By Verity Hambrook, Industry RE Sustainability, Dec 2011 Tweet
New report suggests precious metals contained in eWaste could top £7bn over the next decade. 

It came as no surprise that Business Secretary Vince Cable named commercial and industrial waste processing and recycling as one of the five priorities for the £3bn Green Investment Bank. Other focus areas are: offshore wind; energy from waste; non-domestic energy efficiency; and supporting the government’s flagship Green Deal programme.

The initiative has been described by Cable as “a critical component in the UK’s transition to a green economy [whose] overarching objective will be to catalyse private investment, not replace.” The government believes many projects won’t get off the ground without this sort of intervention.

And undoubtedly, politicians have correctly identified responsible waste processing as key to a green economy, particularly when it comes to electronic waste (eWaste). New figures released this month suggest precious metals contained in eWaste could top £7bn over the next decade. According to a report released by Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP), a quarter of all electrical and electronic equipment including mobile phones and IT equipment, thrown out just by households, could be reused and generate more than £220m in the process, each year.

For example, mobile phones alone are crammed full of high-value metals. WRAP came up with some staggering statistics. Analysis found that the 22.5 million mobile phones purchased in the UK each year collectively contained 0.9 tonnes of gold, 9.4 tones of silver and 332 tonnes of copper. By 2020, UK electronic waste will total 12 million tonnes, containing around 17 tonnes of indium and going by current rates, £1bn of silver, £5bn of gold and 63 tonnes of palladium worth approximately £1bn.

As metals and other resources become increasingly scarce and we are forced to slow down extraction processes, these values are set to increase. Waste is emerging as a commodity in its own right. Combine its value with increasing disposal taxes and regulatory penalties and we’ll see the economic incentives for commercialising waste snowball.

“Disposing responsibly of eWaste is crucial to any organisation’s sustainability strategy,” says David Beer, director of IndustryRE Sustainability. “Companies must understand that it’s not just about reputational risks and the environment; it’s actually an increasingly lucrative way to do business.”

That said, the reputational risks associated with waste disposal are formidable and simply must be managed. Only this week, a report by the organisation, makeITfair, exposed the enormity of the environmental problems linked to the uncontrolled flow of e-waste from Europe to Ghana. Every month, 600 containers of second-hand electronics are dumped in Ghana. The UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Spain are the biggest culprits.

Electronic waste is growing three times faster than regular waste thanks to innovation and the short life of many our products. When we dump the waste in developing countries, we are dumping tonnes of hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium and mercury and exposing innocent people to pollution and health problems.

These countries just don’t have the infrastructure to deal with the hazardous waste. 40% of scrap workers employed in the informal waste industry in Ghana are children. “For a small part of the population, the import of used electronics is a lucrative business, but for a majority of the people involved in the industry, it is a matter of survival,” states the report. The workers suffer from cuts, coughs, headaches, upper respiratory problems, rashes and burns.

IndustryRE Sustainability (IRES) offers a bespoke responsible disposal and recycling service to businesses. We will adhere to the highest environmental standards and will provide certification and audit trail of every single item. We will also give you a profit share of the asset value of items that can be re-used. Items that are unable to be re-used will be smelted down into precious metals, glass, other metals and plastics, which will then be re-used in manufacturing industries or used to provide energy. All items are collected from offices and IRES will manage the entire logistics process from collection through to the final destination of your eWaste.