Electronic waste presents one of the biggest downfalls and the most critical opportunity for the clean energy sector. All of the components used in clean energy technology have a finite shelf life, and eventually end up in landfills, where they can leach harmful chemicals. They also ontain critical rare earth elements and other vital metals and minerals which are environmentally and financially costly to extract. Closing the e-waste loop could therefore be a dual benefit for the industry by reducing waste and cost at the same time.
A narrow focus on rapid growth has led to inadequate planning for ensuring that green energy stays green throughout its life cycle. In the words of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Administrator Andrew Wheeler, "without a strategy for their end-of-life management, so-called green technologies like solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, and windmills will ultimately place the same unintended burdens on our planet and economy as traditional commodities."
Already, e-waste is the fastest growing solid waste stream on Earth. The world threw away 62 million metric tons of electronics in 2022. Those 62 million tons contained an estimated 1.1 billion kilograms of copper, 1.9 billion kilograms of nickel, and 1.1 billion kilograms of aluminum - all of which are essential metals for clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Yet only 20% of these precious metals were actually recovered because the cost of recycling them is higher than extracting new metals. These staggering figures come to us courtesy of the United Nations Global E-Waste Monitor, which tracked the waste of valuable metals for the first time ever this year as the scale and profile of our global e-waste problem grows.
It's becoming increasingly acknowledged that robust recycling and waste management programs will be a necessary part of a safe, effective, and environmentally friendly renewable energy industry. However, private investments and public policy have made very little progress on actually solving the problem. Today, nearly 100% of solar panels end up in landfills. By the end of the decade, the amount of globally discarded solar panels will be able to cover an area "equivalent to about 3,000 football fields." Likewise, the wind energy industry will generate 47 million tons of blade waste per year by 2050.
Without serious advancements in recycling, that means that billions of kilograms of precious metals will remain in landfills (where they pose a serious health hazard) while more of the same metals are mined (posing further health and environmental issues). But just this month, scientists have made a surprising breakthrough which could seriously advance our ability to efficiently recycle metals from e-waste to reintegrate into renewable energy manufacturing.
A group of scientists at the University of Edinburgh have discovered a bacteria that can be used to extract lithium, cobalt, manganese and other key metals and minerals from discarded batteries and electronics. In their experiments, they have dissolved waste from electronic batteries and cars, and then used naturally occuring bacteria to attach themselves to desired waste metals, which are then deposited as solid chemicals.
"Bacteria are wonderful, little crazy things that can carry out some weird and wonderful processes," Professor Louise Horsfall, chair of sustainable biotechnology at Edinburgh, told the Guardian. "Some bacteria can synthesise nanoparticles of metals, for example. We believe they do this as a detoxification process. Basically they latch on metal atoms and then they spit them out as nanoparticles so that they are not poisoned by them."
The research is still in early stages, but could prove to be a key breakthrough for creating an efficient and cost-effective process for recycling key metals to power the clean energy transition. "We need to develop a circular economy where we reuse these minerals wherever possible, otherwise we will run out of materials very quickly," Horsfall explained. "There is only a finite amount of these metals on Earth and we can no longer afford to throw them away as waste as we do now. We need new recycling technologies if we want to do something about global warming."
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the… More