SUSTAINABILITY
“ Treating an end of life smartphone as ‘ ore ’ – grinding it up to powder and then attempting to extract minerals – is a massive destruction of value ”
NATHAN WRENCH HEAD OF SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION , CAMBRIDGE CONSULTANTS
e-waste items were easily recyclable , this wouldn ’ t be such a massive problem .
“ Looking at a $ 1,000 smartphone , it ’ s easy to imagine that , at end of life , it will represent a highly valuable source of materials , precious metals and the like – and that converting it back into those raw ingredients would be a cost-effective alternative to mining virgin materials ,” says Nathan Wrench , Head of Sustainable Innovation , Cambridge Consultants . The reality , however , is that extracting and recycling valuable components from a smartphone is fundamentally at odds with the way smartphones are designed , manufactured , and sold .
“ Just bolting on a ' recycle ' stage to the linear product lifecycle of ‘ take , make , transport , use , dispose ’ makes this extremely challenging ,” he continues . In spite of the fact that the UN ’ s report “ conservatively estimated ” US $ 57 bn worth of gold , silver , and other highvalue , recoverable metals from consumer electronics were “ mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse ” in 2019 , Cambridge Consultants ’ s own research points to the sobering fact that the realisable yield in raw materials of a US $ 1,000 smartphone could be as little as US $ 1 .
Recycling smartphones by transitioning from a device worth hundreds or
156 March 2022