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This story is from the category Life
Date posted: 09/07/2012 Urban mining' deposits are 40 to 50 times richer than mined ore, experts tell 1st GeSI and StEP e-Waste Academy in Africa; New PCs, cell phones, tablets, other e-products now use 320 tons of gold, 7,500 tons of silver per year, and rising. A staggering 320 tons of gold and more than 7,500 tons of silver are now used annually to make PCs, cell phones, tablet computers and other new electronic and electrical products worldwide, adding more than $21 billion in value each year to the rich fortunes in metals eventually available through "urban mining" of e-waste, experts say. Manufacturing these high-tech products requires more than $16 billion in gold and $5 billion in silver: a total of $21 billion -- equal to the GDP of El Salvador -- locked away annually in e-products. Most of those valuable metals will be squandered, however; just 15% or less is recovered from e-waste today in developed and developing countries alike. Electronic waste now contains precious metal "deposits" 40 to 50 times richer than ores mined from the ground, experts told participants from 12 countries at last week's first-ever GeSI and StEP e-Waste Academy for policymakers and small businesses, co-organized in Accra, Ghana by the United Nations University and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI). Quantities of gold, silver and other precious metals available for recovery are rising in tandem with the fast-growing sales of electronic and electrical goods, including the new category of tablet computers (with 100 million in estimated unit sales this year, a figure expected to almost double in 2014). With respect to gold alone, electronic and electrical products consumed 5.3% (197 tons) of the world's supply in 2001 and 7.7% last year (320 tons -- equal to 2.5% of the US gold reserves in the vaults of both Fort Knox, Kentucky, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). In that same decade, even as the world's annual gold supply rose 15% -- from about 3,900 tons in 2001 to 4,500 tons in 2011 -- the price per ounce leapt from under $300 to more than $1,500. Thanks to the volume and value of precious metals it contains, the percentage of e-waste collected in developing countries is estimated to be as high as 80-90% in countries with an active informal recycling sector. However, some 50% of the gold in e-waste is lost in crude dismantling processes in developing countries (compared with 25% in developed countries); just 25% of what remains is recovered using backyard recycling processes (compared with 95% at a modern high-tech recycling facility). The bottom line in rich and poor countries alike: just 10-15% of the gold in e-waste is recovered; at least 85% is lost. "Efforts such as the GeSI and StEP e-Waste Academy help create networks among policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders for sharing information, ideas and best practices to foster real e-waste solutions and enable the transition to a closed loop and green economy," said Luis Neves, Chairman of GeSI. "More sustainable consumption patterns and material recycling are essential if consumers continue to enjoy high-tech devices that support everything from modern communications to smart transport, intelligent buildings and more." "Rather than looking at e-waste as a burden, we need to see it as an opportunity," Alexis Vandendaelen of Belgium-based Umicore Precious Metals Refining told the participants. He recommended replacing notions of "waste management" with "resource management," to enlarge a focus on the mass and volume of used materials to include the quality of certain waste fractions, and to use solutions appropriate to local circumstances combined with internationally available strengths to pursue efficient, environmentally-sound recycling. A "best of two worlds" approach is needed for domestically-generated e-waste in developing countries: efficient local pre-processing followed by maximum recovery of materials and proper treatment of residual waste in countries with the best technologies for the job, with proceeds shared fairly and equitably. See the full Story via external site: www.sciencedaily.com Most recent stories in this category (Life): 17/05/2013: IT industry ignores silver surfers at its peril |
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