EVS

E-Waste- Mobiles- Computers

Introduction-

Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices.

Used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or
disposal are also considered e-waste. Informal processing of e-waste in
developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and
environmental pollution.

Electronic scrap components, such as CPUs, contain potentially harmful

components such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame
retardants. Recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to
health of workers and communities in developed countries and great care
must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaking of
materials such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.

E-waste or electronic waste is created when an electronic product is discarded

after the end of its useful life. The rapid expansion of technology means that a
very large amount of e-waste is created every minute.

Electronic waste or e-waste may be defined as discarded computers, office

electronic equipment, entertainment device electronics, mobile phones,
television sets, and refrigerators. This includes used electronics which are
destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or disposal as well as re-usable
(working and repairable electronics) and secondary scraps (copper, steel,
plastic, etc.). The term "waste" is reserved for residue or material which is
dumped by the buyer rather than recycled, including residue from reuse and
recycling operations, because loads of surplus electronics are frequently
commingled (good, recyclable, and non-recyclable). Several public policy
advocates apply the term "e-waste" and "e-scrap" broadly to all surplus
electronics. Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) are considered one of the hardest types
to recycle.
Aim or Objective-

Since technology is advancing with every passing day, older equipment’s are
greatly increased as scrap or waste. The major contribution to scarp is
computers and mobile phones. Electronic waste (e-waste) refers to discarded
electronic equipment’s or to the electronic products nearing the end of their
useful life period.

Recycling of e-waste is an important subject not only from the point of waste
treatment but also from the recovery aspect of valuable materials. If metals
are extracted properly from e-waste, it will create a new business opportunity
of recycling. Till now few companies have realised the potential of this
booming business. Investments in this new sector will lead to win-win situation
for both – the companies involved and the country as whole. Moreover, the
land which is being wasted as landfills or dumping sites for e-wastes can be put
to more productive uses such as agriculture, infrastructural development, etc.
However, financial constraints, ignorance and unwillingness are the biggest
hurdles in the way of safe recycling of e-waste.

It is believed that biotechnology has been one of the most promising

technologies in metallurgical processing. Bioleaching has been used for
solubilization of metals from ores for many years.

Keeping all the above views in mind, the investigation under present research
work includes the following objectives.

1. Enrichment of iron oxidizing acidophiles from ore samples.

2. Collection of printed circuit boards from waste.
3. Preparation of circuit board powder.
4. Bioleaching of metals using large piece of printed circuit boards.
5. Chemical analysing of collected printed circuit board powder.

Importance of Project-

The harmful effects of E-waste have a significant impact on people, the

environment and original equipment owners. As far as E-waste is concerned,
we all need to take care.
The recycling of electronic waste protects the health of people and the
environment. Incorrect disposal of electronic waste causes environmental
pollution, which can be harmful to human health. Best e-mail the waste
management method is well recycled. E-waste companies consists of a wide
variety of components and requires specialized equipment for disassembly,
crushing, processing and extraction of constituents, which can then be
converted into new products. This must be done in a controlled system to
prevent pollution and to ensure safety and health at work.

The recycling of electronic waste also helps to preserve our sustainable natural
resources. The recycled material is used to produce new products. This reduces
the need to produce mineral raw materials from land with limited supply.
Reducing mining needs also reduces pollution as the mining process affects our
environment.

Due to the volume of electronics recycling, businesses are now investing

heavily in the equipment needed to capitalize on efficient recycling. This would
not have happened in the era of owning a TV for 10+ years or using the same
flip phone for 5+ years. Given the churn of electronics there is some serious
profitability in that e waste. Apple recovered 43M worth of gold from their e
waste operation in 2015. Properly disposing electronics is critical for the
environment but the impact on the bottom line is a major reason companies
should care about it.

From an environmental perspective, e-waste is an enormous source of

pollution. When e-waste is tossed into the landfills, some of them contain
chemicals that can leach out of the landfills and into their surroundings, thus
contaminating our water supplies. Likewise, when e-waste is tossed into the
incinerators, the act of burning them is known to create chemicals called
dioxins. Made up of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and chlorine, said chemicals are
known to contribute to the greenhouse effect behind man-made climate
change. Furthermore, dioxins are known to have a horrible impact on human
health, with common examples ranging from an increased chance of cancer to
serious developmental and reproductive issues.
Procedure-

The e-waste recycling process is highly labour intensive and goes through
several steps. Below is the step-by-step process of how e-waste is recycled,

1. Picking Shed

When the e-waste items arrive at the recycling plants, the first step involves
sorting all the items manually. Batteries are removed for quality check.

2. Disassembly

After sorting by hand, the second step involves a serious labour-intensive

process of manual dismantling. The e-waste items are taken apart to retrieve
all the parts and then categorized into core materials and components. The
dismantled items are then separated into various categories into parts that can
be re-used or still continue the recycling processes.

3. First size reduction process

Here, items that cannot be dismantled efficiently are shredded together with
the other dismantled parts to pieces less than 2 inches in diameter. It is done
in preparation for further categorization of the finer e-waste pieces.

4. Second size reduction process

The finer e-waste particles are then evenly spread out through an automated
shaking process on a conveyor belt. The well spread out e-waste pieces are
then broken down further. At this stage, any dust is extracted and discarded in
a way that does not degrade the environmentally.

5. Over-band Magnet

At this step, over-band magnet is used to remove all the magnetic materials
including steel and iron from the e-waste debris.

6. Non-metallic and metallic components separation.

The sixth step is the separation of metals and non-metallic components.

Copper, aluminium, and brass are separated from the debris to only leave
behind non-metallic materials. The metals are either sold as raw materials or
re-used for fresh manufacture.
 7. Water Separation.

As the last step, plastic content is separated from glass by use of water. One
separated, all the materials retrieved can then be resold as raw materials for
re-use. The products sold include plastic, glass, copper, iron, steel, shredded
circuit boards, and valuable metal mix.

E-cycle components re-use

1. Plastic. All the plastic materials retrieved are sent to recyclers who use them
to manufacture items such as fence posts, plastic sleepers, plastic trays,
vineyard stakes, and equipment holders or insulators among other plastic
products.

2. Metal. Scrap metals materials retrieved are sent to recyclers to manufacture

new steel and other metallic materials.

3. Glass. Glass is retrieved from the Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) mostly found in
televisions and computer monitors. Extracting glass for recycling from CRTs is a
more complicated task since CRTs are composed of several hazardous
materials. Lead is the most dangerous and can adversely harm human health
and the environment. Tubes in big CRT monitors can contain high levels of lead
of up to 4 kilograms. Other toxic metals such as barium and phosphor are also
contained in CRT tubes. To achieve the best environmentally friendly glass
extraction, the following steps ensure a specialized CRT recycling:

Manual separation of the CRT from the television or monitor body

Size reduction process where the CRT is shredded into smaller pieces. Dust is
eliminated and disposed in an environmentally friendly way.

All metals are removal through over-band magnets, where ferrous and non-
ferrous components are eliminated from the glass materials.

A washing line is then used to clear oxides and phosphors from the glass

Glass sorting is the final step whereby leaded glass is separated from non-
leaded glass. The extracts can then be used for making new screens.

4. Mercury. Mercury containing devices are sent to mercury recycling facilities

that uses a specialized technology for elimination for use in dental amalgams
and metric instruments, and for fluorescent lighting. Other components such
as glass and plastics are re-used for manufacture of their respective products.

5. Printed Circuit Boards. Circuit boards are sent to specialized and accredited
companies where they are smelted to recover non-renewable resources such
as silver, tin, gold, palladium, copper and other valuable metals.

6. Hard Drives. Hard drives are shredded in whole and processed into
aluminium ingots for use in automotive industry.

7. Ink and Toner Cartridges. Ink and toner cartridges are taken back to
respective manufacturing industries for recycling. They are remanufactured
while those that can’t are separated into metal and plastic for re-use as raw
materials.

8. Batteries. Batteries are taken to specialized recyclers where they are hulled
to take out plastic. The metals are smelted is specialized conditions to recover
nickel, steel, cadmium and cobalt that are re-used for new battery production
and fabrication of stainless steel.

Batteries are taken to specialized recyclers where they are hulled to take out
plastic. The metals are smelted is specialized conditions to recover nickel,
steel, cadmium and cobalt that are re-used for new battery production and
fabrication of stainless steel.

Observation-

In today's time, there are so many technological advancements that to keep up

with the trends one needs to have up to date mobile phones, laptops,
computers, electronic gadgets, etc. When new phone or laptop comes into the
market people discard the old ones. When the electronic gadgets are discarded
they become the electronic waste. Sooner or later the gadgets have to be
discarded but with increasing trend in new phones coming out every year the
electronic waste has increased. Even the new phones being launched offer
services which cannot be availed at the old model, this is another reason why
people need to buy new gadgets. Another problem with electronic waste is
that if it is not disposed off properly it can result in various problems in form of
pollution, which can be air pollution, water pollution etc. E-waste also enters
the soil and water which makes the circumstances difficult for people. For this
problem, the manufacturers of gadgets should ask the consumers to give the
electronics back to the manufacturers so that they can re-use them rather than
disposing them off. The government can encourage the companies to buy the
old equipment from the people, they should offer some sort of tax saving for
the companies. Another solution for this can be that the used mobiles and
electronic gadgets can be sent to the countries where purchasing power is low
so that people who cannot afford it can buy the electronic gadgets and help
reduce the problem of electronic waste.

Conclusion-

E-waste is major problem which concerns the Environment. It is a growing

problem in the world but majority of the people ignore it. Many people do not
understand or do not care for the environment. The Three R’s- “Reduce,
Reuse, and Recycle” is used in the case of paper and glass. This is also
applicable for electronic items. Many electronic stores offer services for proper
disposal. In the above paper we conclude that e-waste is dangerous to humans
and for the environment it will cause a lots of health problems. In order to
avoid these problems, we can recycle the waste products and re-use the
product materials for creating new products at a lesser price. This way we can
at least reduce the problem of e-waste. Growing trees also can help in
combating the problem.