E-waste sector facing new challenges

Salzburg, January 20, 2016: The electrical and electronic waste recycling sector is currently having to deal with a difficult market environment, a fact again made abundantly clear at this year’s International Electronics Recycling Congress IERC 2016, which was held in Salzburg, Austria from 19 to 22 January. More than 500 representatives came together at this annual meeting of the industry. One of the topics most widely discussed this year was the range of new challenges confronting e-waste recycling companies at the present time.

The situation is anything but straightforward. Not only because considerable amounts of e-waste continue to be exported illegally, but also because the devices currently being placed on the market, which will later become electrical and electronic waste, are becoming increasingly smaller. In many cases this results in the devices containing less and less precious metals and other valuable metals. The situation is exacerbated by the steep drop in commodities prices, which has also caused metal prices to decline, and the material value of many end-of-life electrical and electronic devices has therefore fallen sharply.

This has resulted in lower earnings, which is causing major problems for many recycling enterprises, and some have already had to shut down plants, particularly in Europe and North America, reported Thierry Van Kerckhoven, Global Sales Manager at the material technology group Umicore, at the IERC 2016 press conference. A great many market players have meanwhile realised that the e-waste sector is not an “eternally booming Eldorado”. Hence legislative framework conditions designed to promote recycling, such as the new circular economy package that the EU Commission recently made public, are now more important than ever.

The increasing level of miniaturisation poses the question of whether conventional treatment processes such as the currently used shredding and post-shredding technologies will still be adequate to cope with the recycling challenges of the future, said Thierry Van Kerckhoven. Furthermore, some industry representatives are questioning the necessity of the traditional role of recycling businesses. “The transition towards the value-added chains of the circular economy will occur. Recyclers therefore need to decide which role they intend to play in it,” said Dr Markus Laubscher, Program Manager Circular Economy at Royal Philips, at the press conference. “The focus on processing ever greater volumes of waste will not be sufficient to create additional added value.”

Steve Skurnac also agrees. He is Global President of Sims Recycling Solutions, one of the world’s leading companies in the field of electronics recycling. Dr Markus Laubscher and Steve Skurnac were the two keynote speakers at the IERC 2016. “Commodities prices will continue to be under pressure in the foreseeable future,” he said at the press conference. “Recycling companies that provide additional services and work together with
manufacturers will be able to provide valuable services within the overall supply chain.”

As the Sims representative emphasised, manufacturers need suitable partners in order to meet their recycling and sustainability targets. Recycling companies could provide valuable services in terms of product design, collection and recycling initiatives. “Recyclers can help to develop new markets for recycling products,” said Steve Skurnac. They are the ones who have the necessary material and the required market relationships.

Scott Venhaus, Arrow Electronics’ Value Recovery Business general manager APAC and director of global quality and compliance, supports innovative approaches that can both create value and protect the supply chain by ensuring reclaimable commodities can be returned to the manufacturing stream. Arrow Electronics is a global provider of products, services and solutions for industrial and commercial users of electronic components and
enterprise computing solutions. “We understand that our customers want to reclaim value from their assets, but they also need to know that their data and brand are protected, and that their assets are being handled in the most environmentally responsible manner possible.”