Read the full post at MetalMiner.
I was amazed by the resigned comments of US recyclers that it was simply uneconomic to recycle e-waste in the US and decided to take a look at the state of the art, because as the Bal Maidens demonstrate, time and technology do move on. It turns out that China is publishing scientific paper after scientific paper on industrial scale e-waste reprocessing. Some of the techniques, such as the dis-assembly of printed circuit boards using ultrasound, are already operating at industrial scale. Others, like the use of super-critical methanol or water to boil the components off circuit boards, are still in R&D. But there is a definite and conscious technological effort going on to recover as much of the metal from e-waste as economically possible. Judging by the science, the Chinese are having a great time mining these new deposits and are looking forward to the forecast increase in trade.
