04.04.2012/XNUMX/XNUMX - Profitable recycling: gold in the trash
With rising prices for industrial and precious metals, waste turns into gold mines. What used to be scrap is today called secondary raw material. With rising prices for industrial and precious metals, the recycling of old electrical appliances is becoming increasingly attractive. Who benefits.
Tweezers and a butter knife: The 21 miner needs more. Century not. At least if he's called Raffi Steppanian. His mine is the street canyons around West 47th Street in New York. There is the so-called diamond district, the realm of diamond traders and jewelers. And there Steppanian digs with his butter knife in the cracks of the sidewalk and fishes with his tweezers tiny gold particles or gems to the light. For decades, the jewelers and diamond traders have carried the small treasures out of their shops onto the street - unnoticed by the shirt cuff or the suit sleeve. Until she scraped Steppanian again from the dirty joints of the sidewalk. After all, the New Yorker earns a few hundred dollars a week with this form of urban gold mining.
Quite different dimensions are involved in industrial "urban mining", the recovery of valuable raw materials from scrap and waste. Every year, 40.000 tons of copper, 120 tons of silver and 14 tons of gold are extracted from electronic waste in Europe. The Swedish company Boliden annually recycles eight tons of gold worth more than 400 millions of dollars. Still. The Group is in the process of nearly trebling its recycling capacity from 45.000 to 120.000 tons of electronic waste per year. After the enlargement, the Swedes will have a share of around 60 percent in the European market for electronic waste recycling.
Bolidens expansion is no coincidence. More and more electronic devices are entering the market, and at the same time, product cycles are getting shorter and shorter. By 2020, a United Nations study says, every EU citizen will produce 24 kilograms of electronic waste per year. After all, it was already six kilos in the year 2008. The problem is that currently only 30 to 40 percent of this electronic waste is recycled to EU standards. The remainder either ends up in landfills or reaches Africa or Asia.
There, the old equipment is often disassembled in backyard workshops, which is bad for workers' health and the environment. In addition, the yield is much lower than professional recycling. Mobile phones and printed circuit boards can recover 90 percent of the metal content. For gold and other precious metals, the yield is even at 95 percent. By contrast, non-professional recycling only yields a gold yield of 25 percent.
So it's not just the recyclers who want the electronic waste in Europe to be recycled properly. Politicians have also recognized the value of so-called secondary raw materials. For countries like Germany are poor in raw materials and therefore heavily dependent on imports. In the years from 2000 to 2008 alone, imports from 54 to 127 billion have risen, according to figures from the Federal Institute for Raw Materials. The export of electronic waste to developing countries should now be combated more effectively. A new EU directive requires the exporter of electronic waste to have to prove in the future that the devices actually work.
Althandy as a coveted resource
Undoubtedly, recycling is a very efficient way of getting raw materials. For example, one ton of old cell phones can be used to win around 200 grams of gold. If you wanted to extract the same amount of ore, you would need to move 35 to 40 tons on average. In addition, cell phones contain many other valuable raw materials such as silver, zinc, nickel, copper and rare earths.
The only problem is that many of these treasures do not come into the collection or end up on the trash. Almost 1,9 millions of tons of electrical appliances are sold in Germany every year, but only 700.000 tons are recycled. In between there is a gap of 1,2 million tons. "Many valuable technology materials are in the drawers at home," says Pieter Busscher, manager of the SAM Smart Materials Fund. And also Jörg Lacher, spokesman for the Federal Association of Secondary Raw Materials and Disposal (BVSE), says: "In the future you will certainly have to make a greater effort to get used to the used mobile phones."
In this direction also aims a push of the Green parliamentary group. It demands that the government create an efficient deposit system for mobile phones and smartphones. It is conceivable a deposit of ten euros when buying a mobile phone. At European level, the path is heading in a different direction. According to a new EU directive, trade should be given more responsibility.
Regardless of buying a new device, consumers in larger electronics stores should be able to return their old devices, which are smaller than 25 centimeters. "In the course of this year, we expect a first working draft of the Ministry of the Environment on how to transpose the directive into national law," says BVSE spokesman Lacher.
The European Union's target is to increase the collection rate for electronic waste from 2016 to 45 percent of new equipment sold on average over the past three years. Later it will even become 65 or 85 percent. Currently, the collection target of four kilograms per person per year applies in the EU. However, many countries are already above this target. Every German, on average, empties seven to eight kilograms of electronic waste per year for recycling.
Recycling: From mass to class
In future, however, it will not only be necessary to increase collection volumes, but also to improve the collection system. "Against the backdrop of effective raw material extraction, our current system is still very poor," says Sabine Flamme, recycling expert at Münster University of Applied Sciences. "In the treatment today, the focus is mainly on the recovery of mass flows." So it is ensured that as much as possible is recycled. In addition, valuable devices are recorded as mixtures. This is how cell phones end up in the hunt group "Information and Consumer Electronics", although they need a more targeted treatment. "Valuable raw materials are lost as a result."
In a study that examines the complete collection and recycling chain of WEEE, we are currently working together at TU Berlin and Münster University of Applied Sciences. For Flamme is clear: "The previous detection system must be optimized in order to regain resources more targeted."
Investors also open up opportunities. Because urban mining is likely to gain in importance in the coming years and grow strongly. "This market is becoming more and more interesting for us," says fund manager Busscher. "Even countries like China are beginning to introduce electronic waste recycling premiums."
Even Europe's companies should profit. In addition to rolling stock, this includes the Belgian Umicore Group, one of the world's largest specialists in the recycling of specialty materials and metals. The company mines raw materials from 35.000 tons of waste per year. Tweezers and a butter knife are not enough.
Investor Info
Collection of E-scrap
Strongly expandable
In Germany, 2008 has been marketed around 1,9 million tons of electrical appliances. Of these, 38 percent was recycled. According to the will of the EU, the collection rate should rise to 65 percent in the future.
Boliden AB
Recycling giant in the north
The Swedes are currently expanding their recycling capacity enormously. With planned 120.000 tons per year, the world's largest recycler of electronic waste is being created. Around 14 percent of the area in the future contribute to the business of the mining group. The stock is struck chartically, with an entry to wait for prices over 113 crowns.
Umicore
Metals and more
The Belgian company, once founded as a state-owned mining company, today is a pure materials technology group. The recycling of specialty materials and metals accounts for around a quarter of sales. On average over the past two years, this area grew by around 41 percent. The stock has already gone well, but analysts from Goldman Sachs see upside potential to 56 Euro.
SAM Smart Materials Fund
Raw materials once differently
Behind the fund of sustainability specialists at SAM is the idea: high commodity prices provide a strong incentive to develop new materials and technologies that can replace traditional commodities. In addition to companies that produce innovative materials or are located in process engineering, fund manager Pieter Busscher also focuses on recycling.
Andreas Hohenadl, € uro on Sunday)
