RSC launches recycling campaign as e-waste piles up

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has launched a new campaign to highlight how using precious elements in electronic devices is not sustainable and that current recycling levels are inadequate.

The new campaign includes a global survey into people's attitudes towards technology, sustainability and precious elements, a page directing readers to recycling resources and more information about the different precious elements and their purposes.

The campaign comes off the back of increasingly alarming data about e-waste: according to WEEE Forum, an expert group focusing on the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment, the e-waste that was disposed of in 2021 weighed more than 57 million tonnes – that’s heavier than the Great Wall of China.

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Similarly, while the amount of e-waste grows dramatically, recycling rates are not also augmenting to match these figures. In fact, 2019 figures showed that as little as 17.4% of electronic waste was recycled. According to estimates, in Europe, around 15% of electronic items in a home are no longer in use.

The amount of waste is partly due to the nature of the items – after all, with mobile phones, tablets, and computers people often have privacy concerns and so keep their old devices in their homes. In doing this, however, it means that more precious elements need to be mined.

The rising number of e-waste is also partly due to the rapid turnover of electronic devices, which some say is now an inbuilt design feature of products. Pascal Leroy, director-general of WEEE Forum, said: “Fast mobile phone development, for example, has led to a market dependency on rapid replacement of older devices.”

E-waste includes items such as kettles, televisions, electric toys, mobile phones and fridges.

Currently, precious elements are the key materials used to make these devices – partly because they conduct electricity much better than alloys. Precious elements include the more familiar lithium, cobalt, aluminium and nickel, and some less familiar elements such as tantalum, indium, yttrium, neodymium, gallium and dysprosium.

These metals are in almost every electronic item you use: dysprosium is used to create magnets that are used in motors and generators, gallium arsenide is used in the manufacturing of electronic devices such as red LEDs and solar panels, and yttrium is often used in superconductors, microwave filters for radar and in metal-cutting lasers, for example.

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Prof Richard Herrington, Head of Earth Sciences at the National History Museum said, “I think most people do not have any idea of the range and scale of metals and minerals that are used to make electronics.”

“It is really important that we all understand where the raw materials come from, that metals and minerals are in the Earth where nature puts them. They don't come from a factory, and the supply is dispersed around the world where sometimes business and environmental practices aren't the best.”

Geopolitical unrest, including Russia’s war with Ukraine, has also caused disruptions to the availability and price of materials. But even before these added tensions, prices of precious elements were rising – the price of lithium, for example, rocketed by 500% between 2020 and 2021, due to labour shortages and growing demand, which was then reinforced by the growth of the electric vehicle market (lithium is used in batteries).

As precious elements become more scarce they are also likely to become even more financially valuable. According to a 2019 World Economic Forum report, the world's electronic waste has a material value of $62.5 billion (€59.2 billion).

During International E-Waste Day 2021 Dr Ruediger Kuehr, director of the UN's Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) programme said: “A tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore.”

In the RSC campaign, president Professor Tom Welton, said: “We urge everyone to be more conscious about how they use and reuse technology. Before you dispose of or replace it, ask yourself if it really needs replacing. Could it be repaired or updated? If it can’t be sold or donated, could it be recycled?”

"Our tech consumption habits remain highly unsustainable and have left us at risk of exhausting the raw elements we need," said Welton.

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However, there is some good news: as part of the campaign, the RSC released the results of an online survey of 10,000 people across 10 countries. 60% said they would be more likely to choose a tech brand if their products were sustainably made, while 66.3% of people in the UK believe tech brands need to be more transparent about the sustainability of their products, 

The RSC ran its last Precious Elements campaign in 2019 which it said was a success.

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