Urban Mining

• Electronic Recycling is equivalent to Urban Mining at a low cost.
• We are quickly reaching the limits of many of the natural resources required to build our 21st century gadgets.
  • Demand is outstripping Supply
• Virgin Materials are significantly more costly than recycled materials for manufacturing.
  • Demand for recycling materials is expanding with global growth in emerging markets
• E-waste contains a large amount of rare and increasingly difficult to replace metals:
  • Platinum
  • Gallium
  • Indium
  • Palladium
• Aside from repurposing rare materials, there is the embedded energy content to consider.
• In the face of rising energy prices legislators understand we cannot continue to throw our electronic waste stream away which contains a toxic substance and high energy value.

Energy Conservation Benefits

Significant Energy Savings Recycling of electronic waste conserves a tremendous amount of energy.

Recycling these materials also reduces emissions of pollutants that can cause smog, acid rain and the contamination of waterways. 

For example, the smelting of bauxite ore to make aluminum requires 20 times more energy than melting down and reusing the aluminum scrap.