Electronic Waste Management

Did you know electronic manufacturers are legally required to recycle a part of what they sell later? I have been researching on this topic for sometime now and found that if a company sold, say, 100 tonnes of ACs or phones 6–7 years ago, they’re asked to collect 60 tonnes (60%) of that back and recycle it responsibly (𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘌-𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 (𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵) 𝘙𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴, 2022) This target will further increase to 70% and 80% in subsequent years. Sounds fair, right? But imagine the headache for the manufacturers: ❓ How do they track lakhs of old electronic items sitting in homes and offices? ❓ How do they convince people to give them up? ❓ How do they build a pan-India logistics + recycling infra for this? For most brands, this is a compliance nightmare. I was recently deep-diving into Attero for their rare-earth recycling work, and that’s when I came across Selsmart's model, which is their own D2C platform. And it is exactly solving this gap. Selsmart helps brands: 🟢 Run exchange programs where consumers trade old electronic items for value. 🟢 Handle the entire pickup-to-recycling process via their tech platform. 🟢 Turn what was once just a legal burden into an actual sales funnel, because when customers get good value for old products, they’re far more likely to buy a new one. For consumers, it’s a win too. Instead of dumping an old fridge or phone with a random scrap dealer, you can hand it over into a responsible channel and get cash, vouchers, or discounts back. Honestly, it’s a smart way of making compliance fuel business growth, while fixing one of the biggest waste problems we have. Not everything “green” has to come at a cost. Sometimes it just takes rethinking the system.

Battery recycling using orange peels - pioneered by Prof Madhavi Srinivasan from the Energy Research Institute @ NTU. "One day, while she was at an orange juice vending machine, she thought why not just use one type of fruit peel for their project. She and her team then proceeded to make use of only orange peel, collected from the same canteen stall, to recover precious metals from spent batteries. Orange peel is rich in sugars and natural acids that boost the dissolution of metals, They have partnered with battery recycling and processing company Se-cure Waste Management (SWM) since 2023 to dissolve metals found in lithium-ion batteries being recycled by SWM with chemical solvents derived from fruit peel waste. The battery recycling facility can process up to 2,000 litres of spent shredded battery mixed with fruit-peel-derived solvents to extract electrode materials such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese. NTU and SWM plan to commercialise this process in 2024 and sell the recycled materials to battery makers around the world. “We have collected data that the cost reduction (of) using our technology is 20 to 40 per cent,” said Prof Madhavi, referring to the cost of the extraction process." https://lnkd.in/ghJnr4GR

Today is World Cleanup Day. One particular type of waste is the fastest growing one - e-waste. Over 50 million tons of e-waste are generated each year globally, with less than 20% being properly recycled. The environmental and health impacts are alarming—harmful chemicals pollute our air, soil, and water. Businesses can make a big difference - here's how: 1️⃣ Adopt a Circular Economy: Design products for durability, repair, and recycling. Keep electronic devices in the loop longer! 2️⃣ E-Waste Recycling Programs: Partner with certified e-waste recycling companies to ensure proper disposal and recovery of valuable materials. 3️⃣ Go Digital: Reduce paper use and unnecessary hardware purchases by leveraging cloud storage and digital collaboration tools. 4️⃣ Employee Awareness: Encourage responsible e-waste management among your workforce—host e-waste collection drives or offer incentives for recycling old devices! #ReduceEWaste #CircularEconomy #Sustainability #GreenTech #EcoFriendlyBusinesses

India is amidst a silent crisis. Homegrown, toxic, and completely avoidable one. India generates a lot of electronic waste, courtesy our technological boom. Take a look at your house - we have old mobile phones, TVs, accessories lying in drawers and rarely recycled responsibly. And a lesser known fact? These discarded electronics also contain rare earth elements (REEs) whose mining is largely dominated by China and the US. And with the recent ban of REE export by China, India finds itself in a fix with limited mining capabilities. But not everything is gloomy. Attero, India's largest recycling company, has built proprietary clean-tech to recycle materials (including REEs) and develop circular supply chains. They have recycled 1M+ metrics tons of waste - already offsetting 1M+ tons of CO₂ equivalent emissions. They deliver 98%+ metal recovery efficiency, recovering 22+ critical and rare earth metals from complex waste streams. So why does all of this matter? Because such world-class facilities help India reach its Net Zero goal faster. If we recycle materials like lithium, aluminum, and REEs - we reduce our carbon footprint significantly and emerge as a viable alternative to China's dominance in REE mining. While we all talk about air, water, and noise pollution. India's e-waste pollution has been looming since a decade and thankfully, companies like Attero are innovating for a cleaner, better future! #india #recycling

This stat about Black Friday truly shocked me. "Nearly 40 per cent of UK adults intend to buy a new phone in Black Friday promotions, rising to 53 per cent amongst those aged 18 to 24." Pressure from retailers, influencers and peers - along with fear of missing out on a good deal - all contribute to ‘Phone-mo’ around upgrades. What will happen to all the old phones? Alongside the strain on wallets, this ‘upgrade madness’ has a serious impact on the environment. Annual e-waste, including the rare materials found in phones, contribute to a $57B e-waste mountain every year. These materials include iron for the speakers and microphones, aluminium and magnesium for the frames and screen, copper, silver and gold for the electronic circuits, graphite and lithium for the batteries, silicon for the processor, and lead and tin for the solderings. Tons of materials are now sitting in drawers and cupboards in old phones. A phone’s birth is the most contaminating part of its life cycle: around 80% of each device’s carbon footprint is generated at the manufacturing stage, so buying a new phone is main contributor to environmental damage. Think about this: - Smartphones generate more GHGs than most consumer electronic devices. - Gold mining for tech is one of the main causes of Amazon deforestation - In Chile’s huge quantities of water are used to obtain the lithium for batteries - Smartphone recycling is below 15% in developed countries - Consumers buy new phones every 2-3 years More new stuff does not equate to more happiness. This Friday, if you are thinking about buying a new phone you might instead: - wait a year, it will be fine, or - consider a refurbished phone - both actions will save money - both actions are better for the environment #blackfriday #ewaste #circulareconomy I write about #Climate #ESG #Sustainability in my weekly #DalyPlanet digest. If you would like to receive that in your feed please follow me. Donal Daly

Can I politely suggest that you start auditing your ITAD partners? Far too many providers parrot phrases like “zero to landfill” but the truth is often the polar opposite. A recent BBC report makes grim reading: massive volumes of e-waste are still being dumped in developing countries. At sites like Agbogbloshie in Ghana, children are exposed to toxic fumes as they burn discarded electronics to extract precious metals. The result? Life-threatening respiratory problems, lead poisoning, and environmental devastation. Despite international regulations, illegal trafficking of e-waste is getting worse. To avoid getting sucked into this you need to be asking hard questions of your supply chain and providers, getting clarity on what happens with your waste and don’t take high level fluff as a valid response. Too many providers abdicate responsibility by pushing it out to other 3rd party companies. BTW - I’m not suggesting that all providers are bad, we have some absolutely awesome providers who offer quality services, the problem is that it can be hard to tell the good from the bad! https://lnkd.in/eGVZMegN

In an era of rapid technological advancement, it's crucial that we also tackle the challenges associated with electronic waste (e-waste). According to the UN's fourth Global E-waste Monitor (GEM), the generation of e-waste is accelerating five times faster than the rate of e-waste recycling. Astonishingly, the 62 million tonnes of e-waste generated in 2022 would be enough to fill 1.55 million 40-tonne trucks, creating a line that could circle the equator. This report, produced by ITU and UNITAR, highlights a significant issue: less than a quarter (22.3%) of the year's e-waste was properly collected and recycled, leaving $62 billion worth of recoverable natural resources unaccounted for and escalating pollution risks globally. The annual increase of e-waste by 2.6 million tonnes is expected to surge to 82 million tonnes by 2030—an additional 33% from 2022. E-waste, defined as any discarded product with a plug or battery, poses a health and environmental hazard due to toxic substances like mercury, which can harm the human brain and coordination system. A concerning prediction from the report is the anticipated decline in the collection and recycling rate to 20% by 2030. This is attributed to the expanding gap between recycling efforts and the exponential growth in e-waste generation, driven by factors such as technological progress, increased consumption, limited repair options, shorter product life cycles, the electronification of society, design issues, and inadequate e-waste management infrastructure. The report emphasizes that if the collection and recycling rates could reach 60% by 2030, the benefits, including reduced human health risks, would surpass the costs by over $38 billion. It also points out the world's "stunning dependence" on a few countries for rare earth elements vital for future technologies, such as renewable energy generation and e-mobility, underscoring the need for a more sustainable approach to handling e-waste. For more insights, download the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) report: https://lnkd.in/gZtSeHby

62 billion kg of e-waste in 2022. Only 22% was recycled. That’s 48 BILLION KGs.. ...either dumped, burned, or forgotten in storerooms. The real issue? Most firms don’t track what they own. Discarded switches, laptops, and servers become invisible liabilities. E-waste isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a failure in governance, process, and accountability. The solution isn’t new technology. It’s: Better records Smarter workflows Certified partners... ...who show up with trucks and certificates You can automate IT asset disposition inside ServiceNow or OTRS Group. ▸Set end-of-life triggers. ▸Attach recycling certificates. ▸Report WEEE compliance directly. Enviroserve UAE and Sims Limited India are certified ITAD partners. Dell Technologies, Lenovo, and Huawei run take-back schemes with secure data wipes. Do this ↬ Catalogue every IT asset. ↬ Assign an owner and disposal date. ↬ Automate disposition in your ITSM tool. ↬ Partner only with certified e-waste recyclers. ↬ Refurbish and reissue internally where possible. ↬ Use OEM programs to close the loop securely. E-waste is not someone else’s problem. It’s your hardware lifecycle. And ESG recovers real asset value. Track it. Reuse it. Prove it. Save this if you manage infrastructure.