E-Scrap
Although not to the same extent as in 2020, last year saw restrictions imposed at various times around the world in a bid to control the spread of Coronavirus, including directives from a number of governments that people should work from home whenever feasible. Thus, the pandemic continued to be responsible in significant measure for an increase in demand for electronics and, as a consequence, for a spurt in such equipment being returned for reuse or recycling.
This increase has come on top of the underlying uptrend in electronics demand. According to Statista, consumer spending on traditional and emerging technologies will exceed US$ 505 billion this year compared to US$ 422 billion in 2019, the year before the pandemic became a factor in most aspects of our lives.
Similarly, it has been estimated that WEEE amounted to around 57 million tonnes worldwide in 2021 and that subsequent growth will be at around 2 million tonnes per year. The most recent Global E-waste Monitor, dated 2020, projected that the volume of discarded products with a battery or plug such as computers and mobile phones will reach 74.7 million tonnes by 2030 – or almost twice the 2014 figure – thanks to higher electric and electronic equipment consumption rates, shorter lifecycles and limited repair options.
However, a competing force emerged in 2021 in the form of unprecedented disruption to global supply chains, again traceable to the pandemic. Of particular relevance to our sector, the global shortage of semiconductors had a critically adverse effect on producers’ abilities to finalize their products, resulting in lower consumption and thus reduced flows of WEEE into the reuse and recycling orbit.
The impact of wider events on our sector has also been illustrated by greater efforts among brand owners to enhance their environmental credentials under pressure from ever more environmentally aware consumers. The impetus among product manufacturers to reduce their carbon footprint has strengthened demand for secondary raw materials and significantly improved our price levels.
As we learned from Scott Newell III at our E-Scrap Committee webinar in November, high non-ferrous metals prices and increased quality requirements on imports has led to substantial investment in additional separation equipment; and fellow guest contributor Max Craipeau pointed out that many scrap plastics captured from WEEE are now selling at a premium to their virgin counterparts.
But while pro-environment factors are certainly helping to support our industry’s activities, the same cannot be said for the constraints imposed by many forms of transboundary shipment legislation. In this context, it was of particular concern towards the end of 2021 when the European Commission came forward with a proposal to revise the EU Waste Shipment Regulation in a way that would restrict movements of our industry’s materials, thereby driving down prices and undermining collection activity
While it is good to know that BIR can now plan with greater confidence for face-to-face Conventions in 2022, our webinars in 2021 were still extremely useful in that they enabled us to press the pause button on our normal working lives and to use the time-out to assess where we stand as an industry and in what direction we might be heading in future. At our May event, we had further confirmation of the ever-changing nature of e-scrap, with the average plastics share of electronic goods said to have jumped from below 20% in 2013 to nearer 30% a mere seven years later, thus requiring recycling processes to become yet more sophisticated.
In addition, guest contributor Klaus Hieronymi of the European Recycling Platform foresaw the possibility that initiatives such as the European Green Deal could lead to existing business models giving way to an extended circular economy built around repair, reuse and remanufacturing.
Also looking ahead, fellow guest Marc Affüpper of TSR Recycling GmbH & Co. KG identified the need for greater recognition of the recycling sector’s sustainability credentials; for more partnerships between the raw materials industry, manufacturers and recyclers; and also, crucially, for a more level regulatory playing field. Sad to say that this final need may prove to be little more than wishful thinking given the vast array of differing legislative approaches around the world.
Dr Helmut Kolba
Remondis Electrorecycling GmbH (DEU)
Chairman E-Scrap Committee
(January 2020 - May 2022)
Dr. Jan Visser
INTERIM CHAIRMAN E-SCRAP COMMITTEE
IMPORTANT FACTS
For most people, electronics such as TVs, mobile phones, tablets and laptops have become an essential part of their everyday lives. Worldwide, there is barely a corner of human activity which electronics have failed to penetrate, with an estimated 4.5 billion people now using the Internet, for example. Every year, a large proportion of these consumers buy new, updated equipment in a bid to keep pace with the latest technology trends.
The reuse, repair, refurbishment and eventual recycling of electrical and electronic equipment are not new activities. The repair of electrical and electronic equipment was a common activity for small businesses throughout most of the 20th century; however, manufacturers built in obsolescence in the 1990s and onwards, leading to a decline in the repairability of goods and in the number of repair shops. However, the public’s desire for longer-lasting, quality products is providing renewed impetus to refurbishment and repair, and as a result a better use of resources.
While cookers, refrigerators, freezers and air-conditioning units can last many years, consumer electronics become obsolete or unwanted often within two or three years of their purchase. The global mountain of e-scrap is expected to continue growing at more than 3% per year, according to BIR-commissioned research.
Recyclers have always found value in the metals contained in electrical and electronic equipment. However, recycling would be further facilitated if designs were to take full account of the ultimate recyclability of a product; some manufacturers have made great strides in this direction - partly in response to legislative and marketing pressure - but there is scope for further progress and for greater co-operation between product designers and recyclers.
IN-DEPTH BIR STUDY
As part of its remit to examine the potential for greater recycling, BIR’s E-Scrap Committee commissioned a study into both national arisings and transboundary movements of e-scrap. Based on real data and on an extrapolation of figures from some 180 countries around the world, this revealed that global generation of e-scrap is expected to soar from 41.2 million tonnes in 2016 to almost 54 million tonnes by the year 2025, with the fastest growth projected for the Asia-Pacific region where generation is anticipated to surge from 3.6 kg per inhabitant to 5 kg over the same nine-year period. By contrast, growth is thought likely to be significantly slower in the mainly saturated markets of North America and Europe.
STATISTICS
World Statistics on E-Scrap Arisings and the Movement of E-Scrap between Countries 2016-2025
RECYCLING PROCESSES
Depollution: Before material recycling, certain countries require best-practice depollution of scrap electrical and electronic equipment in order to remove hazardous components or materials to enable their environmentally sound management and to ensure they do not contaminate subsequent recycling processes or recycled materials.
Sorting: Scrap electrical and electronic equipment is generally hand-sorted and dismantled in order to separate out materials and components for reuse, repair or material recovery. The aim is to obtain the most value from the equipment as a whole, or from its components, or from its materials.
Shredding: After required pre-treatment, large electrical appliances such as cookers and washing machines are commonly shredded in large hammermills together with other metal scrap and pre-treated end-of-life vehicles. After the required pre-treatment, small electrical goods may be fed into smaller dedicated shredders using a variety of shredding methods. Depending on national laws, pre-treated refrigerators, freezers and cooling equipment may be shredded in dedicated enclosed shredders in order to capture gases used in their manufacture and use.
Recyclers aim to find a secondary raw materials market for plastics, glass from inside refrigerators and other non-metallic materials separated from scrap electrical and electronic equipment.
Media separation: Further separation is achieved using eddy-current separators, or high-pressure air flows or flotation systems using liquids of varying densities. Other processes may be necessary to separate materials from each other, recycling them separately.
Melting: The recovered metals are melted in a furnace. The melting, refining and alloying process is determined by the standardized composition necessary for the future applications of the metal alloys. The molten metal is then poured into moulds or cast into shapes. Later, they can be rolled into flat sheets used to manufacture new products.
