While electronic waste (e-waste) seems almost infinite, from fried computers to dormant BlackBerry phones, securing discarded tech for metals recycling can be quite tricky.
Recycled lithium, copper and other critical minerals can find new life in everything from electric vehicles to battery storage. The push to recycle metals in the U.S. comes amid intensifying efforts to compete with China, which dominates the critical minerals market, reports The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 1, 2025).
“It’s like urban mining,” said one industry CEO, explaining the benefits of reusing metals from old electronics and scrap waste instead of procuring it directly from the earth. “Rather than going into the mines, we go into our communities,” he said.
Collecting e-waste can be tricky because there isn’t a strong infrastructure to retrieve devices directly from homes, scrapyards, manufacturers or collection sites, and some consumers have privacy concerns when handing over old hardware that could hold personal information.
Meanwhile, large quantities of e-waste are being shipped abroad. About 2,000 shipping containers of electronic waste are sent each month from the U.S. to countries in Asia, particularly Malaysia. But the need to increase the domestic supply of critical minerals has become more urgent, as is evident in the U.S.’s near-total reliance on Chinese imports for lithium-ion batteries.
Shipping e-waste abroad rather than recycling it in the U.S. is “a tragic lose, lose, lose proposition,” said a second industry expert. “The country misses out on the value from the critical metals going to waste, as well as recycling jobs for local workers.”
Most lithium-ion batteries on the market are likely to be hazardous when they are disposed of because they could catch fire or explode if not handled carefully. The environmental footprint of lithium-ion battery recycling emits less than half the greenhouse gases of conventional mining and refinement of metals, and uses about one-fourth of the water and energy of mining.
The global consumption of lithium was estimated to be 220,000 metric tons in 2024—a 29% jump from 2023. But tech recycling in the U.S. has a long way to go. E-waste recycling collection, from relying on municipal return sites to retailer take-back programs, is irregular and fragmented, so recyclers often cannot rely on steady, predictable volumes.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Why doesn’t the U.S. recycle all its e-waste?
- Could AI help in recycling? (See Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text).