Understanding the Critical Role of E-Waste Repurposing in the Delivery of a Green or Circular Economy for Emerging Economies

Background

The ever-growing industrial activity remains one singular factor driving the economic growth of global economies but which sadly generates a wellspring of environmental and ecological damages, threatening human existence (Mitchell, 2008). One of the recent disturbing environmental problems is the growing rate of e-waste worldwide. Globally, e-waste refers to a huge variety of electric and microelectronic equipment usually discarded and landed on our communities as waste. They commonly include computers, laptops, monitors, televisions, copiers, cellphones, cameras, batteries, and an unending list of electronic devices. Humankind's insatiable demand for electronic devices is blamed for this fastest and exponentially growing electronic waste stream. According to the United Nations environmental report, the year;y value of worldwide e-waste is valued at $62.5 billion. What is more disturbing with this trend is the projected 120 million tonnes of e-waste per year by 2050 (UNDP, 2019). Regrettably, several empirical evidence suggests that less than 20% of global e-waste is formally recycled; and the rest either ends up at landfills, deposited in the oceans, discarded on our streets or are informally recycled, typically in developing countries.

The effects of unsustainable e-waste management include the exposure of participants to harmful substances, including mercury and cadmium (Awasthi, et at., 2016). E-waste deposited at landfills, rivers, and oceans contains hazardous and carcinogenic substances which heavily contaminate surface water, soil, and groundwater. Fisheries and food. But while the increasing number of electronic devices poses an existential threat to humanity, they could also deliver the much-needed green circular economy if the connected-based world could accelerate technological progress towards the United Nations SDGs. By utilizing electronic products, the world could help reduce CO₂ emissions compared to mineral extraction, which is found to pose a danger to the environment. Recent calls by UN agencies to rethink the current electronics system; and adopt a circular economy, which places value to discarded electronic products. By placing value to e-waste, the world can reduce negative environmental effects while creating decent and sustainable jobs. This is significant to emerging economies, where for example, close to 100,000 people are employed in the not-formalized e-waste sector of Nigeria, and capturing a latent value of 500,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, which is unsustainably disposed of. Electronic monitor recycling, for example, presents a complex scenario in e-waste because it contains quantities of critical materials and precious metals as well as plastic and steel or aluminum and has been identified as a significant source of secondary raw materials. Many of these materials are lost during recovery because of ineffective pretreatment methods such as shredding. Because of the manufacturing processes used, these computers also contain parts with a high embodied energy (Kwak et al., 2011). Because of the energy used in the production of Printed Wiring Boards (PWB), Processors (CPU), and Memory (RAM), these components must have an optimal use phase to compensate for the previous energy use.