1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Disposition
One of the greatest challenges in electronics recycling is the recovery of plastics. Plastics
represent a high intrinsic value, but a low recycling value due to the difficulty in separation and
cleaning. One of the keys to the success of plastics in the marketplace has been the ability to
tailor the material to specific needs and requirements. This has lead to the development of
thousands of plastics, when one takes into account the different resins, fillers, additives, and
coloring agents that distinguish a particular plastic product. Segregation of these plastics into
marketable fractions is a tremendous challenge. Economically viable identification and
separation techniques are needed to ensure the purity of recovered materials. These are just
examples of some problems that must be overcome before the electronics recycling is an
economically viable venture.
5.5 Opportunities in Product End-of-Life Management
The value of retired computer systems, like other end-of-life electronic products, is increasingly
seen as manufacturing raw material replacement or commercial component recovery. In raw
material replacement, manufacturers substitute waste-recovered materials for virgin raw material
production. In component recovery, the system often retains some value if remanufactured or
reconditioned, or made available for secondary markets. Even those components with no
operating value may contain materials or sub-components that, if reclaimed and recycled, have
value for a variety of users. Finally, those that contain nothing recoverable must be disposed of
as waste in landfills or incinerated for energy recovery. The final category often challenges waste
to energy operators because of the metals and other component materials contained in end-of-life
electronic equipment.
5.5.1 Nature and Volume of Waste from Electronic Products
There is agreement developing that electronic products constitute approximately 1% of the MSW
content by weight [27, 28]. For the typical desktop PC, the primary materials entering the waste
stream include plastics (approximately 22% of the total volume), aluminum, lead, copper, iron,
and silica. In terms of metals recovery, aluminum, iron, tin, nickel, copper, gold and silver represent
the primary value opportunities. Plastics also represents a potentially valuable recyclable,
but the recycling efficiency demonstrated by the recovery process is no better than 20%. 12
Handy and Harman, a major provider of recycling services to electronic manufacturers, estimates
that the intrinsic value of a typical desktop system (i.e., the market value of the constituent
materials comprising the system) is about $51. Given the current efficiency of existing recycling
processes, about $31 of value can be recovered from the systems. The principal recovery values
are in aluminum, iron, copper, gold, and, despite the low recovery efficiency of existing systems,
plastics. However, this leaves an additional $20 in value that could be obtained if recovery efficiencies
were increased. The primary target for this effort should be the recovery of plastics.
In addition to the recovery value of components, there are potentially hazardous substances that
need to be managed during storage and transportation, as well as during the ultimate disposition
of electronic products, including cadmium, chloro-paraffins, chromium, copper, lead, mercury,
and silver compounds. Many of these materials can be recovered and recycled, sold to reusers, or
12 Statistics in this section are provided by Handy and Harman, and a specific breakdown, by material, of the components
in a computer system is given in Appendix I, Composition of Typical Desktop Computer System.
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