The many and varied forecasts relating to the scale and expansion rate of the electronic scrap recycling market agree on one key point: this remains the fastest-growing sector across the entire recycling spectrum. With some analysts predicting compound annual growth rates well into double figures for the remainder of this decade, the consensus is that annual market worth will be somewhere north of US$ 8 billion by the year 2030, at which point e-scrap volumes worldwide are expected to have leapt to 75 million tonnes per annum.

This pace of change would be a challenge for any commodity sector but the projections are especially daunting when one considers that, over those next seven or eight years, e-scrap will continue to change massively in nature through a continuation of the mega trend towards ever-smaller products and greater multi-functionality. This means, firstly, that an ever higher number of items must be processed to maintain recovery volumes at commercially viable levels and, secondly, that recyclers will require yet more sophisticated, and expensive, processing technology.

So the financial risk-and-reward equation becomes ever more difficult to resolve at a time when our general costs – notably for energy and labour – are increasing constantly.

And the complications do not end there. Even taking the example of Europe, where e-scrap management developments have been more substantial than in most other parts of the world, only 55% of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is reported as officially collected and responsibly recycled. Latest figures (for 2020) reveal that just over 10 kg was collected per inhabitant in the EU – still well short of the target of 16 kg. In my home country of the Netherlands, we see a lot of WEEE in mixed scrap which should be sorted before treatment and sent to WEEELABEX-certified recyclers implementing CENELEC standards.

For many years, our industry has been urging the design of electronic products for ease of recycling. Of equal importance perhaps, new products should be designed with easy-access batteries to aid disassembly and minimize fire risk. Every business in every industry is asked to comply with health and safety standards to protect employees and the general public, so it seems counter- intuitive that our calls for urgent action on lithium-ion batteries are going largely unheeded despite the increasing number of battery-related fires.

As demonstrated in a compelling video shown at our meeting in Dubai last October, the impact of such fires extends well beyond the immediate danger to personnel and property – for example, to higher insurance premiums and to skilled workers leaving for other jobs when fire-hit plants shut for rebuilds.

At our earlier meeting in Barcelona, Dr Alvaro Rodríguez de Sanabria of VOI Technology confirmed that thermal and hydrometallurgical recycling options were available for spent lithium-ion batteries but that the value of the extracted elements fell short of covering processing costs. His own conclusion was that extended producer responsibility represented the only solution to this challenge.

The Barcelona gathering also highlighted other threats to the delicate commercial balance of the e-scrap business. The necessary investment in Europe’s WEEE plastics recycling capacity is unlikely to be forthcoming if thresholds for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) continue to change. Lowering the thresholds for POP brominated flame retardants would drive more material into undocumented streams and thus hinder progress towards a more circular economy. It should be remembered that the average plastics share of electronic goods has leapt from below 20% to around 30% in the last decade alone.

The financial well-being of our businesses also depends on open trading routes; nothing should be allowed to hamper exports of WEEE and of components once end-of-waste criteria and proper treatment have been guaranteed. From the start of 2025, however, country-to-country shipments of e-scrap will be subject to a notification and certification system similar to that introduced for plastic in 2021. Fred Fischer of the US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries warned in Dubai that this cumbersome Prior Informed Consent regime under the Basel Convention would dampen trade and potentially convince many companies that the business was no longer commercially viable.

Given all the challenges outlined above, it would be easy to conclude that e-scrap recycling is an unpromising way of earning a living. However, it is also an environmentally essential line of business that is best placed in the hands of an industry with decades of experience and expertise in this highly- specialized field.