EnviroLeach+and+Jabil+to+Launch+Clean+E-Waste+Recycling+Plant

EnviroLeach and Jabil to Launch Clean E-Waste Recycling Plant Waste 360, October 5th, 2017 [|<] [|http://www.waste360.com/e-waste/enviroleach-and-jabil-launch-clean-e-waste-recycling-plant>]



Summary: This article talks about the partnership between two companies, EnviroLeach and Jabil, and their plan to launch an "e-waste recycling plant in Memphis,Tenn., to recover precious and base metals.". The companies have a projected launch date of sometime in January of 2018 and the recycling center is said to use a proprietary process that will have near zero emissions, unlike other electronic waste and mining companies that use cyanide or hot acid solutions EnviroLeach and Jabil use a water based formula that does not harm the surrounding environment including the water treatment system. The two companies use each others strengths as Jabil uses EnviroLeach's environmentally safe formula and EnviroLeach uses Jabil's vast business relationships to bring them to countries and materials as well as its experience in contract manufacturing. The main target of EnviroLeach's formula and process is to recover metal from circuit boards at a starting rate of nearly 5 tons in only the US and then scale to a near worldwide level. The goal of this is to "put recycled commodities into worldwide production to minimize our carbon footprint. We are trying to close the loop and provide solutions at the end of life, handling material in the most responsible way.". The plant it self is being built as a modular structure, which means its being built to be assembled much like Legos, they build the parts and then it is shipped and then constructed. Because the system can be built in this way EnviroLeach and Jabil have 17 requests for information from different countries. According to the article there was more than 41.8 million tons of electronic waste in the year 2014, of which 1/3 belonged to the US and China alone. And as waste has increased legal action is taking place as I will explore in Law part of my discussion.

Relation to Class:  This discussion of recycling and re purposing electronic waste relates to the APES class because it talks about Recycling and Reusing a previously thought to be non-renewable resource. In pages 350-352 in Chapter 14 Sub-chapter 5-ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF EXTRACTING AND USING MINERAL RESOURCES: The textbook talks about the mining process of ores, which are comprised of two things, 1 the metal and 2 the waste mineral material, to obtain the useful metal smelting must occur which releases "enormous quantities of air pollutants, which damage vegetation and soils in the surrounding area.". Though many recycling processes have been used to reuse metals without smelting it has involved the use of harmful chemicals like cyanide, but this proposed process by EnviroLeach and Jabil uses a non-harmful way to re use metals without smelting which lessens the amount of pollutants entering the environment through smelting or harmful recycling processes ( Source Reduction Solution).  Opinion I believe that to have technology readily available and for it to be less environmentally detrimental this new system is necessary. The way that electronic waste is being dealt with is almost as bad as continuously mining for ores and smelting them, this new revolutionary process can combat that, and because of many reasons such as to the low environmental harm, ease of transport and set up of the plant and the sheer number of locations where this could be set up is why it will be so effective. As technology increases and the actual amount of material in each device is increasing as well as the quality of each material, there has to be an equal amount of material being re used so we can at least break even, rather than having a nonstop influx of resource via mining and smelting that harms our planet without any re purposing of materials.



Law According to the ERCC (Electronic Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse) the State of North Carolina as well as 25 others passed an e-legislation law of some kind. On Senate Bill 887 the North Carolina General Assembly passed an act to " (1) MODIFY EQUIPMENT RECYCLING PLAN REQUIREMENTS AND ASSOCIATED FEE IMPOSED ON MANUFACTURERS; AND (2) MAKE FURTHER SUBSTANTIVE, CLARIFYING, TECHNICAL, AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS TO THE LAWS GOVERNING THE MANAGEMENT OF DISCARDED COMPUTER EQUIPMENT AND DISCARDED TELEVISIONS, AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW COMMISSION.". Also in Section 130A-309.130 of the same bill finds that up til then there had not been any such system to recycle such waste but now after the passing of this bill will there be a system based off of equal responsibility of the consumer and vendor of electronic equipment.