“Control-Alt-Delete”: Rebooting Solutions for the E-Waste Problem

Li, Jinhui; Zeng, Xianlai; Chen, Mengjun; Ogunseitan, Oladele A.; Stevels, A.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b00449

Cited by 208 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 151 publications

(246 reference statements)

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“…One of the central challenges in planning sustainable WEEE management schemes remains the task of predicting current and future quantities of e-waste [29][30][31][32]. Although a framework for assessing quantities of e-waste in EU countries exists, further improvement 2 of 10 would benefit all regions [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Link between e-Waste and GDP—New Insights from Data from the Pan-European Region

Kusch

Hills

2017

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Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is difficult to sustainably manage. One key issue is the challenge of planning for WEEE flows as current and future quantities of waste are difficult to predict. To address this, WEEE generation and gross domestic product (GDP) data from 50 countries of the pan-European region were assessed. A high economic elasticity was identified, indicating that WEEE and GDP are closely interlinked. More detailed analyses revealed that GDP at purchasing power parity (GDP PPP) is a more meaningful measure when looking at WEEE flows, as a linear dependency between WEEE generation and GDP PPP was identified. This dependency applies to the whole region, regardless of the economic developmental stage of individual countries. In the pan-European region, an increase of 1000 international $ GDP PPP means an additional 0.5 kg WEEE is generated that requires management.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Link between e-Waste and GDP—New Insights from Data from the Pan-European Region

Kusch

Hills

2017

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“…This will reduce the volume needed for transportation and also reduce the transportation distance, thus reducing the costs and greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation. This "best of two worlds" approach for recycling ("to seek technical and logistic integration of best preprocessing in developing countries to manually dismantle e-waste and best end-processing to treat hazardous and complex fractions in international state-of-the-art end-processing facilities" [28,29]) can be an effective tool to improve recycling rates.…”

Section: Processing Facilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Waste and Existing Processing Routes: A Canadian Perspective

Kumar

Holuszko

2016

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Electrical and electronic products have become an integral part of the current economy and, with the development of newer technologies, the life span of these products are getting shorter. As a consequence, the volume of electronic waste is increasing drastically around the globe. With the implementation of new rules, regulations, and policies by the government, the landfilling of electronic waste has been reduced. The presence of valuable metals in the e-waste stream provides a major economic benefit for recycling industries but, due to the presence of hazardous materials, a proper recycling technique is required prior to the disposal of the e-waste. The total e-waste generated in Canada was 725 kt in 2014. There are several organizations currently working in various provinces to deal with the collection and recycling of e-waste. These organizations collected nearly 20% of the total e-waste generated in 2014. The collection rate for e-waste can be boosted by increasing awareness and by creating more centers to collect all kinds of e-waste. The collected e-waste is processed at local processing facilities mostly dealing with dismantling and hazardous material removal processes and then shipping the remaining material to a central location for subsequent processing.

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“…As significantly increasing collection rates of WEEE LCD devices are expected over time, the development of appropriate recycling processes for indium recovery has been in focus recently [15,[31][32][33]. Various studies present methodologies for the recovery of indium from LCD panels using mechanical, thermal, and pyro-and hydrometallurgical approaches [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential and Recycling Strategies for LCD Panels from WEEE

et al. 2017

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Indium is one of the strategically important materials, which have been characterized as critical by various industrialized countries. Despite its high relevance, only low recycling rates are realized. Its main application is in indium tin oxide (ITO), which is used in the production of liquid crystal displays (LCD). However, recovery strategies for indium from LCDs are not yet being implemented in recycling practices. Although LCDs consist of a sandwich compound with additional materials such as glass (80% ± 5%) and polarizer foils (20% ± 5%), recently published recycling approaches focus mainly on the recovery of indium exclusively. This study, first of all, provides information about the quantity and quality of the materials applied in the LCD panels of the various equipment types investigated, such as notebooks, tablets, mobile phones, smartphones, PC monitors, and LCD TVs. The highest indium mass fraction per mass of LCD was determined in mobile phones and the least indium was found in smartphones. Additionally, we found the significant use of contaminating metals like antimony, arsenic, lead, and strontium in the glass fraction. Thus, specific recovery strategies should focus on selected equipment types with the highest indium potential, which is directly related to the sales of new devices and the number of collected end-of-life devices. Secondly, we have developed and successfully tested a novel recycling approach for separating the sandwich compound to provide single output fractions of panel glass, polarizer foils, and an indium concentrate for subsequent recycling. Unfortunately, the strongly varying content of contaminating metals jeopardizes the recycling of this output fraction. Nonetheless, economic recycling approaches need to address all materials contained, in particular those with the highest share in LCD panels such as polarizer foils and panel glass.

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“Control-Alt-Delete”: Rebooting Solutions for the E-Waste Problem

Cited by 208 publications

References 151 publications

The Link between e-Waste and GDP—New Insights from Data from the Pan-European Region

The Link between e-Waste and GDP—New Insights from Data from the Pan-European Region

Electronic Waste and Existing Processing Routes: A Canadian Perspective

Potential and Recycling Strategies for LCD Panels from WEEE

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