Tag: electronic waste

OM in the News: Salvaging Critical Minerals From Old Laptops and Phones Isn’t So Easy

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.

Electronic waste is dropped on to a conveyor belt during a process to harvest rare earth and other metals in France.

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:

  1. Why doesn’t the U.S. recycle all its e-waste?
  2. Could AI help in recycling? (See Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text).

OM in the News: Recycling Tech Waste

Responsible recyclers try to dispose of as little material as possible and reuse anything that still works
Responsible recyclers try to dispose of as little material as possible and reuse anything that still works

 Maybe you replaced old electronics over the holidays or you’re just sweeping out the old and ushering in the New Year. Trying to recycle your old technology the right way is becoming easier by the day, writes The New York Times (Jan. 1, 2015). Stores like Best Buy and Staples now offer programs to take back old gadgets and recycle them. Still, most old devices end up in the trash. Americans alone throw away 2-3 million tons of electronics yearly according to the EPA. With the life span of devices shrinking (the average phone is replaced every 18 months) the problem is growing worse.

The toxic waste from all those tossed gadgets causes terrible damage to soil, water and people. And the U.N. calls electronic waste the “fastest growing waste stream in the world.”  The recycling industry first began moving toward more responsible practices about 10 years ago, but the mission had changed from purely recycling to a greater emphasis on intercepting usable tech. If you recycle for raw materials, you get a portion of that product. But if you can reuse a cellphone, that’s the most environmentally beneficial of all.

To be certified, recyclers that collect e-waste have to show that they’ve tried hard to reuse products that come in — not just stripping them down and selling off individual parts, but trying to resell an entire phone, computer, printer or game console. The second level in the recycling hierarchy is to find parts and components that can be reused in other products. Touch screens can be sold to toy makers, for example, or circuit boards can be used in other computerized devices. And if the entire item can’t be sold, recovering heavy metals like gold, palladium and other raw materials inside electronics is a form of “urban mining.”

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Relate this article to the Triple Bottom Line discussed in Supplement 5.

2. How can electronic companies design and produce for sustainability?