Nowadays, electronic waste or e-waste is becoming a major industrial hazard because of the increased use of circuits and digital screens all across the globe. These wastes contain a sustainable source of precious metals. Therefore, recycling these e-wastes can help in recovering some of the precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, and many more that are used in many industries. Moreover, it can become an ideal solution for meeting the increasing demand for these metals as natural resources are depleting.

The increasing technological advances all around the world are continuously surging the accumulation of electronic waste which is also known as e-waste. The inappropriate dumping of electronics components or devices mainly cell phones and PC is causing a serious hazard to the environment. On the other hand, advanced electronics contain many precious metals such as gold, copper, silver, and many more. Extracting these precious metals from the e-waste can not only be a financially profitable solution but also be advantageous to our environment. Therefore, lots of novel recycling technologies have been developed for e-waste that has been proven to be eco-friendly with high efficacy and low carbon footprint at an economic price to control the global depletion of natural resources.

With the growing demand for precious metals in industrial applications, the global precious metals e-waste recovery market is expected to experience prominent growth in the approaching years. The market is anticipated to generate a revenue of $18,645.2 million and rise at a CAGR of 7.0% during the estimated timeframe from 2022 to 2030. The major players of the market include Johnson Matthey, Boliden Group, umicore, Sims Lifecycle Services, Inc., and many more.

Why is E-Waste Recycling for Extraction of Precious Metals Important?

It is crucially important to recycle electronics waste for so many reasons, some of them are listed below:

• E-waste recycling helps in extracting various precious metals such as gold, silver, copper, palladium, and many more, which are used for various industrial applications.
• It helps in controlling the continuous depletion of natural resources which are irreversible.
• It also helps to manage solid waste more effectively.
• E-waste contains many toxic substances such as lead, chromium, mercury, and many others. Therefore, e-waste recycling includes several processes to segregate these toxic compounds and protect our environment from harmful impacts.
• According to studies and research, e-waste contributes to more than 70% of the environmental pollution, so, e-waste recycling can contribute a big hand in reducing the environmental pollution.
• E-waste recycling saves our environment from unnecessary dumps and landfills.
• It also saves energy consumption by minimizing the product development lifecycle.
• Moreover, e-waste recycling creates immense opportunities for innovative research & development activities and creative business models for sustainable solutions.
• It also promotes the mindset of consumers all across the globe. E-waste recycling can impact our consumer decisions and behavior towards our environment. It makes the consumer think twice before simply throwing away electronic devices and helps people embrace mindful consumerism for making a move toward recycling electronic devices or gadgets. 

Which Electronic Devices Contain More Amount of Gold?

Usually, the electronic items having large printed circuit boards contain large quantities of gold. Some of them are listed below:

Previously, electronic devices such as old camcorders, jumbo old video-playing devices like VCRs, electronic keyboards, and musical instruments, old desktop computers and peripheral devices such as modems, and scanners, old televisions, HAM radios, large communication devices, and old stereo components including amplifiers and receivers used to contain a large amount of gold. Nowadays, printed circuit boards, computer chips, and connectors usually contain a significant amount of gold.

What are the Different Policies Offered by E-Waste Recycling Service Providers?

In many developed and developing countries, recycling service providers are taking various initiatives to promote the recovery of precious resources and save the environment from various harmful impacts. They provide certain policies that include:

• The prevention of exporting e-scrap to countries with a low recovery rate.
• Promoting best practices for ensuring maximized recovery of e-waste in both developed and developing countries.
• Encouraging the public to recycle end-of-devices instead of stockpiling them in their homes or just irresponsibly throwing them.

E-Waste Recycling for Precious Metals: A Sustainable Approach to Save Environment

With the increasing demand for precious metals across various industries and the growing issue of e-waste disposal is concerning all stakeholders to pay more attention to the research and development activities for collecting and properly disposing of e-waste and recovering precious metals from them in eco-friendly ways. It is expected that mechanical recycling and thermo-chemical processes such as pyrolysis can play an important role in recycling precious metals from e-waste in the upcoming years.