Electronic Scrap: Do We Set the Right Priorities?

Today, most of these metals are not recovered in the recycling chain. But how important are these metals for the recycling of IT products? During the last years bifa Environmental Institute worked out several projects dealing with typical IT products on behalf of different clients. These projects targeted the structure and material composition of IT products, the investigation of the current recycling practice, LCA studies and a wide variety of options for improving the recycling. In quite a number of investigations on recycling processes and their material flows bifa analyzed the ecological and economic improvement potential of the current recycling practice for IT. Therefore, the compositions of the devices are analyzed and the quantities of bulk metals, preciousmetals and other critical metals are determined. Then the recycling paths are mapped in flowmodels from the dismantling and mechanical treatment to metallurgical processes: What happens to the contained metals and which amounts are lost in which steps of the value chain?