47 million tons of ewaste up for grabs !

I don't put much stock in anything the UN says or does, but, a recent April 2015 report states there are 47 Million tons of ewaste most of which is in England going to land fills. Their estimate is it contains 300 tons of gold and 1000 tons of silver.

The real story is , the UN is one of the tree huger organizations that makes it hard and expensive to recycle any thing.

They blame us developed country's for polluting 3rd world countries, is China the #1 economy in the world a 3rd world country?

For centuries these country's have used their rivers and vacant land for sewers and dump sites, long before there was an America or Canada.

You can visit any non tourist port river or other area of The Philippines, India or any of them and see the real truth.

Personally, I don't get the big deal with E waste.
It's plastic, Metal and glass. There are lots of ways to recycle that and there are lots of countries that have the technology to do it easily. It's just a matter of cost and profit.

Firts thing I'd do with it is grind it up. From there you can separate a lot of it out straight away. There are machines in use today that can separate all sorts of different things and certainly those materials in e waste by magnetics ( which works on a lot more than just steel) vibration and air currents. You could separate most if not all the metals, glass shouldn't pose a problem and plastic certainly wouldn't.

At worst, You burn it. Plastic is oil and when you burn it hot enough all the maligned nasties are consumed. With a controlled temp process, you move the stuff along and first get all the aluminum, then the glass, copper, gold and steel at the end. Given the amount of plastic in most E waste I think the process could be self supporting or near to it. It's no different to car recycling. They grind them up into bits, do some separation of plastic, foam, metal, glass and recycle it all. Why is e waste so ruddy hard? Not a lot of gold or silver in cars like ewaste and I'd guess not near as much of a percentage of copper either.

Reminds me of how there is problems in some places with old tyres and plastic. Likewise in other places, they get tyres and pyrolise them and make petrol and oil out of them because they are just oil based. They get carbon black which is a commodity they can sell with the tyre industry being a big buyer. In some places instead of plastic bags, bottles and packaging being such a problem, that is pyrolised back into fuel. In india, one guy is cleaning up with several plants heating it up to melting point and extruding it. Started out he was making 100 year fence posts out of it but now he's gone further and is making wood like beams. Can be made to any length and size, don't rot, wharp, twist, get eaten by ants or anything else. }
He started out buying old extrusion machines so again, not like a new technology but a new application. His raw material is garbage he pays peanuts for but his end product can't be produced fast enough to keep up with orders.

Nothing to stop this being done elsewhere except inclination.

Not like the technology isn't there already.
For some reason though the do gooders seem to have made ewaste the devil and made it unprofitable to handle. Yes, there may be some emissions that are less than ideal if you process the stuff ( although I can't see why) but maybe the greater good has to be considered and you accept some emissions from a recycling process rather than have tons of plastics burned in open air emitting all sorts of toxins not to mention the myriad of other things that go to make landscapes into hell holes when this stuff goes to the wrong places now.

One day someone will wake up and make an absolute fortune out of this and everyone will say why wasn't it done before, not like the technology wasn't around.

I've seen the same reports, I've watched the documentaries and youtube videos on the subject...but what is 70 or more percent of the actual waste? CRT monitors, VCRs, stereos and their associated low grade boards. You really think with the big lot of entrepreneurs we are that we wouldn't have figured out how to get our hands on this "valuable" waste? Dig into it a little more and the reality becomes clear the manufacturers refuse to take real responsibility for the end of life product and the people they paid to take that responsibility like goodwill and some of our very own e waste "recyclers" spent the money and dumped the waste in another undocumented country.

Not like the technology isn't there already.
For some reason though the do gooders seem to have made ewaste the devil and made it unprofitable to handle. Yes, there may be some emissions that are less than ideal if you process the stuff ( although I can't see why) but maybe the greater good has to be considered and you accept some emissions from a recycling process rather than have tons of plastics burned in open air emitting all sorts of toxins not to mention the myriad of other things that go to make landscapes into hell holes when this stuff goes to the wrong places now.

I have to agree that the technology is here and has been. In our smaller city we have two running foundries right inside the city limits and almost no smoke or smell.

Originally Posted by unknownk

There is still toxic runoff from old Roman mines all over Europe.

Anyway landfills will someday be valuable to dig up metals since they are packed so deep and tight water has a hard time getting to the metal to make it rust.

Can you picture mining a waste dump in a Hazardous waste suit ?

My Dad was actually my Grandfather who adopted me. he was until he died back in the late 60s the town Marshall, it was one of his duities to check out the town dump once in a while. They were usually located out side of town in a dry wash or ravine in a farmers field the farmer wanted filled in, one of my unrealized dreams is to take a back hoe and dig up one of these sites. I know that my mother (grand mother)threw away a complete sterling silver setti for coffee and tea that weighed at least 5 or 10 lbs because she was tired of keeping it polished.

Originally Posted by unknownk

Tires are not oil, there is all kinds of stuff in there (steel, fillers, pigment, etc) that will remain once you heat the tire up enough to remove any oil (and that heat requires energy).

That is not correct.
All that is left after oil extraction is the steel and carbon black. Tyres are mainly made from oil derivatives and like plastic, are easily turned back into the base component from which they were made.
There are many Vid on YT that show commercial processes for refining oil from tyres. Oil is not as cheap or even readily available in other parts of the world as it is in the US which has fuel costs definitely at the lower end of the world price scale. In a lot of asian countries it is very profitable to make oil from tyres and plastics.

While there is always going to be some external energy input, the same is true with any fuel manufacturing process.

But I don't think this should be just about economics and it's why I think the whole green, save the planet thing is a complete and utter load of crap. That IS all about economics and bug business and gubbermints are ONLY interested in it if there is a profit or back end in it for them.

It's moronic for gubbermints to crap on about ewaste pollution and impose all sorts of impractical conditions on it's disposal while making money from it and not having a workable system for handling it.
There are all sorts of idiotic grants, pensions, subsidy's and payments made by gubberments for a myriad of stupid things, why can't they put their hands in their pockets and help fund something with a real worthwhile purpose that will do some real and tangible good. It's like where I am. They have imposed all sorts of green levys and " carbon taxes" on waste disposal. What a sterling achievement that has been!
Now instead of people taking their rubbish to a tip or proper facility, they dump it everywhere. In the industrial areas of a weekend, in quiet streets and in the bush. I have never seen more garbage around before in my life and the reason is that even if people feel bad about it, they simply cannot afford to " Do the right thing" because thanks in a very large part to the Gubbermint profiting from it.

It's ignorant to just say people should recycle etc when it's not practical or cost viable. As far as I'm concerned, people who take their rubbish to a proper place should be rewarded with token fees for doing that, not slugged and arm and a leg like they are criminals for having rubbish that simply cannot be avoided these days in a disposable and over packaged society.

The one thing that fixes every problem is making it financially encouraging so if gubbermints actually threw some money at this problem like they do so many other useless endeavors, the situation would be rectified in no time.