The 5-Step Process of E-waste Recycling
The solution to electronic waste is to give it for recycling to a certified e-waste recycler. Ensure that you give your electronic waste to the nearest pick-up point or assembling point by the e-waste management company, as electronic products contain substances and particles hazardous to human health and the precious environment where you live.
First things first, we need to understand what e-waste recycling is. It is the reusing, refurbishing, or disposing of electronic products that are of no use or at the end of their useful life. In this process, the material is recovered for reuse in manufacturing a new electronic product.
5 STEPS OF E-WASTE RECYCLING
E-waste recycling is labor intensive and involves many risks, making it a task that takes work. The general process of recycling is mentioned below.
1. COLLECTING
The first step in the e-waste recycling procedure is collecting the e-waste from the pick-up points at specific places where the e-waste is assembled and then transporting it to the organization’s e-waste management center, where the further recycling steps start after this preliminary step.
2. SORTING
After collecting the electronic waste, further is e-waste sorting. Proper separation is the base for the following recycling steps, so sorting and separating e-waste products is important. This process needs labor hands to divide the e-waste according to proper categories for recycling.
3. EXTRACTIONS AND SEPARATIONS
Separated and sorted e-waste products go for further separation and extraction process, here the different particles get extracted and split, like copper, aluminum, glass, plastic, circuit board, batteries, and sometimes costly and precious metals like gold, silver, copper palladium, etc. are extracted at this stage of the e-waste recycling process. In this stage, a mechanical process is sometimes required with the help of labor.
4. CLEANING OF WASTE
The next step in the recycling process is cleaning the extracted and separated metals. This cleaning process further purifies the metals and extracted products to prepare them for items to be sold.
5. SALE FOR RE-MANUFACTURING
In this step, recycled materials and metals are sold out to the organizations manufacturing the electronic product so that recycled material is used for manufacturing the product. Here the extracted and cleaned recycling product becomes the raw material of manufacturing.
5 REASONS FOR E-WASTE RECYCLING
1. POTENTIAL IN E-WASTE
E-waste recycling is profitable. It also contains high-grade metals like gold, silver copper. India faces a deficiency of these precious metal resources, and there is a need for a well-designed recovery regime as there is high potential in e-waste for providing the metals for reuse or new manufacturing of electronic products.
2. POLLUTION CONTROL
By reusing or re-processing electronic waste, we are safeguarding our environment’s air, land, and water from getting polluted, saving environmental health, and protecting human health. Suppose we do not recycle e-waste properly guided by government rules. In that case, it leads to environmental pollution and pollution becoming a threat to human health, which needs to be checked and controlled.
3. CREATE A JOB
An e-waste recovery regime would also generate jobs. It adds to the economic growth of the country. The process of e-waste recycling is labor-intensive. In every step of recycling, there is a need for labor and machinery, which leads to creating new jobs in the economy.
4. TO SAVE THE PLANET
E-waste produces toxic elements. Whether e-waste is dumped in landfills or flowed in rivers, it pollutes the environment. Recycling or reusing the products saves our planet from the greenhouse effect and global warming.
5. CONSERVE NATURAL RESOURCES
Natural resources are the resources drawn from nature, and these natural resources are used for the production of goods. In recycling e-waste, natural resources and precious metals are obtained, which are reused in manufacturing a new product. In this way, natural resources are conserved.
CONCLUSION
There are plenty of old and obsolete electronic products as the technology change results in the expiry of old electronic products, so there is a need for these products, which are in their end life,
