Industry Wrests with Rising E-Scrapheaps Worldwide: What Goes up Must Come down

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that Americans alone now own nearly three billion electronic devices—including the televisions in their homes; global positioning systems in their cars; MP3 players and cell phones at their ears; Blackberries, smartphones, and video games in their hands; and computers in their laps and on their desks.

For each new product introduced, one or more becomes obsolete. Consequently, U.S. consumers are storing or discarding older electronic products faster than ever before: In 2005, the EPA reckons that 26 million to 37 million computers became obsolete. Along with computers, an estimated 304 million of other electronics—were removed from U.S. households.

E-scrap that is not recycled, reused, or stored becomes e-waste and is buried, incinerated, or dumped—representing a significant environmental hazard . Although used electronics represent less than two percent of the municipal solid waste stream, if consumers continue to replace old or outdated electronic equipment at their current rate, that percentage will likely grow.

Worldwide, according to a new report from Boulder, Colorado-based Pike Research, the total volume and weight of end-of-life (EOL) electronics, or e-scrap, will more than double in the next 15 years, rising from 6 million tons in 2010 to 15 million tons by 2025. This trend will place increasing pressure on industry players, governments, and advocacy groups to find new ways to expand electronics recycling and reuse.

During the same forecast period, Pike anticipates that the electronics recycling movement will make strong progress; and that electronics recycling and reuse will rise from 1.1 million tons per year in 2010 to 7.9 million tons annually by 2025. By the early 2020s, the firm expects that recycling and reuse activity will surpass the annual volume and weight of electronic devices that become e-waste, and, thus, will play a large part in mitigating the e-waste crisis. However, these promising trends will still not be enough to solve the entire problem, as Pike anticipates that the total volume of e-waste in landfills will continue increasing throughout the period.

“Electronics recycling and reuse is expanding at a significant rate,” says industry analyst Bob Boggio.  “The growth in responsible disposition of obsolete electronics is being driven both by environmental legislation around the world as well as the sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR (News - Alert)) programs of leading electronics manufacturers and service providers.”

However, Boggio adds that unwanted electronic equipment is still easily and inexpensively sent to landfill burial rather than being directed toward reuse or recycling.  Trans-boundary shipments of e-waste from developed countries to developing countries continue, and the informal recovery of components and materials in developing countries remains a concern for human health and the environment. Boggio states that the gap may be narrowed in the coming years—but only if national and regional governments modify their legislative mandates to close perceived loopholes and increase e-scrap diversion rates.

Pike Research’s (News - Alert) report, “Electronics Recycling and E-Waste Issues,” provides a detailed analysis of e-scrap issues facing the electronics industry over the coming years, including an assessment of market and economic factors, legislative issues, environmental concerns, and the strategies of key industry players.  The study includes market forecasts through 2025 for unit sales of electronics by category, along with volume and weight of total e-scrap generated; as well as the ultimate disposition through recycling, reuse, storage, and e-waste.   An executive summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website.