Electronic scrap

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Example of electronic waste

Under electronic waste or electronic waste refers to electrical and electronic equipment or components thereof, which are not used more, were they either their intended task no longer meet or replaced with better equipment. Electronic scrap can be classified into different categories.

According to a UN report, around 50 million tonnes of electronic waste are generated worldwide each year, of which only 20% are properly recycled.

As part of electronics disposal, used devices in Germany must be taken back by the device manufacturers for disposal and disposal.

Classification in Germany

Since the introduction of the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act (ElektroG), electrical and electronic equipment has been divided into ten device categories, which are assigned to six collective groups:

  • Collection group 1: heat exchangers
  • Collective group 2: Screens, monitors and devices containing screens with a surface area of ​​more than 100 square centimeters
  • Collection group 3: lamps
  • Collection group 4: Large household appliances (> 50 cm)
  • Collection group 5: small household appliances (<50 cm)
  • Collection group 6: photovoltaic modules

Danger and opportunity

Cell phone scrap

On the one hand, electronic scrap consists of valuable materials that can be recovered as secondary raw materials . On the other hand, it contains a large number of heavy metals such as lead , arsenic , cadmium and mercury , halogen compounds such as polybrominated biphenyls , PVC , chlorinated, brominated and mixed halogenated dioxins and other highly toxic and environmentally hazardous substances. Dioxins are carcinogenic, teratogenic , very long-lived and accumulate in fatty foods (meat, milk ...) ( bioaccumulation ). The use and placing on the market of components containing PCBs has been banned in the EU since the 1980s ( PCB Prohibition Ordinance ), which is why they are no longer significantly present in today's electrical and electronic scrap.

Electronic devices have a shorter product life cycle than before; their number has increased sharply worldwide. Germany's 38 million households produced an estimated 1.1 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2005 (source ZVEI ). Switzerland is the first country in the world to have introduced an electronic waste recycling system; it has been in operation since 1991.

Electronic waste recycling by hand in India

Some industrialized countries , including the USA, European countries and Australia, prefer to export their electronic waste to emerging and developing countries . It is estimated that 50 to 80% of e-waste from industrialized countries is exported mainly to Asia and Africa. There, substances are removed from the electronic scrap with the simplest of means (fire, hammer and tongs, acid bath, etc.) and with great strain on people and the environment. In Africa alone, around 1.2 million tons of lead-acid batteries are recycled every year . A good 800,000 tons of lead are extracted from this, most of which is exported from Africa back to the European Union . In addition to adults, children often also do this recycling. This recycling, in turn, often leads to lead poisoning .

In order to prevent the cross-border traffic of hazardous waste, many countries signed the Basel Convention . The signatory countries undertake, among other things, to recycle electronic waste in the country of origin.

Causes of scrapping

In the past, the main cause of scrapping was a technical defect in the device. Today other causes of scrapping are often in the foreground:

  • missing or overpriced wear and tear or spare parts:
    • Wear parts that have to be replaced regularly (e.g. batteries, ink, toner) are no longer available. Functional devices must therefore be scrapped.
    • Planned obsolescence , d. H. Premature aging or failure of technical devices due to constructive measures taken by the manufacturer. Repairs to such devices are often no longer economical.
    • The prices for spare parts are excessive or have no relation to the new or current value of the device. Partly on purpose (new purchase stimulates the market), partly because of the high diversity of spare parts and the corresponding expenditure on storage.
    • Repair costs are (too) high in relation to production costs due to their hardly possible automation.
    • Other transaction costs , e.g. B. Transport costs to a distant workshop.
  • Insufficient performance or no update options:
    • Newer operating systems require more performance (e.g. Windows XP → Windows 7 → Windows 8 → Windows 10). The hardware is not performing as the user expects.
    • New operating system versions are no longer compatible with older hardware or are not offered (prime example: cell phones). The older operating systems contain security problems that can no longer be eliminated.
  • moral wear and tear:
    • Newer devices have a better benefit-to-sale price ratio. Older devices lose their value as a result.
  • deteriorated interoperability in a more developed environment:
  • Fashion / Design: Consumers want variety and / or prefer the design of a new device.
  • Bad purchases, for example due to insufficient product information: In the case of cheap products, reselling is unprofitable and the reverse transaction is not always possible
  • Saturation: When a household is dissolved, there are no interested parties for devices that are actually still functional, as all potential buyers already have one.

Legal regulations in the EU

Processing of electronic waste in the electronic waste landfill in Agbogbloshie , Ghana

In the EU , the handling of electronic scrap is regulated by the WEEE Directive , which has been implemented in Germany in the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act (ElektroG).

The EU member states had to have a functioning e-waste recycling system up and running by August 13, 2005 and, from December 2006, had to recycle at least 4 kg per person and year. The new EU Member States received a 2 year postponement, Slovenia 1 year. An electronic scrap recycling system includes the manufacturer's obligation to take back their electronic scrap and dispose of it properly. Different models are implemented depending on the country. Basically, it is about the collection, reuse and recycling of the devices, whereby the manufacturer - and ultimately the end user - must finance the system.

For devices that were manufactured before August 13, 2005, either the previous waste regulations apply depending on the country (Germany: private people dispose of via the local authorities , commercial people have to dispose of them themselves). Other concepts and countries are more accommodating with historical electronic scrap and, as in Switzerland, also take it back free of charge in the interests of environmental protection.

Another EU directive, RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), also requires that certain hazardous substances are no longer used in production and that others such as mercury , cadmium , chromium and lead are avoided.

Recycling opportunities

Processing of electronic scrap in a recycling company
Electronic waste container

The most environmentally friendly form of recycling electronic waste is to reuse the devices or individual components , possibly after a repair (e.g. second-hand devices or as a donation e.g. linux4afrika ). If that is not practical or possible, the offers recycling of the contained metals or plastics at. Thus it is necessary - depending on the complexity and pollutant content (electronic components) - The device or assembly manually disassembled be before a mechanical processing (eg. Shredder ) can be made. In addition to environmental aspects, economic aspects are also important: Rising prices for metals (see raw materials exchange ) make recycling of electronic waste commercially attractive, with only around half of electronic waste in the European Union being recycled. In addition to secondary raw materials such as metals of all kinds, there are mainly plastics that are now usually burned in waste incineration plants in addition to the fuels otherwise required . For a long time, the third largest group of substances was lead-containing glass from picture tubes . It used to be used again to make picture tube glass. The picture tube has been replaced by flat screens in many markets .

Some hazardous substances from electrical (electronic) scrap recycling end up in the hazardous waste incinerator or in a hazardous waste dump .

Disposal of LED and energy saving lamps

Lamps to be disposed of separately

Defective or disused energy-saving lamps ( compact fluorescent lamps ) are hazardous waste because they contain mercury and other problematic substances in lamps, starters and electronics and are therefore also covered by the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act (ElektroG) in Germany . Proper disposal, separated from household waste or commercial waste similar to household waste, not only serves to protect the environment , but also to protect the health of people who come into contact with the waste. Mercury evaporates from broken tubes at room temperature.

LED lamps should also be disposed of with the electronic waste, even though they do not contain any toxic substances. They should not be thrown in the trash or in the glass container as they contain electronic components, some of which can be recycled.

More than 90 percent of the raw materials such as copper , aluminum and tin as well as the phosphors can be recycled. For mercury, this usually only applies if the glass bulb is undamaged, as it evaporates at room temperature. Lead , chromium and cadmium are no longer permitted and should therefore only be found in older lamps (manufactured before July 2006).

Due to the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act and the associated EU WEEE regulation, manufacturers, but not dealers, of fluorescent lamps are obliged to take them back throughout the EU; this has been in effect in Germany since March 24, 2006. In Germany, the collection is organized by the return logistics company Lightcycle .

Untapped potential

According to an extrapolation from 2020, around 199.3 million old smartphones or cell phones are lying around unused in households in Germany alone and are not returned to the recycling cycle. Proper disposal would make it possible to reuse the high-quality raw materials and rare earths , the extraction of which is energy and resource intensive.

See also

literature

Broadcast reports

(Christian Salewski follows his two television sets given for recycling to Agbogbloshie)

Web links

Commons : Electronic waste  - collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ What is electronic waste? at ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Müllwirtschaft.de ); accessed on February 11, 2014.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.xn--mllwirtschaft-wob.de
  2. ↑ Environment and health at increasing risk from growing weight of 'e-waste'. January 24, 2019, accessed January 25, 2019 .
  3. ^ The Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE): A New Circular Vision for Electronics. (PDF; 9.2 MB) World Economic Forum, January 2019, accessed on January 24, 2019 .
  4. ^ Christian Josef Graber: Changes to ElektroG (2018) groups. (PDF) EAR Foundation, November 28, 2019, accessed on November 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ ElektroG - Law on the placing on the market, return and environmentally compatible disposal of electrical and electronic equipment. Retrieved February 9, 2018 .
  6. ^ Greenpeace exposes illegal e- waste export , accessed on February 18, 2009.
  7. ^ A b c Anne Backhaus, DER SPIEGEL: Invisible Danger: Lead in batteries, dishes and spices poison millions of children - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved August 18, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Where does e-waste end up? ( Memento of March 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed March 31, 2010.
  9. ↑ E-waste recycling heavily contaminates a chinese city with chlorinated, brominated and mixed halogenated dioxins ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed March 31, 2010.
  10. ↑ 2005/618 / EC: Commission decision of August 18, 2005 amending the annex to Directive 2002/95 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council in order to establish maximum concentration values ​​for certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (announced under file number K (2005) 3143). In: Official Journal of the European Union .
  11. ↑ Old electrical appliances. In: Umweltbundesamt.de. Federal Environment Agency , December 5, 2017, accessed on January 31, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Press release from Deutsche Umwelthilfe: Ban on incandescent lamps requires increased commitment from local authorities and retailers (July 10, 2009)
  13. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: Smartphones: Germans are hoarding almost 200 million old cell phones - DER SPIEGEL - Netzwelt. Retrieved April 17, 2020 .
  14. ^ Thiemo Heeg: Electronic scrap: Germans are hoarding more and more old cell phones . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 17, 2020]).