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32 Substance flow analysis of the recycling of small WEEE circuit boards in TV sets and for DVD-players, they still contribute more than 40% (Hagelüken 2006a). Huisman (2004) revealed that in mobile phones, three–quarters of the environmental impacts result from the gold and palladium content. Gold accounts for 16% of the total environmental weight of the materials contained in waste IT and telecommunication equipment (excluding monitors), and palladium represents over 12% (Huisman et al. 2007). However, precious metals are not very relevant from an environmental point of view in all equipment types. For example, gold and palladium contribute about 2% to the environmental weight of the materials contained in cathode-ray-tube TV sets, the majority of the environmental weight coming from plastics and from the lead-containing glass cone and glass screen (Huisman et al. 2007). Table 4 presents the contribution of the precious metals gold, silver and palladium to the environmental weight of various types of sWEEE. Table 4 Contribution of precious metals to the environmental weight of some categories of sWEEE (Huisman et al. 2007) Category Gold Au Silver Ag Palladium Pd Small household appliances 0.02% 0.00% 0.09% IT and telecommunication excluding monitors 16.20% 0.32% 12.46% CRT computer monitors 1.12% 0.06% 0.83% LCD computer monitors 26.22% 0.22% 10.50% Consumer electronics excluding TV sets 3.78% 0.09% 1.33% CRT TV sets 7.62% 0.38% 5.84% LCD TV sets 4.16% 0.06% 2.61% Electrical and electronic tools 0.04% 0.00% 0.15% Toys, leisure and sports equipment 0.69% 0.02% 0.10% The concentration of precious metals in printed circuit boards is usually much higher than the concentration of precious metals in mined ores. Presently mined ores for the extraction of gold and palladium usually contain less than 10 g/t of precious metals (Hagelüken et al. 2005). Compared to the concentrations for PCB of personal computers of 250 g/t of gold and of 110 g/t of palladium (Hagelüken 2006a), the importance of recovering precious metals from electronics becomes obvious. Moreover, the environmental impacts of the secondary production in state-of-the-art operations are much lower than primary production (see 2.3.1). 2.4. Management of sWEEE According to Figure 1, the subsystem ‘management of sWEEE’ has one input, coming from the use phase, and three outputs (recovered, reused and discarded materials). WEEE management can be divided into following steps (Figure 3): (1) collection of sWEEE, (2) preprocessing, (3) recovery, reuse and/or disposal.
2. Background and definitions 33 Figure 3 Simplified chain of collection, pre-processing, reuse, recovery and disposal processes for sWEEE, focusing on recovery of precious metals After collection, sWEEE is in most cases pre-processed in order to generate appropriate material streams that are sent to the subsequent end-processing stages (recovery, reuse or disposal). Some sWEEE is not collected separately and, therefore, does not enter the recycling process chain. 2.4.1. Generation The WEEE discarded by the users is called ‘generated WEEE’. In this thesis, EEE going as second-hand good from a user to the next user is not considered as WEEE. Unused EEE stored for some years in households, businesses or institutions before being discarded is not considered either. 2.4.1.1. Previous estimations of WEEE generation UNEP (2005) reported that 20 to 50 million tonnes of WEEE are generated worldwide every year. Various researchers have estimated the sWEEE generated yearly in Germany and in the USA (Table 5). The total quantity of sWEEE produced in Germany per year was evaluated between 3.5 and 12.3 kg per capita per year. The studies refer to various periods (years 1992 to 2005). The discrepancies in the methods and basic assumptions used for the
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4. Data inventory 83 apparent gold.
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4. Data inventory 85 Table 33 Avera
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7. Recommendations 109 7. Recommend
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7. Recommendations 111 WEEE contai
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7. Recommendations 113 After collec
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7. Recommendations 115 in the case
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7. Recommendations 117 In many case
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7. Recommendations 119 manufacturer
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7. Recommendations 121 the manufact
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7. Recommendations 123 Reuter et al
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8. Conclusion 125 All the equipment
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References 127 Binder 2007 BITKOM 2
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References 129 CIWMB 2004b Clift &
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References 131 Greenpeace 2005 Gree
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References 133 Janz & Bilitewski 20
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References 135 Melissen 2006 Mesker
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References 137 Rhein et al. 2008 Rh
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References 139 StEP 2009 Stevels 20
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References 141 Veldhuizen & Sippel
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References 143 Legislative texts Ba
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Appendices 145 Appendix 1 Equipment
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Appendices 147 Appendix 2 Average c
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Appendices 149 Appendix 4 Past and
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Appendices 151 Eq. group Equipment
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Appendices 153 2 Assumptions based
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Appendices 159 Appendix 8 Flows of
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Appendices 161 Appendix 10 Flows of
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