ZeroWaste PCBs project D6.1: Report on sustainable recycling strategies identification

Twenty to fifty million tons of e-waste are generated each year, and this amount is increasing from three to five times faster than any other type of municipal waste (e.g. Huang&Guo 2009). PCBs constitute from 3% up to 6% of the total weight of e-waste but a majority of the value (e.g. Das et al 2009). The typical PCB composition consists of a diverse array of metals, ceramics and plastics, however, driven by economic reason, most PCB recycling processes, both in developed and in developing countries, are focused only on the recovery of some precious metals and copper, wasting a great amount of potentially valuable resources. Even if upgraded in the last decade, international and national WEEEs regulations leave too much freedom to companies and governments causing a wide (almost 50% of the global WEEEs production) illegal traffic of waste products directed to China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria. Current recycling technologies are not able to offer the needed recycling performances (e.g. purity levels, types of materials recovered, etc.) asked by the market and, frequently, need to be coupled in series with other ones to optimize the material recovery rates, multiplying costs and plant complexity. Starting from these considerations, the Zero Waste PCBs project aims to identify promising recycling strategies and business models that better cope with current and next market's dynamics and needs. The present WP6 report is focused on the identification of new sustainable recycling strategies, going to evaluate current business models and strategies implemented by companies and trying to discover innovative methods to assist the actors in their development and increase of performances. After a brief introduction in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 the research methodology followed during the project is described. Chapter 3 analyzes the e-waste management State-of-the-Art. Chapter 4 tries to integrate different waste PCBs market data and current business models. Chapter 5 describes into details a best practice process for PCBs recycling. Chapter 6 analyzes the Italian situation and information coming from industrial interviews. Chapter 7 hypothesizes and presents innovative business models for the Italian recycling industry. Finally, Chapter 8 takes some conclusions.