2016 World Recycling Forum: Problems and solutions
2016 World Recycling Forum: Problems and solutions
<![CDATA[
“There is a gap in the circle; it’s not closed,” declared Rasmus Bergström of Sweden-based Stena Technoworld AB. Bergström made his comment during a session at the 2016 Word Recycling Forum: Electronics & Cars Recycling event, held in Macau, China, in mid-November.
The recycler said for a genuine closed loop to occur in the electronic scrap sector, more of the plastic must go into new products “to make clothes hangers or flower pots” rather than being used in waste-to-energy applications. “We want to put plastics back into the actual loop, [but] no one wants to pay for it,” he said of the wider public, electronics manufacturers and recyclers.
Bergström said studies indicate that some 8% of obsolete electronics in the EU are landfilled, some 52% are handled by “the illegal trade,” with some of that percentage being exported, and only about 35-to-40% is recycled properly. “This is a really inefficient system we have in Europe,” said Bergström, despite Europe’s clear directive on the handling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region faces similar challenges with WEEE generated there, but its government is making an investment designed to properly handle obsolete electronics, said Nigel Mattravers of Hong Kong-based ALBA Integrated Waste Solutions.
ALBA Integrated Waste Solutions (IWS) is a joint venture between Germany based ALBA Group and Hong Kong-based IWS. The JV partners are helping to design, build and then operate a plant that has a 10-year contract with the Hong Kong government to dismantle and recycle collected appliances and electronics.
For the system to work, said Mattravers, “you need legislation” to enable funding of the system and to assist in the collection of obsolete appliances and electronics. Such legislation has been drafted but not yet passed by the Hong Kong Legislative Council as of mid-November 2016. If the legislation is passed and enacted, a recycling fee will be placed on the retail level on covered appliances, which will include refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions, computers and monitors.
The plant being built by ALBA IWS is designed to handle 30,000 tonnes per year of WEEE materials and can be scaled up to handle 60,000 tonnes. The plant will include fluid drainage stations for air conditioners and refrigerators and dismantling stations for all incoming units. There are four processing lines, said Mattravers, equipped with shredders made by Germany’s Erdwich GmbH, followed by post-shredding materials separation systems.
One of the final stages in the WEEE recycling loop will always involve smelting and refining, said Fons Krist, who works from Singapore for Germany-based Aurubis AG. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) “have substantial value,” said Krist, but fully recovering this value can take several metallurgical processes.
Krist said the average lot of 10,000 tonnes of circuit boards refined by Aurubis contains about 20% copper, less than 1% precious metals, about 15% “other metals” (mostly steel and aluminium) and 64% plastic. In late 2016 market values, that is more than $63,000 in metals, he said, with the small precious metals fraction accounting for more than $50,000 of that and copper for another $11,000.
The informal recycling sector in places such as Pakistan and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region often remove metals from PCBs using unsafe methods. The end result can be “black ingots” that contain the metallic elements but that require further refining. Krist said Aurubis, from a corporate social responsibility viewpoint, “won’t go anywhere near” such ingots at its own melt shops.
The 2016 Word Recycling Forum: Electronics & Cars Recycling, was organized by Switzerland-based ICM AG and was Nov. 15-18 in Macau, China.
]]>
Source: Recycling Today
2016 World Recycling Forum: Problems and solutions
<![CDATA[“There is a gap in the circle; it’s not closed,” declared Rasmus Bergström of Sweden-based Stena Technoworld AB. Bergström made his comment during a session at the 2016 Word Recycling Forum: Electronics & Cars Recycling event, held in Macau, China, in mid-November. The recycler said for a genuine closed loop to occur in the electronic scrap sector, more of the plastic must go into new products “to make clothes hangers or flower pots” rather than being used in waste-to-energy applications. “We want to put plastics back into the actual loop, [but] no one wants to pay for it,” he said of the wider public, electronics manufacturers and recyclers. Bergström said studies indicate that some 8% of obsolete electronics in the EU are landfilled, some 52% are handled by “the illegal trade,” with some of that percentage being exported, and only about 35-to-40% is recycled properly. “This is a really inefficient system we have in Europe,” said Bergström, despite Europe’s clear directive on the handling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region faces similar challenges with WEEE generated there, but its government is making an investment designed to properly handle obsolete electronics,…