10 Billion dollars a year wasted on Critical Raw Materials

  circular economy | October 13, 2023

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renewable

Critical Raw Materials not recycled from WEEE end up in landfill, depriving the ecological transition of a key source.

There is no more time to waste in building supply chains for the recycling of critical raw materials

Electronic devices that pass through the hands of consumers and become waste contain critical raw materials worth $10 billion per year. A surprising figure, calculated by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

We are talking about toys, electrical cables, e-cigarettes, razors, headphones and many other electronic devices and gadgets. Each of them contains one or more precious metals, including gold, silver, copper, lithium and many others.

The ecological and digital transition is largely based on these raw materials, for which a growth in demand is expected that worries analysts. Where to get these affordable minerals to finance green technologies? To date, some of the most important are concentrated in a few countries, which dictate their price and production levels, such as China, for example.

That's why the emphasis on recycling critical raw materials is growing. Moreover, the UN study shows that there are real "unthinkable" mines in our cities and landfills.

More than a third of the "invisible" waste surveyed by the report comes, for example, from toys such as remote-controlled cars, talking dolls, robots and drones. Every year 7.3 billion of these objects are thrown away around the world. Then there are around 900 million e-cigarettes thrown away, which by weight would be equivalent to around ten Eiffel Towers. To give another example, the 950 tons of cables containing recyclable copper that ended up in landfills last year could have wrapped around the Earth 107 times. WEEE legislation is still lacking worldwide. In Europe, where performance is highest, 55% of electrical and electronic waste is recycled. The global average, however, is just over 17%. There are some territories where the recycling rate reaches almost zero. A policy that is more attentive to recycling is necessary and does not focus only on the goal of the first result: it is not only necessary to recycle the material intended to be recovered, but it is also necessary to know about the use of further waste material derived, which does not become polluting or crammed into landfills. In fact, currently analyzing the different technologies in the world for the recovery of matter, the truly innovative one is given by the HPP technology which seems to satisfy both the recovery of Critical Raw Materials and the Circular Economy because it also produces electricity and clean hydrogen from the waste material.