WRAP says it's time to move beyond shredding

By Jake Thomas, Resource Recycling

Speaking at a sustainability conference last week, Liz Goodwin, the CEO of the U.K.'s Waste & Resources Action Programme, told her audience that businesses need to "future-proof" themselves by finding innovative ways to secure raw materials and free themselves from fluctuating commodity prices. And part of accomplishing this, she said, involves not shredding e-scrap.

Pointing out that electronics are made from rare or difficult-to-extract metals, her speech highlighted how processors of waste electrical and electronic equipment would be well advised to take pains to better recover these coveted materials, specifically through not using the often inexpensive option of shredding unwanted devices and appliances. She told attendees this:

"Currently, most of our WEEE recycling is generally by shredding. But while this method enables capture of bulk metal and plastics, it doesn't work for some of the raw materials that could be recovered. This method usually means that the small amounts rare earths and other valuable elements such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium found in individual items are dispersed during the shredding, lost to landfill or incineration, or the value is lost to the UK as the material is exported."

Recognizing that processing WEEE can be a high-cost low-return venture, she said that her organization would be publishing research on the business case for upgrading existing infrastructure to process these materials.

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