Electronics Recycling Asia: Getting more formal

The valuable materials found in some obsolete electronic items have helped create a thriving underground economy of dismantlers and recyclers. However, the existence of hazardous substance in some of these same items creates a bad combination that means this “informal sector” can harm people and the environment.

 

How to engage and potentially reform this informal sector was a topic of discussion at the Electronics Recycling Asia conference, held in Singapore in mid-November.

 

An effort to redirect obsolete electronics away from unsafe dismantlers has been taking place in Sri Lanka, according to presenter Janaka Wijesekera of Abans Environmental Services, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

 

Wijesekera said in Sri Lanka, many informal collectors are “city cleaners” who bring obsolete computers, monitors, televisions or cell phones to informal microchip pullers or precious metals caustic stripping operations to earn small but vital amounts of cash.

 

Albans tried a pilot program in Colombo to better understand these collectors and to determine whether non-cash incentives such as full-time employment and wage advances can help steer these collectors to bring obsolete items to licensed facilities.

 

Wijesekera said such a conversion will not be easy. Those running the informal markets are well organized and “very smart,” he commented. “They can get in the way of this new relationship easily.” 

 

Systems in place to handle automotive lead acid batteries create one potential model to follow, according to Patrick Wiedemann of Germany-based Reverse Logistics Group. 

 

Wiedemann noted that the lead contained in scrap batteries can be a tempting target for informal recyclers employing a “back-yard treatment” method to crack open the batteries.

 

Awareness campaigns, he said, can help alert such recyclers to the dangers of handling lead. Such campaigns, coupled with a formal collection system, can succeed, said Wiedemann. “We should integrate informal collectors. I am a firm believer we can incentivize, regulate and enforce standards.”

 

The path is not easy, he acknowledged, as for many collectors it is a second job. Many are people who “want to stay free in their work environment and they may not be willing to accept work in regulated employment.”

 

The presence of criminal rings willing to use intimidation to hang on to their market also is a factor, said Wiedemann. “The informal sector is more organized than is visible [to the outsider],” he commented, adding that such organizations also can bribe local authorities to look the other way.

 

Electronics Recycling Asia was organized by Switzerland-based ICM Ag and held at the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore Nov. 11-14.