Benefits of E-waste recycling

September 06, 2013

Annually, electronics manufacturing companies produce thousands of electronic products that tend to the growing population and their needs. These electronic goods like computers, mobile phones and televisions are manufactured using plastic, lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminum, copper, silver and other non- bio degradable substances which are usually hazardous to environment. . Hazardous materials that make up the electronic goods cannot be land filled as it mixes with the soil and the ground water table creating toxicities in the soil and water.

To save the environment from e-waste the concept of e-waste recycling is gaining in popularity. E-waste recycling means using the already used electronic product. It can be done by using the usable parts of the product in creating new or re-furbished items. The facts that have been extracted are such that every one million mobile phones when recycled or re furbished- 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium apart from the plastic encasing are recovered. Whenlaptops are recycled, the energy saved is equivalent to the electricity consumed by more than 3,500 US homes in a year

Electronic goods can be either recycled or refurbished by changing the hardware or by upgrading the software in case of laptops and computers. The glass screens from the television screens can be extracted to create newer televisions or other devices. Mobile phone batteries can be recycled separately and furnished with newer materials enabling it to be used in other devices.

Developing countries lack the infrastructure and therefore the pressure for recreating and recycling electronic goods cannot be handled by them resulting in the hazardous effect on the environment. Therefore, the initiative of recycling should be taken up with zest by the developed countries to produce recycled goods.

Guiyu in China is considered to be the e-waste capital of the world as this city employs thousands of workers who disassemble the wasted electronic goods and extract the parts that can be recycled and used to create further electronic goods.

Metal recycling is a very innovative thought as it saves up on the cost and energy incurred on creating newer products frequently. One can also be socially helpful by donating their used electronic goods by upgrading them and helping the underprivileged in their society.