocoa into 25. Professor Veena Sahajwalla's e-waste factory could be profitable within a couple of years, she says. While traditional mining is labour-intensive, e-waste mining can be highly automated. Her "urban mine" at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is extracting these materials not from rock, but from electronic gadgets. Nickel Institute Member companies have set ambitious targets and are implementing innovative respons Gary is responsible for market development projects. Apple, meanwhile, is trying to counter criticisms that its phones are difficult to recycle with the recent demonstration of a robot - called Daisy - that can disassemble up to 200 iPhones an hour. is affecting economies, industries and global issues, with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale. Weve proven that our formulations can effectively leach over 95% of nickel from nickel laterite ores without the need for high pressure acid leaching (HPAL), said White. Read about our approach to external linking. The discarded-waste devices are first placed into a module to break them down. Some companies will have a separate recycling line for the various types of batteries, the supply of which for recycling is expected to increase rapidly as electric vehicle batteries come to the end of their life. Learn more about the steps you can take to make our planet a bit greener. The Basel Convention is a multilateral treaty, effective from 1992, that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of e-waste are sent every year from developed regions such as western Europe, North America and Japan to developing countries such as Ghana, Thailand and India. Usually, these ores require roasting prior to cyanide treatment, or processes like bio-leaching to unlock that gold.. "Economic modelling shows the cost of around $500,000 Australian dollars (280,000) for a micro-factory pays off in two to three years, and can generate revenue and create jobs," she says. "The mining of e-waste, and production of pure metal ingots from it of copper or gold, promises to be a very profitable business," said Macquarie's Prof John Mathews. In the circular economy, we need to recover as much as we can, and the Nickel Institute members are doing their part: This article was first published in our Nickel Magazine VOL 36-3, in December 2021. Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Global electronic waste up 21% in five years, and recycling isnt keeping up, These microbes are being used to clean uptoxic electronic waste, Mounting e-waste is harming the planet. Yes, I would like to receive emails from HOBI International. Another area of mining that Argo is targeting is refractory gold processing. Using renewable energy, its carbon neutral. Thats quite a significant saving on a per-ounce-basis, which is another stepping stone towards a net zero world.. Its ripe for disruption, Weve flipped the process on its head and developed a low energy, low CAPEX method with no particulate emissions. Argo will continue work with its mining partners on this over the next two years, including some major mining companies, so watch this space! Electronic waste should be further incorporated into the circular economy. DES works very well on ores that are amenable to leaching with cyanide, said White. There could also be incentives paid to manufacturers to make their products more easily disassembled.. E-waste was recently in the news thanks to this years Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, as all the medals awarded to winning athletes were made from recycled metals. UK-based Argo Natural Resources, the commercialisation partner of the University of Leicester, is one company that is developing technology to tackle the global e-waste issue. This means that not only can DES scale down e-waste processing from larger smelting and refining operations, but it can also reduce the impact of the metals being recycled. Therefore, second use and harvesting components represent a major opportunity. To build a circular economy for electronics there are different aspects to consider. Outside of e-waste, another key target for Argo are virgin nickel laterites. If you have iPhones, it can be twice that, said White. In many countries, e-waste entrepreneurs and cooperatives of e-waste workers are expanding e-waste recycling operations and experimenting with new and inclusive business models for managing e-waste effectively. All these opportunities are likely to make e-waste mining even more profitable in future. Its just a leaching process that can be easily integrated into existing processing circuits.. If we can reduce that CAPEX drastically, well unlock a lot of nickel laterite resources that could then become economic, or at least bankable, projects.. This figure is projected to grow to 74.7Mt/y by 2030. Were currently investigating the removal of HPAL from the processing of nickel laterites.. 'It feels like the hand of God thrusting you up the road', Click here for more Technology of Business features, Hitler's watch sells for $1.1m in controversial sale, Shakira tax case asks for eight-year prison term, Weather forecasters abused over heatwave coverage, Smith says Rock not ready to talk after slap, Rebekah Vardy loses libel case against Coleen Rooney, Beach body ad used my image without asking - model. Many millions of tonnes of televisions, phones and other electronic equipment are discarded each year, despite them being a rich source of metals. Glencores recycling operations form part of its target to become a net-zero emissions company by 2050. Now think about 500 of those ships, and what they weigh. Thanks to e-waste mining, the industry not only has the potential to see immense growth but to find innovative ways to keep our planet sustainable. And is also adapting its logistics activities in line with the weather conditions. Global demand for electronic goods is soaring how many phones and laptops do you have today, compared to 10-15 years ago? Its also easier for us to recycle the solvents, said White. The remaining 43 million tonnes of e-waste, estimated to contain recoverable material worth around US$55 billion, is not recycled, and is landfilled instead. The earliest practitioners are likely to be metals specialists, particularly small entrepreneurial firms who are aware of the scale of the e-waste problem.. Theres a whole ecosystem of recyclers who collect these products, and manually or mechanically strip them down into components, said White. And one of the most appeal aspects of Sahajwallas solution is that while traditional mining is labour-intensive, e-waste mining can be highly automated.At Sahajwallas micro-factory, for example, robots are used to identify and separate useful parts.She says e-waste passes through a sort of production line. The Global e-waste Statistics Partnerships Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report noted that the value of raw materials in the global e-waste generated in 2019 is equal to approximately US$57 billion which is higher than the gross domestic product of many countries corresponding to a total of 25Mt. This overwhelming flood of screens, cables, chips and motherboards is fuelled by our love of devices, many of which are connected to the internet. The International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency, estimates that about 45 millions tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2016, and is expected to top 50 million tonnes by 2021. Even though the amount of nickel in e-waste is relatively small, the nickel industry is a valuable partner with society in accomplishing the goal of creating a circular economy. According to a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the average cathode-ray tube television contains about 450g of copper and 227g of aluminium, as well as around 5.6g of gold.. Then those pieces are sent on to other recyclers for them to process. DES is a platform chemistry of millions of different combinations of salts and simple organic compounds, White explained. These are high-CAPEX, high-energy processes, which are often done at very large scales by big companies with big operations. Some companies can recover other metals used in electronics, such as indium, selenium, bismuth and other metals present in even smaller amounts. "The earliest practitioners are likely to be metals specialists, particularly small entrepreneurial firms who are aware of the scale of the e-waste problem.". Shredding of, for example, circuit boards and even whole cellphones into small pieces can help in the separation process. He described DES as being a potential replacement for smelting. Companies should be ready to repair equipment they sell, something that has also been mandated by law in some countries. A lot of recycling capacity needs to come online to deal with that growth. "There are many new entrepreneurs starting new businesses based on new 'urban mining' business models - for instance, bringing supply and demand for recyclables closer to each other by novel technologies and virtual market places. Take a look at this week's recap for any blog posts you might have missed. The company will shortly be rebranded as Descycle. White said that DES has outperformed cyanide in every test to date. Because its not water-based, the metals behave differently, and thats how we can extract them so successfully.. You are more likely to find your old phone in China than in any of the neighbouring countries. Then there is the plastic, the glass and the battery. Then imagine how much it weighs just over 100,000 tonnes, in fact. According to a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the average cathode-ray tube television contains about 450g of copper and 227g of aluminium, as well as around 5.6g of gold.While a gold mine can generate five or six grammes of the metal per tonne of raw material, that figure rises to as much as 350g per tonne when the source is discarded electronics. Over 53 million tonnes in 2020 alone, according to the Global E-waste Monitor. New Recycling Technology to Make Rare Earth Recycling More Accessible, New Google Operating System Helps Preserve Old Devices, Landfill Fire Sparks Fire Safety Reminder, Amazon Relaunches Recycling Page for Small Devices, E-Scrap Bill Signed into Law in South Carolina, Maximizing Value in IT Assets Through Mobility Managed Services, Proper Data Center Decommissioning Can Help Protect Company Data, E-waste mining could be big business and good for the planet. 100% of the metals required to manufacture the gold, silver and bronze medals approximately 5,000 in total were extracted from small electronic devices that were contributed by people from all over Japan in a two-year period from April 2017 to March 2019.