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Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
21–30 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#22I was shocked to find that even electronics that are collected in Europe seem to be shipped to Africa, set on fire, and at most, metals are collected from the ashes, including traces of gold and copper. That's about it. Batteries have a bit better recycling path but not by much.
On the upside, at some point the ground in those infamous electronics "recycling" towns will become so contaminated they'll be able to strip-mine for rare earths!
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#23Energy has an environmental cost. If the energy required to recycle is more than the environmental cost it's not worth it.
That is true but it is unclear why you believe that to apply to recycling electronics. I doubt anyone can put hard numbers on the environmental costs involved.
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#24Well it seems uneven. The materials in electronics are so varied that there seem to be different levels of recycling, hopefully with materials pricing going up the worst forms of recycling can go away.
China sells a machine for anything you can imagine: Here is a wire grinding machine to recover the copper from wires: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p_hmDdGIk7g
PCBs first seem to be cut up before put into similar machines machine above: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WO-VvucMq4E
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/q_O1EpEcKaM
Dont know what happens to the ground epoxy resin, maybe mixed with other materials?
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#25Because they are so manufacturable.
When we design these things (which I do for a living) we often find we are forced into tradeoffs between repairability/recycleability and manufacturability/cost. The market wants cheaper and cheaper things. To accommodate we need to make them less repairable and recyclable.
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#26This is why the saying has always been “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order. Reducing is the best. Don’t buy or make surplus stuff, and that reduces waste overall. Reusing is second best. If we did make something, the best thing to do is get as much use out of it as possible to prevent it from ever becoming trash. Recycling is the last resort. Regardless of what is being recycled, it is an expensive and difficult p…
I heard they changed it to 5Rs. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.
How confusing. There's no appreciable difference between "refuse" and "reduce". "Rot" is only applicable to organic waste, which is rarely considered part of "recycling" since the other Rs don't really apply.
Seems like change for change's sake.
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#27Repairability would help as well. Many times the only viable option to fix something is to swap a board, or replace the entire item, instead of replacing the one failed component that caused the board to fail, or reflowing the board etc.. Many components also do not offer batteries that can be replaced, such as the magic mouse, so you end up needing to replace the entire item. It's interesting how as certain things a…
Seeing LED bulb reliability rapidly degrade as the technology matured was like seeing the Phoebus Cartel[1] play out in real time.
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard they changed it to 5Rs. Refuse, reduce, reuse, recyle, rot.
How confusing. There's no appreciable difference between "refuse" and "reduce". "Rot" is only applicable to organic waste, which is rarely considered part of "recycling" since the other Rs don't really apply. Seems like change for change's sake.
Rot is about using bio-degradable options where there is one
if all fails, just leave an option for nature to do it for you
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#29It comes down to entropy and cost of labour. It takes more work to undo entropy turning a complex material mix which is either an appliance still intact or crushed and mixed even more back into its raw materials.
Processing mineral ores into raw materials is cheaper.
So the only way is to regulate market, meaning forcing companies to put in the extra work.
Currently these regulations tend to be circumvented by illegally exporting e-waste into countries with cheap labour, no such regulations or corruption (usually all at the same time).
Re: Ask HN: Why are electronics still so unrecyclable?
#30I was shocked to find that even electronics that are collected in Europe seem to be shipped to Africa, set on fire, and at most, metals are collected from the ashes, including traces of gold and copper. That's about it. Batteries have a bit better recycling path but not by much.
A lot of recycling seems to amount to shipping waste overseas so it can be disposed of in jurisdictions with few/no environmental protections. Pretty sad state of affairs.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/waste-recyclables-malaysia-p...