18 / 2015-11-11 18:14:42

An evaluation of the amount of resources recycled from waste mobile phones - A case study in China

Evaluation，,The amount of resources，,Recycling，,Waste mobile phone，

With the rapid development of electronic information technology, users replace their mobile phone more and more frequently in China. Therefore, the number of waste mobile phones is increasing year by year. In 2014, the number is more than 1 billion units. There are many metal element in the mobile phone. The potential yield of resources recycled from waste mobile phone is considerable. Recycling resources from waste mobile phones can alleviate the constraints of resources while gaining great economic benefit.
Based on the Logistic model and Stock-base model, the number of waste mobile phone is predicted from 2015 to 2035 in China. And then with the recovery rate of waste mobile phone investigated from a survey, we gain the amounts of waste mobile phone actually available. With the element content in the mobile phone, the amount of resources recycled from waste mobile phone are predicted respectively. Results show that from 2015 to 2035, we can gain 10 tonnes of Palladium, 28 tonnes of Gold, 1100 tonnes of Silver, 4500 tonnes of Cobalt, 4700 tonnes of Zinc, 5900 tonnes of Silicon, 13000 tonnes of Steel/Iron, 14000 tonnes of Aluminum and 30000 tonnes of Copper from waste mobile phone every year. However, the recovery rate of waste mobile phone is very low, the actual available amounts is far lower than the potential yield of these resources. The main factors that constraint the efficiency of recycling are: (1) it is difficult to guarantee information security, people are more unwilling to leave their waste mobile phone at home; (2) the existing recycling system is not perfect, when families are confronted with electronic waste, they have no ideas on how to deal with them appropriately.