Recycling critical raw materials from waste electronic equipment

Figure 1: Global end-of-life recycling rates for 60 metals (Graedel et al. 2011)
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Recycling critical raw materials from waste electronic
equipment
Many of the critical metals examined in this study, especially the rare earths (lanthanides
plus scandium and yttrium) as well as tantalum, gallium and indium show total end-of-life
recycling rates of less than 1%. The recycling situation for precious metals (platinum,
palladium, gold, silver) and cobalt is significantly better with rates above 50%. There are
already advanced recycling methods for these metals and functioning collection systems, at
least for some applications (e.g. industrial catalysts, special alloys).
The study for the North Rhine-Westphalia State Agency for Nature, Environment and
Consumer Protection (Landesamt für Natur, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz Nordrhein-
Westfalen) will also continue to examine the important precious metals gold and silver. It
requires great effort to extract these sought-after and valuable metals from the natural ores.
They are therefore important drivers for recycling operations, particularly in the field of
electronic products. Many experts classify silver as a critical raw material, even though this is
not on the EC's list of 14 raw materials (Buchert et al. 2011). The aim of this study for the
North Rhine-Westphalia State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection is
to produce an analysis of the critical metal potential for the selected product groups and from
this, identify shortcomings in the recycling infrastructures and technologies in order to