E Waste Epidemic

In this post I decided that some shocking facts related to e-waste may bring to light some of the many problems it causes and a positive outcome of recycling e-waste.

Fact 1.

E-Waste represents 2% of America’s landfills however it is equivalent to 70% of America’s toxic waste.

Fact 2.

Cell phones and other electronic items contain PRECIOUS  metals.

To put it in perspective in a year America will dump $60 million worth of gold/silver each year.

Feeding America can provide 9 meals for every $1, that means 540 million possible meals are being thrown out.

Tuition at Baruch for 4 years is roughly $23,000, that equivalent to 2,600+ tuition for students

Fact 3.

Recycling 1 million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year.

In 2010 51,900,000 computers were disposed.

Lets assume 30,000,000 out of the 51,900,000 are laptops. That means 100,000+ households could have electricity for a year.

Fact 4.

For every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, 35,274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.

35,274 pounds of copper = $116,404.20

772 pounds of silver = $240,864

75 pounds of gold = $1,462,400

33 pounds of palladium = $367,488

Total per 1 million cell phones = $2,187,156.20

If these numbers aren’t enough to convince you of the potential gain from recycling e-waste then maybe the following video will help you sympathize with those suffering from primitive e-waste recycling methods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_ubuFhqQA

1. http://www.dosomething.org/actnow/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-e-waste
2. http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-content/uploads/Facts_and_Figures_on_EWaste_and_Recycling.pdf

I noticed while going through my previous posts I had not fully gone into the proper process of recycling E-waste, so in this post I will attempt to break down the steps of properly breaking down E-Waste.

In Mississauga, a city outside of Toronto, Sims Recycling Solutions is known to have one of the most advanced recycling methods in the business. Sims Recycling Solutions has a new innovative way to deal with CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors and has been employing this method to efficiently and properly recycle.

The first step is to dismantle the monitor or TV screen by opening the casing and separating the glass screen portion from the casing. After the separation of the glass the inner CRT glass tube is removed from the plastic component of the casing and then sent into machine that breaks down the glass into smaller pieces. During this process dust is created which is drafted out of the machine by a air tube. This dust is made up of phosphorus materials that make up the CRT tube. There is also a small amount of glass powder in this dust. This dust that is created is also disposed of in an environmentally safe procedure. Once the dismantled components reach the other end of the machine the shredded down components are sent through the next stage of the process. In the second part of the process, ferrous materials are separated from the stream of shredded materials by electromagnets. The separated ferrous materials are then placed into large containers and are prepped for resale. After the separation of the ferrous materials has been completed the next step in the process is to separate non ferrous materials from the glass materials. This is achieved through what i understood as an Eddy Current. What happens during this process is the stream of shredded materials is subjected to an alternating source of positive and negative electromagnets which causes the non-ferrous materials to jump/leap away while the glass materials just fall straight down. Once the separation process is completed the non-ferrous materials is placed into large bins and also prepped for resale. The following step in the recycling process is to process the remaining glass materials. The stream of glass consists of leaded and unleaded glass. The inside of CRT is coated with phosphors which are cleaned during this stage (washing stage). Fans extract Iron Oxides, glass dust and phosphorous dust out of the air and this is sent to another part of the facility to be disposed of properly. At end of the extraction process clean glass is produced which is then sent to be sorted. This brings us to the final stage of the sorting process, which is to sort the leaded glass from the unleaded glass. This is accomplished by sending the stream of glass under a sensor that determines which glass is leaded versus unleaded. This information is stored on a computer and when leaded or unleaded glass reaches the end of the conveyor belt the computer knows to separate the different kinds. The separated glass is then packaged and prepped for resale.
This process explains the method used to recycle a CRT monitor or tv however it can also be used to recycle other electronic waste such as computers, cellphones, tablets, etc.

Below are some images of the process that explained above.

Roughly 70% of the E-waste produced by the world is shipped to China. Out of this percentage roughly 40% of the E-waste is treated properly in modern recycling plants, the other 60% is not recycled. The remaining 60% is stripped of the little precious metals that it has in an open fire. As explained in a previous in the previous post open fire burning of electronic waste pollutes the surrounding environment and creates a toxic gas that leads to acid rain.

China has made legislation in an effort to curb the amount of informal E waste recycling throughout the country. Originally china had attempted to stop all e waste recycling in China however, this was scrapped and china put into place environmental laws and regulations in order to keep pollution at bay.

“The Clean Production Promotion Law which stipulates that manufactures of products and packaging materials included in the mandatory recycle catalog have the responsibility to recycling their products and packaging materials at the end of life.”

“The Solid Waste Pollution Control Law which in principle regulates solid wastes should be reduced, properly recycled and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner, and institutions and individuals who generate solid wastes should take proper measures to prevent and reduce the pollution caused by those wastes”      – ScienceDirect.com

Although there are a variety of legislation in place to control the amount of informal e-waste recycling  China just doesn’t have the resources available to enforce the legislation that they put into effect.

In the table above you can see that the amount of workers in the Formal e waste industry compared to the informal (open fires) side of e waste is significantly less. China just doesn’t have the manpower or resources to transition e waste over to formal recycling.

Cell phones, Computers, TVs and other electronics are a part of everyday life for the world today. New devices are being introduced to the world every few months and this has been the trend for many years now. Electronic waste or E-waste is produced when older devices are thrown out. The U.S produces about 3 million tons of E-waste which is the most in the world followed up by China which produces about 2.3 million tons.  In the U.S only about 15% of electronic waste is recycled. Much of it is shipped to other countries such as China or Africa to be disposed.

The process that is used to dispose of E-Waste in some countries are very primitive and not only causes damage to the environment but is also a sever health risk. In the U.S. there are state of the art facilities designed to cleanly take care of e-waste however in other countries that don’t posses developed E-waste management usually use open air burning or acid baths to extract a few precious materials. This is an extremely dangerous process because e-waste contains many toxic materials.

“Electronic waste isn’t just waste, it contains some very toxic substances, such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, beryllium and brominated flame retardants. When the latter are burned at low temperatures they create additional toxins, such as halogenated dioxins and furans – some of the most toxic substances known to humankind. ” -E-Stewards.org

Just because u toss your old devices into a recycle bin doesn’t mean it actually ends up in a facility where it is 100% recycled in a clean and environment friendly manner. The E-waste epidemic is growing with the worlds need for the newest and most advanced devices.