World Recycling Forum: Forward Thinking

Russia is both spacious and rich in resources, two circumstances that probably have helped stifle the development of its electronics recycling sector. But Sergey Lazarev, a senior specialist at the recycling complex at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia, says environmental concerns are beginning to place a spotlight on the issue.

Speaking at a session of the World Recycling Forum, held in Hong Kong in mid-November, Lazarev offered an overview of his own research into electronics recycling activity in the Russian Federation, and with barriers to recycling in remote Eastern Russia where he lives.

Defining electronic scrap as computers, office equipment, telecom equipment, home appliances, medical equipment and electrical equipment such as control panels, Lazarev estimated that “in [the past] 10 years, the quantity of imported electronic equipment has increased by almost 300 percent.” Added Lazarev, “By 2012, the amount of [scrap] generated by electrical equipment will exceed 1.5 million tons.”

He said Russian Waste Classifier law (RWC) refers to electronic equipment but does not “take into account the peculiarities of various types of e-waste” and that environmental monitoring of electronic scrap is not required by law “due to the lack of awareness of the hazardous impact.”

As a result, Lazarev told Forum attendees, “For many years electronic [scrap] has been stored in illegal dumps and landfills, resulting in potential negative impacts on the environment and “losses of business during the non-use of valuable components” found in electronic scrap.

Lazarev said Russia would largely benefit from adopting Europe’s WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive, although he expressed concern that “transportation takes a huge amount of money” in sparsely populated areas of Russia such as the Far East, so that fully enforcing a recycling rate comparable to Western Europe’s would be costly.

In a separate presentation at the same session, PhD student Yang Jiaxu of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden provided an overview of his research into using solvents to isolate indium while recycling LCD (liquid crystal display) screens.

Yang noted that “LCD is the most sold type of display today and will consequently be a major portion of [electronic scrap] in the near future.”

In his experiments, Yang was able to use solvents to extract indium from other metals and materials, “although the separation of indium from zinc seems to be the most difficult.”

The 2011 World Recycling Forum, hosted by ICM AG, was Nov. 15-18 in Hong Kong.