Whats Inside The Future For Electronics Recycling?

Electronics recycling inside the U.S. is growing as the market consolidates and matures. The future of electronics recycling - no less than in the U.S., and maybe globally - are going to be driven by electronics technology, valuable metals, and business structure, in distinct. Although there are other items that will influence the industry - including consumer electronics collections, legislation and regulations and export concerns - I believe that these three elements will have a extra profound impact on the future of electronics recycling.

The most current data around the market - from a survey conducted by the International Information Corporation (IDC) and sponsored by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) - found that the market (in 2010) handled around 3.five million tons of electronics with revenues of $5 billion and directly employed 30,000 men and women - and that it has been expanding at about 20% annually for the previous decade. But will this growth continue?

Electronics Technologies Individual computer system equipment has dominated volumes handled by the electronics recycling industry. The IDC study reported that over 60% by weight of business input volumes was "computer equipment" (which includes PCs and monitors). But recent reports by IDC and Gartner show that shipments of desktop and laptop computers have declined by additional than 10% and that the shipments of smartphones and tablets now every single exceed that of PCs. About 1 billion sensible phones are going to be shipped in 2013 - and for the initial time exceed the volumes of traditional cell phones. And shipments of ultra-light laptops and laptop-tablet hybrids are escalating rapidly. So, we are entering the "Post-PC Era".

Also, CRT TVs and monitors have already been a considerable portion from the input volumes (by weight) in the recycling stream - as much as 75% with the "consumer electronics" stream. Along with the demise in the CRT implies that fewer CRT TVs and monitors might be getting into the recycling stream - replaced by smaller/lighter flat screens.

So, what do these technology trends mean towards the electronics recycling business? Do these advances in technology, which cause size reduction, result within a "smaller supplies footprint" and less total volume (by weight)? Given that mobile devices (e.g., sensible phones, tablets) already represent larger volumes than PCs - and likely turn more than more quickly - they'll possibly dominate the future volumes entering the recycling stream. And they're not just a lot smaller sized, but ordinarily price much less than PCs. And, conventional laptops are becoming replaced by ultra-books together with tablets - which means that the laptop equivalent is really a lot smaller sized and weighs significantly less.

So, even with continually growing quantities of electronics, the weight volume entering the recycling stream might begin decreasing. Common desktop computer system processors weigh 15-20 lbs. Traditional laptop computers weigh 5-7 lbs. However the new "ultra-books" weigh 3-4 lbs. So, if "computers" (which includes monitors) have comprised about 60% in the total sector input volume by weight and TVs have comprised a big portion of your volume of "consumer electronics" (about 15% of your sector input volume) - then up to 75% from the input volume might be subject towards the weight reduction of new technologies - perhaps as much as a 50% reduction. And, related technologies adjust and size reduction is occurring in other markets - e.g., telecommunications, industrial, healthcare, and so on.

Nevertheless, the inherent worth of these devices may be higher than PCs and CRTs (for resale along with scrap - per unit weight). So, market weight volumes could lower, but revenues could continue to improve (with resale, components recovery worth and services). And, since mobile devices are anticipated to turn more than a lot more swiftly than PCs (which have generally turned over in 3-5 years), these adjustments inside the electronics recycling stream may well come about within 5 years or much less.

Yet another aspect for the business to think about, as lately reported by E-Scrap News - "The overall portability trend in computing devices, which includes traditional form-factors, is characterized by integrated batteries, elements and non-repairable components. With repair and refurbishment increasingly challenging for these kinds of devices, e-scrap processors will face considerable challenges in determining the most effective way to handle these devices responsibly, as they steadily compose an growing share from the end-of-life management stream." So, does that mean that the resale possible for these smaller sized devices could be much less?

The electronics recycling industry has traditionally focused on PCs and consumer electronics, but what about infrastructure equipment? - including servers/data centers/cloud computing, telecom systems, cable network systems, satellite/navigation systems, defense/military systems. These sectors generally use larger, larger worth gear and have significant (and growing?) volumes. They are not normally visible or thought of when taking into consideration the electronics recycling market, but may be an increasingly important and bigger share of the volumes that it handles. And some, if not much, of this infrastructure is due to change in technologies - which will outcome inside a significant volume turnover of equipment. GreenBiz.com reports that "... as the sector overhauls and replaces... servers, storage and networking gear to accommodate massive 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 from the customer to the data center... Even though the amount of consumer devices is growing, they may be also finding smaller in size. Meanwhile, data centers are getting upgraded and expanded, potentially creating a large quantity of future e-waste."

But, outdoors the U.S. - and in developing countries in certain - the input volume weight to the electronics recycling stream will improve significantly - as the usage of electronic devices spreads to a broader market and an infrastructure for recycling is created. In addition, building countries will continue to be eye-catching markets for the resale of utilized electronics.

Precious Metals In the IDC study, over 75% by weight of market output volumes was identified to be "commodity grade scrap". And more than half of that was "metals". Valuable metals represent a modest portion with the volume - the typical concentration of precious metals in electronics scrap is measured in grams per ton. But their recovery value is often a important portion of the total value of commodity grade scrap from electronics.

Valuable metals costs have enhanced drastically in recent years. The industry rates for gold, silver, palladium and platinum have each and every extra than doubled over the previous 5 years. Even so, gold and silver have historically been pretty volatile due to the fact their prices are driven mainly by investors. Their costs appear to have peaked - and are now considerably under their higher points last year. Whereas, platinum and palladium costs have traditionally been driven by demand (e.g., manufacturing - like electronics and automotive applications) and commonly additional steady.

Telecommunications equipment and cell phones generally have the highest precious metals content material - as much as ten occasions the typical of scrap electronics depending on per unit weight. As technologies advances, the precious metals content material of electronics gear commonly decreases - as a consequence of expense reduction finding out. Having said that, the smaller, newer devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets) have greater precious metals content per unit weight than traditional electronics gear - such as PCs. So, if the weight volume of electronics gear handled by the electronics business decreases, and the market rates for valuable metals decreases - or at least doesn't boost - will the recovery value of precious metals from electronics scrap decrease? Probably the recovery value of valuable metals from electronics scrap per unit weight will increase since a lot more electronics items are acquiring smaller/lighter, but have a larger concentration of precious metals (e.g., cell phones) than regular e-scrap in total. So, this aspect of your industry may well essentially come to be far more price efficient. However the total market revenue from commodity scrap - and specifically precious metals - might not continue to improve.

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