Material Efficiency: Rare and Critical Metals

Mining & Minerals - Evaluations / Critical Mineral Resources

Ayres and Peiró reported in 2016 that in the last few decades, progress in electronics, especially, has resulted in important new uses for a number of geologically rare metals, some of which were mere curiosities in the past. Most of them are not mined for their own sake (gold, the platinum group metals and the rare Earth elements are exceptions) but are found mainly in the ores of the major industrial metals, such as aluminium, copper, zinc and nickel. The authors call these major metals ‘attractors’ and the rare accompanying metals ‘hitch-hikers’. The key implication is that rising prices do not necessarily call forth greater output because that would normally require greater output of the attractor metal. The authors traced the geological relationships and the functional uses of these metals. Some of these metals appear to be irreplaceable in the sense that there are no known substitutes for them in their current functional uses.

Recycling is going to be increasingly important, notwithstanding a number of barriers.In the very long run, there is a clear case and a potential for closed cycle manufacturing. The market for post-consumer recycled materials from electronics will undoubtedly be stronger in the future because of the scarcity of some critical metals. But market forces alone will not go far enough. As already noted, it is currently profitable to recover gold, silver and the noble metals from e-waste, but the waste remaining after the high value elements are removed becomes even more difficult to recycle. An integrated facility to recover the other valuable materials is very capital intensive, and such a facility (at present) would almost certainly have to rely on fees from other industrial waste generators that are, in turn, subject to strictly enforced environmental regulations.

Unfortunately, the fee-based model does not work for consumer products in Europe, and still less in the developing countries, unless they are first collected by an intermediary, such as a retail outlet. At least one U.S. electronics chain is ‘offering’ a large item collection service to its customers, who have to bring the item to the store and to pay a fee. Other retail stores take back old TVs or PCs if the customer buys a new one. However, despite the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (in Europe) the ‘take back’ option has not yet adequately been supported by that source downloaded from http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/  on October 19, 2016.

Emphasizing:
— high product mobility, unclear material flows
— multiple change of ownership, sequential locations of growth around the globe
— high exports of EOL products, lack of appropriate infrastructure in developing countries
— low consumer awareness on resource value and missing economic incentives, but combined mass flows have big impact on metal demand
— hibernating goods, discarding as trash and informal activities significantly reduce recycling efficiency

in Figure 3 of the article illustrating the open loop character of consumer goods as the most significant driver for losses. IC, integrated circuit; MLCC, multi-layer ceramic chip (capacitor). (Online version in color.)

A much more effective option would be for each purchased item to carry a legally mandated returnable deposit, from 2 to 10 per cent of the sales price (smaller for
higher priced items). The money would have to be kept in a separate account and returned when the item is brought back. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a strategy designed and implemented in the European Union to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products (for definitions and description, see http://www.oecd.org/document/19/0,3343,en_2649_34281_35158227_1_1_1_1,00.html).

EPR uses regulatory means to hold producers liable for the costs of managing their products at end of life. This tactic attempts to force a transition from traditional end-of-pipe waste ‘diversion’ programs (no matter who funds the programs) to ‘cradle-to-cradle’ recycling systems designed, financed and managed by the product manufacturers themselves.

EPR is predicated on the fact that producers have control over product design and marketing, and therefore have the greatest ability (hence responsibility) to reduce toxicity and environmental harm [94]. Some producers’ strategies can be regarded as responses to EPR: (i) green design, (ii) green manufacturing, (iii) green procurement, (iv) green recovery agencies, (v) use of eco-labelling, and (vi) the establishment of corporate alliances.

Leading industrial companies have acquired ISO 14000 certification—an internationally developed voluntary standard for environmental management, partly in response to EPR but also partly to meet consumer demand. However, it is not clear whether EPR does, or can, provide incentives strong enough to close the materials cycle. The missing piece of the puzzle seems to be incentives for metallurgical firms to invest in e-waste recycling. For both environmental and resource scarcity reasons, there is a need for regulations or incentives to induce original equipment (brand name) manufacturers (OEMs) to monitor and manage both scarce and hazardous materials throughout the life cycle, ‘from cradle-to-grave’ (open loop) and—wherever feasible—‘from cradle-to-cradle’ (closed loop). See the schematic of figure 3.

A new technology that may facilitate closing the loop is radio-frequency identification (RFID), a very small chip—potentially microscopic—that can be implanted in a product to identify its downloaded from http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/  on October 19, 2016 source and track it from owner to owner. This technology is already operational and it could be used in the near future to keep track of manufactured products as large as cars and as small as cell phones. It would be fairly straightforward to use the RFID technology for the purpose of sorting end-of-life items by manufacturer, and even by age. The next step would be for the manufacturer, or his agent, to collect and ship the items back to a specialized recycling operation.

The two major barriers to closed loop manufacturing are:

(i) lack of strong incentives, such as returnable deposits, not only to enforce EPR in the developed countries, but also to facilitate the implementation of new ideas, such as life cycle ownership of scarce metals, and
(ii) corruption, weak contract enforcement and weak ‘rule of law’ in too many developing countries.

Even in developed countries, especially with the current economic crisis, scavengers are partially displacing formal waste collectors. Such informal recycling constrains the profitability of the legal system. It also can result in environmental damage owing to the scavenger’s lack of knowledge about the toxicity of some of the materials involved, especially those from electrical and electronic equipment.

The life cycle ownership concept would allow an OEM to own and rent the scarce materials in its products, rather than selling them with the product itself. This would enable the original manufacturer to demand the return of the specified materials at the end of product life or pay for their market value. It would also provide a strong financial incentive to recyclers to adopt better processes. Of course, this would be impossible to enforce in the present world. But if the returnable deposit or other regulations enabled OEMs to keep track of their products and if the e-recycling industry were better organized, closed cycle manufacturing would be more feasible.

Other barriers are also very important. Perhaps the most important is a general fear of, and resistance to, change. This resistance is encouraged by all groups or sectors that foresee adverse consequences for themselves. For instance, one of the major arguments in favor of closed loop manufacturing is that it would create incentives to increase product life and reduce the consumption of primary resources. But such a change would clearly have a negative impact on the suppliers of those resources. Similarly, it would have a negative impact on those who encourage and profit from rapid obsolescence.