E-Waste: Metal Pollution Threat or Metal Resource?

Abstract

The decreasing costs and increasing availability of electronic equipments like mobiles, televisions, computers and their accessories with advanced technology and the fast rate at which the outdated units are changed, has given rise to a new stream of waste known as Electronic waste (E-waste). ‘E-waste’ is one of the rapidly growing problems of the present world. The article provides a concise overview of the current scenario of global and national E-waste generation, environmental and health hazards, existing legal networks as well as organizations working on this issue and current technologies for E-waste treatment namely pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and bio hydrometallurgy. It further confers why researchers have shown more interest in bio hydrometallurgical techniques for recovery of metals from E-waste as compared to the conventional methods. If a sustainable technique of metal extraction from E-waste is developed, it would help to conserve the depleting high grade metallic ores, provide the extracted metals to industries and conserve the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem from the hazards of E-waste. Moreover, the purity of base and precious metals in E-wastes is about ten times higher than the ores hence, if potential E-waste recycling methods are developed and implemented, it would change the problem of pollution into a profitable metal resource.