E-waste

Ever wondered where all the electronic gadgets, computer equipment and various devices go to die? Seems they are not dying,but rather, they are being recycled. This is a great thing and it is proving to be very profitable for waste management companies.

At a time when China -- which produces over 90 percent of the world's output of rare earths, used in lasers, superconductors, computers and much more -- has played hardball over exports, there has been renewed interest in extracting precious metals from electronic scrap -- so-called urban mining.

Metals recovered from e-waste range from gold, silver, copper and aluminum to rarer metals like platinum, gallium, indium and palladium.

The most precious metals are found in CPUs, mobile phones and servers, said John Shegerian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers International (ERI), one the largest private e-cyclers.

"As the amount of rare earth declines and prices are high for traditional platinum metals, there's probably going to be a stronger desire to recycle things like computers and motherboards to get those metals," said Canaccord Genuity analyst Eric Glover.

"Longer term, the supply of these metals will encourage additional recycling," he added.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), e-waste is the fastest growing commodity in the waste stream, with a growth rate five times that of other parts of the business such as industrial waste.

exerpt from Analysis: Gadget gold: "urban miners" scrap over e-waste