Properly regulated mobile phone recycling has become well established in many Western countries over recent years. Usually, the majority of phones sent to mobile phone recyclers end up being refurbished and sold off for re-use in the third world. Unfortunately, this has had the effect of transferring the environmental and health problems to countries such as India. Up to 90% of recycling there is done by the informal sector in a dangerous and uncontrolled way, with almost three-quarters of precious metals being lost.
Added to the import of e-waste from the developed world, emerging countries like India are now producing their own mountains of e-waste and the volume of scrapped mobile phones is expected to rise 18 fold by 2020.
Organised recycling is now beginning to develop in India and there are 16 organisations involved in recycling mobiles properly and recovering precious metals such as platinum, silver and gold. This is a welcome trend considering that mobile phone and PC manufcturers consume 3% of the planet’s total gold and silver production each year. 13% of palladium and 15% of cobalt are also used annually.
Interestingly, some of the components from the broken down phones, such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) are exported back to the developed world to smelting companies who extract the metals. However, much work is needed to implement guidelines to ensure hazardous substances like mercury and lead are extracted and handled safely.
There is an increasingly urgent need to move towards responsible and safe recycling given that mobile phone sales in India are expected to reach over 138 million this year. Whilst mobile phone manufactueres are introducing take back schemes, momentum is slow because awareness about them is poor among consumers.