Electronic Waste and Existing Processing Routes: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract

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.

Determinants of Individuals’ E-Waste Recycling Decision: A Case Study from Romania

“…As the topic of e-waste recycling is vast, a series of papers have addressed this problem in different countries contexts such as: Brazil [22], Canada [23], China [24][25][26][27][28], Costa Rica [29], Ghana [30,31], Greece [32], Hong Kong [24], India [33], Italy [34], Japan [26], Mexico [35,36], New Zealand [7], Nigeria [19,37], South Korea [26], Sri Lanka [38], Taiwan [26,39], United Kingdom [40], United States [41], Vietnam [42], etc., by studying various aspects related to the e-waste recycling process in the context of the behavior of the consumers' located in these areas.…”

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

“…The responsible collection and recycling of WEEE reduces environmental harm [6,7] and facilitates the recovery of valuable materials [8][9][10], including rare earth elements and other critical raw materials (e.g., indium and gallium) that are of vital importance for modern economies [11][12][13][14]. The recycling of WEEE is a complex task requiring an effective technical infrastructure and managerial framework [15,16], and it has potential to generate significant economic wealth from recovered rare and important metals [12,17,18]. By way of example, the economic potential for recycling waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) from WEEE collected from EU households alone, was estimated to be 3-6 thousand million EUR (profitability as net present value) for 2030 [19].…”

The Social Cost of Informal Electronic Waste Processing in Southern China

“…However, national e-waste generation rates have outpaced e-waste collection rates. In Canada in 2014, 20 percent of the e-waste generated was processed through recycling programs, while the remaining 80 percent entered landfills or were informally processed overseas (Kumar and Holuszko 2016). The amount of e-waste processed in lower income countries continues to grow.…”