Refine
Document Type
- Report (5)
- Peer-Reviewed Article (4)
- Working Paper (4)
- Part of a Book (2)
- Conference Object (2)
Division
This report details current and potential recycling of critical metals in Waste from Electrical Electronic Equipment (WEEE). The term "critical metals" is used instead of "rare metals" because the concept incorporates not only supply but also demand. The EU needs access to these metals and recycling can be an important part of the supply-strategy.
The study shows that the current recycling of critical metals in WEEE is very low, but that the potential amount could be increased threefold within 2015. Improving of the recycling of critical metals requires a variety of initiatives tackling different week point in the overall process: better collection, better pre-processing and end-processing, limiting the export of WEEE or used products out of the EU and better design of the EEE-products.
This study shows that data on sales volumes, WEEE composition and the composition of critical metals in EEE is currently insufficient for detailed analysis and monitoring, and addressing this should be a priority. Further, more detailed information on components used in EEE product groups would enable recyclers to identify and access the most materially important components. Dialog between recyclers, smelters and manufacturers could also facilitate product design that supports the recycling process.
In the past few decades, geochemically scarce metals have
become increasingly relevant for emerging technologies in
domains such as energy supply and storage, information and
communication, lighting or transportation, which are regarded as
cornerstones in the transition towards a sustainable post-fossil
society. Accordingly, the supply risks of scarce metals and possible
interventions towards their more sustainable use have been
subject to an intense debate in recent studies. In this article, we
integrate proposed intervention options into a generic life cycle
framework, taking into account issues related to knowledge
provision and to the institutional setting. As a result, we obtain
a landscape of intervention fields that will have to be further
specified to more specific intervention profiles for scarce metals
or metals families. The envisioned profiles are expected to have
the potential to reduce action contingency and to contribute to
meeting the sustainability claims often associated with emerging
technol ogies.
During the last century, the consumption of materials for human needs increased by several orders of magnitude, even for non-renewable materials such as metals. Some data on annual consumption (input) and recycling/waste (output) can often be found in the federal statistics, but a clear picture of the main flows is missing. A dynamic material flow model is developed for the example of copper in Switzerland in order to simulate the relevant copper flows and stocks over the last 150 years. The model is calibrated using data from statistical and published sources as well as from interviews and measurements. A simulation of the current state (2000) is compared with data from other studies. The results show that Swiss consumption and losses are both high, at a level of about 8 and 2 kg/(cap year), respectively, or about three times higher than the world average. The model gives an understanding of the flows and stocks and their interdependencies as a function of time. This is crucial for materials whose consumption dynamics are characterised by long lifetimes and hence for relating the current output to the input of the whole past. The model allows a comprehensive discussion of possible measures to reduce resource use and losses to the environment. While increasing the recycling reduces losses to landfill, only copper substitution can reduce the different losses to the environment, although with a time delay of the order of a lifetime.