Whats Within The Future For Electronics Recycling?

Electronics recycling inside the U.S. is growing because the market consolidates and matures. The future of electronics recycling - at least inside the U.S., and perhaps globally - will likely be driven by electronics technologies, valuable metals, and market structure, in specific. Despite the fact that you will find other issues that may influence the business - like consumer electronics collections, legislation and regulations and export concerns - I think that these three things may have a a lot more profound impact around the future of electronics recycling.

One of the most current data on the industry - from a survey performed by the International Information Corporation (IDC) and sponsored by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) - discovered that the market (in 2010) handled roughly 3.five million tons of electronics with revenues of $5 billion and straight employed 30,000 persons - and that it has been increasing at about 20% annually for the past decade. But will this growth continue?

Electronics Technology Private personal computer gear has dominated volumes handled by the electronics recycling market. The IDC study reported that over 60% by weight of business input volumes was "computer equipment" (such as PCs and monitors). But current reports by IDC and Gartner show that shipments of desktop and laptop computer systems have declined by far more than 10% and that the shipments of smartphones and tablets now each exceed that of PCs. About 1 billion smart phones is going to be shipped in 2013 - and for the very first time exceed the volumes of conventional cell phones. And shipments of ultra-light laptops and laptop-tablet hybrids are growing quickly. So, we're getting into the "Post-PC Era".

In addition, CRT TVs and monitors happen to be a considerable portion of your input volumes (by weight) inside the recycling stream - as much as 75% with the "consumer electronics" stream. Plus the demise in the CRT means that fewer CRT TVs and monitors might be getting into the recycling stream - replaced by smaller/lighter flat screens.

So, what do these technologies trends imply towards the electronics recycling business? Do these advances in technologies, which lead to size reduction, result within a "smaller components footprint" and less total volume (by weight)? Because mobile devices (e.g., clever phones, tablets) already represent larger volumes than PCs - and possibly turn more than faster - they're going to almost certainly dominate the future volumes entering the recycling stream. And they are not just a lot smaller sized, but usually price significantly less than PCs. And, regular laptops are being replaced by ultra-books and also tablets - which implies that the laptop equivalent is actually a lot smaller sized and weighs much less.

So, even with continually growing quantities of electronics, the weight volume getting into the recycling stream may perhaps commence decreasing. Common desktop pc processors weigh 15-20 lbs. Standard laptop computers weigh 5-7 lbs. However the new "ultra-books" weigh 3-4 lbs. So, if "computers" (like monitors) have comprised about 60% from the total sector input volume by weight and TVs have comprised a big portion with the volume of "consumer electronics" (about 15% of the sector input volume) - then as much as 75% with the input volume may be topic for the weight reduction of new technologies - maybe as significantly as a 50% reduction. And, related technology change and size reduction is occurring in other markets - e.g., telecommunications, industrial, healthcare, etc.

Nonetheless, the inherent value of these devices may very well be higher than PCs and CRTs (for resale and also scrap - per unit weight). So, sector weight volumes may perhaps decrease, but revenues could continue to increase (with resale, materials recovery value and solutions). And, since mobile devices are anticipated to turn over far more quickly than PCs (which have commonly turned over in 3-5 years), these adjustments within the electronics recycling stream may well happen within 5 years or much less.

Another factor for the industry to think about, as lately reported by E-Scrap News - "The all round portability trend in computing devices, including classic form-factors, is characterized by integrated batteries, elements and non-repairable components. With repair and refurbishment increasingly tough for these kinds of devices, e-scrap processors will face significant challenges in figuring out the very best technique to handle these devices responsibly, as they steadily compose an rising share with the end-of-life management stream." So, does that imply that the resale prospective for these smaller devices may be significantly less?

The electronics recycling business has traditionally focused on PCs and consumer electronics, but what about infrastructure gear? - which include servers/data centers/cloud computing, telecom systems, cable network systems, satellite/navigation systems, defense/military systems. These sectors typically use larger, greater worth equipment and have important (and increasing?) volumes. They may be not typically visible or believed of when contemplating the electronics recycling business, but might be an increasingly significant and bigger share in the volumes that it handles. And a few, if not considerably, of this infrastructure is because of modify in technologies - which will outcome inside a massive volume turnover of gear. GreenBiz.com reports that "... as the industry overhauls and replaces... servers, storage and networking gear to accommodate enormous consolidation and virtualization projects and prepare for the age of cloud computing... the build-out of cloud computing, the inventory of physical IT assets will shift in the customer towards the information center... Though the number of consumer devices is escalating, they are also getting smaller sized in size. Meanwhile, data centers are getting upgraded and expanded, potentially producing a big quantity of future e-waste."

But, outside the U.S. - and in building countries in certain - the input volume weight for the electronics recycling stream will improve drastically - as the usage of electronic devices spreads to a broader market place and an infrastructure for recycling is developed. Furthermore, building countries will continue to be appealing markets for the resale of utilised electronics.

Valuable Metals Inside the IDC study, over 75% by weight of sector output volumes was identified to become "commodity grade scrap". And more than half of that was "metals". Precious metals represent a small portion with the volume - the average concentration of valuable metals in electronics scrap is measured in grams per ton. But their recovery value is a considerable portion on the total worth of commodity grade scrap from electronics.

Valuable metals prices have increased significantly in current years. The market costs for gold, silver, palladium and platinum have each a lot more than doubled more than the previous 5 years. On the other hand, gold and silver have historically been quite volatile because their rates are driven mainly by investors. Their rates seem to possess peaked - and are now drastically under their higher points last year. Whereas, platinum and palladium rates have traditionally been driven by demand (e.g., manufacturing - like electronics and automotive applications) and typically more steady.

Telecommunications equipment and cell phones commonly possess the highest precious metals content material - as much as 10 instances the average of scrap electronics according to per unit weight. As technology advances, the valuable metals content material of electronics gear usually decreases - due to expense reduction studying. Nonetheless, the smaller, newer devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets) have larger valuable metals content per unit weight than standard electronics gear - such as PCs. So, if the weight volume of electronics gear handled by the electronics sector decreases, as well as the marketplace prices for valuable metals decreases - or no less than will not raise - will the recovery value of precious metals from electronics scrap lower? Possibly the recovery worth of valuable metals from electronics scrap per unit weight will increase due to the fact a lot more electronics products are getting smaller/lighter, but possess a greater concentration of precious metals (e.g., cell phones) than standard e-scrap in total. So, this aspect of your industry may perhaps truly come to be a lot more expense efficient. However the total industry income from commodity scrap - and especially valuable metals - might not continue to boost.

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