WEEE Recycling

Question 1

What is WEEE?

Answer 1

Waste electrical, electronic equipment. For example: lamps, monitors, household appliances, phones, computers, etc.

Question 2

What are the issues with WEEE and why should it be recycled?

Answer 2

• Most of the critical metals exist in significant concentrations in WEEE. Materials scarcity and supply risk become important.
• Currently only 30 % is recycled.
• Environmental recycling reasons:
  
  • Toxic components, landfilling => pollution
  • Landfilling not allowed in the EU
• Economic recycling reasons:
  
  • Precious metals and plastics recovery
• Recycling all WEEE is not feasible b/c of high treatment costs. Complex process due to the large no. of different components.
• The combination of public conscience, adequate policy, and technical capability, is required to improve WEEE recycling.

Question 3

From WEEE, what can/can’t be recovered?

Answer 3

Ferrous metals and copper can be well recovered. Other precious metals, like gold and palladium, are more difficult to recover. This could be prevented by manual removal.

Question 4

Is there a mature processing technology for WEEE recycling? What’s the current practice?

Answer 4

A typical industrial process is the pyrometallurgical process (smelting and refining). Thermal treatment of minerals and metallurgical ores and concentrates to bring about physical and chemical transformations in the materials, in order to enable recovery of valuable metals.However, this process is not ‘mature’ yet - loss of metals, high capita investment, flue dust recovery and waste gas treatment.

Question 5

What are the current problems and challenges of WEEE recycling?

Answer 5

• Low collection rate, although EU goal of 85 % in 2019.
• As waste has been increasing in amount, the treatment costs are increasing. Export of WEEE has become a large informal business.
  
  • These imports provide a source of jobs for many, although toxic for the workers and polluting the environment. Very low recovery rate, ~ 25 %.
  • Although the Basel Ban has forbidden this practice, still performed in South-East Asian and African countries.

Question 6

What are the social, legislative, economic, and technical factors influencing the e-waste recycling?

Answer 6

• Social: public awareness, regarding environmental effects, stimulates collection of WEEE
• Legislative: landfilling not allowed in the EU, stimulates recycling
• Economic: a lot of valuable metals involved, generally recycling should be profitable or at least economically acceptable
• Technological: aim to separate very different components and substances, all components should be properly recovered. Recycling technique is still developing/improving. Although currently there are still too many losses.