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Scrap metal recycling helps to snag old cell phones and laptops before they reach landfills — but what other benefits exist? This is important considering that “more than 4.4 million tons of used and end-of-life electronics are processed annually in the U.S. recycling industry,” according to, “Recycled Commodities Series: Electronics,” an informative video released by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) alongside the 2015 E-Scrap convention—which will be held in New Orleans for 2016.
The ISRI report helps to outline the growth of e-scrap recycling, how the U.S. recycling industry has expanded over the past decade, and who benefits.
The growth of any industry is a surefire way to add jobs to the U.S. economy, helping to improve overall livelihood for communities, families and individuals. Within this burgeoning field, the e-scrap industry has created more than 45,000 full-time jobs in the U.S., according to ISRI. Of all of the collected goods, 83% of items are recycled and reused domestically. All-over, the market growth has added more than $20.6 billion to the U.S. economy.
Recycling scrap metal reduces the depletion of natural resources, and walls-up or decreases manufacturing waste. Scrap recycling also requires less energy, and offsets greenhouse gas emissions. For example, one metric ton of electronic scrap from computers contains more gold than that recovered from 17 tons of gold ore!
With the improvements of recycling technology and technology systems, parcels of recycled electronics are able to re-enter the market as individual resources such as a plastic, aluminum, silver, copper—and gold. With the establishment of more third-party certification systems, more used cell phones, laptops, home stereos and other electronics can go back into the market stream and into users’ hands.
General Kinematics hopes that designers and manufacturers continue to be inspired to create electronic products that are easy to recycle!
Recycling can be an equipment- and resource-intensive process, with many facilities preferring dual or multi-stream processing to expedite the filtering of different materials. But single stream recycling also offers benefits to consumers and facilities alike. So which one is right for your recycling facility? Before digging into the argument of which method of recycling is […]
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Municipal solid waste, or MSW, can be recovered and turned into biofuel. This process of turning garbage into fuel works twofold: it lessens the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and it keeps trash out of landfills. When MSW is burned rather than buried in landfills, the volume of waste is reduced by about 87%. In […]
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Construction and demolition (C&D) materials include debris generated during a renovation, demolition or construction of civil engineering structures. The EPA estimated that in 2015, nearly 550 million tons of C&D debris overall was generated in the United States alone — more than twice the amount of municipal solid waste generated that same year. Some of […]
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