Electronic Waste Recycling and Disposal

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is said to be the fastest growing stream of hazardous waste in the world. E-waste includes a variety of inputs including hazardous materials, potentially valuable and recycled materials, and other inputs. E-waste follows a series of avenues after disposal in developed and under-developed country contexts, including formal and informal recycling, storage and dumping. Globally, the handling and regulation of e-waste both as a hazardous waste stream and as a source of secondary raw materials has undergone significant changes over the past decade. Many countries have adopted increasing manufacturer responsibility laws, which oblige electronics manufacturers to pay for proper recycling and disposal of electronics. The e-waste recycling industry is becoming more formal as the ability to recover valuable materials has increased, but a series of recent studies have shown that e-waste recycling continues to pose a range of occupational health and environmental risks keeps.

 Electronic waste, sometimes referred to as e-waste or waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), is a highly diverse stream of hazardous waste. This waste stream consists of any electronic goods the consumer or business intends to dispose of, or is no longer useful for its original purpose. E-waste has generated a significant amount of public and political interest due to a confluence of factors, including: exponential growth in the generation of e-waste management, the potential value of recycling waste to recover precious metals and other elements , And environmental and human health risks are inappropriately linked to storage, disposal and recycling e-waste. Some of the key responses to the growing generation of e-waste (and the increasing demand for secondary raw materials involved) include the development of manufacturer "take-back" legislation, technological innovation in recycling processes, and the formation of partnerships. . Facilitating the transfer of e-waste between informal and formal recycling sectors.

E-waste or plastic waste management is an incredibly complex waste stream, as it covers a wide range of items and the precise composition of many electronic components is considered a trade secret, meaning that they are confidential information of the manufacturer. Generally speaking, "modern electronics can have 60 different elements; Many are valuable, some are dangerous and some are both. The most complex mixture of materials is usually present in printed wiring boards (PWBs). To use a specific example, a periodic table in the contents of a mobile phone contains more than 40 elements, including special metals such as copper (Cu) and tin (Sn), special metals such as cobalt (Co), indium (In ) And Surma (SB), and precious metals including silver (Ag), gold (Au), and palladium (Pd).

Electronics that were used in industrial or commercial applications, such as medical devices, have been recycled in the formal recycling industry for more than 40 years. These large commodities are often exported to specialized facilities within industrialized countries in the OECD where they are processed for the purpose of extracting secondary raw materials. Consumer electronic waste from small items such as cell phones and televisions has not historically been profitable to recycle in countries with high labor costs, as the amount of recoverable valuable materials is relatively small. Therefore, these items are usually either stored in consumers' homes, or exported (often illegally) to less developed countries such as China, India, Ghana and Nigeria, where they are used for low-tech items such as Reform informal using. In the form of manual neutralization, open burning and acid leaching to recover gold, copper and other valuable metals. These methods create subsistence livelihoods for workers, but also harm the environment as a result of toxic materials in consumer electronics resulting in significant threats to human health and the environment. This chapter will explore these traditional recycling efforts and the ways in which they are evolving with global economic development and the introduction of new recycling processes and technologies.