ISSUE 45: MARCH-MAY 2007

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UNU joins push to create world standards for e-scrap recycling

Standardizing recycling processes globally to harvest valuable components in electrical and electronic scrap (E-scrap), extending the life of products and markets for their reuse, and harmonizing world legislative and policy approaches to e-scrap are prime goals of a new global public-private initiative called Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP).

Major high-tech manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson, Philips and Cisco Systems, join UN, governmental, NGO and academic institutions, along with recycling / refurbishing companies as charter members of the initiative, officially launched March 7.

Valuable resources in every scrapped product with a battery or plug — computers, TVs, radios, wired and wireless phones, MP3 players, navigation-systems, microwave ovens, coffee makers, toasters, hair-dryers, to name but a few — are being trashed in rising volumes worldwide. Worse, items charitably sent to developing countries for re-use often ultimately remain unused for a host of reasons, or are shipped by unscrupulous recyclers for illegal disposal. And, too often, e-scrap in developing countries is incinerated, not only wasting needed resources but adding toxic chemicals to the environment, both local and global.

“There’s more than gold in those mountains of high-tech scrap,” says Ruediger Kuehr of the United Nations University, which will host the StEP Secretariat in Bonn. “This partnership is committed to salvaging these increasingly precious resources and preventing them from fouling the environment.”

In addition to well-known precious metals such as gold, palladium and silver, unique and indispensable metals have become increasingly important in electronics. "The large price spikes for all these special elements that rely on production of metals like zinc, copper, lead or platinum underline that supply security at affordable prices cannot be guaranteed indefinitely unless efficient recycling loops are established to recover them from old products,” says Mr. Kuehr.

Unqualified or unscrupulous treatment of e-scrap is still usual in many transition and developing countries. The inappropriate handling leads to:

• Emissions of highly toxic dioxins, furans and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), caused by burning PVC plastic and wire insulation;
• Soil and water contamination from chemicals such as: brominated flame retardants (used in circuit boards and plastic computer cases, connectors and cables); PCBs (in transformers and capacitors); and lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc, chromium and other heavy metals (in monitors and other devices). Studies show rapidly increasing concentrations of these heavy metals in humans; in sufficient dosages, they can cause neuro-developmental disorders and possibly cancer.
• Waste of valuable resources that could be efficiently recovered for a new product life-cycle. 

In many industrializing and developing countries, growing numbers of people earn a living from recycling and salvaging electronic waste. In most cases, though, this is done through so-called “backyard practices,” often taking place under the most primitive circumstances, exposing workers to extensive health dangers.

A global guide to dismantling e-scrap and maximizing the recovery and controlling recovered substances is a major StEP objective. A large-scale project to help e.g. China safely dismantle and dispose of its domestic e-scrap is also in the works. Maximizing resource re-utilization will help meet soaring demand in that country and India for increasingly scarce elements.

The StEP initiative is the offspring of UNU, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Other prominent charter partners include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Technical University Vienna (Austria), French National Institute of Telecommunication (France), Technical University Delft (Netherlands), University of Melbourne (Australia), State Secretary of Economics and EMPA (Switzerland), Regional Environmental Centre (Hungary), the Korea Institute of Geoscience & Mineral Resources, and Umicore Precious Metal Refining (Belgium).

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