WEEE waste is among the least recycled but with the highest added value

Let's try to think how many mobile phones they pass into our hands in the course of our life, how many times we take an iron to be repaired and we are told, it's not worth it to throw it away and buy another one.

Let's run the thoughts in our mind and focus on how many times we have replaced a computer, a hair dryer, a printer and many other appliances that have aged prematurely or because we wanted the latest model of the year.

The negative fruit of our well-being leads to the creation of millions of tons of waste in the world that remain, to date, difficult to manage when compared with other waste. easy recycling.

But the so-called WEEE are actually of the highest value if we were able to extract the precious components they contain, let's talk about gold, silver, palladium and copper, only to give some examples.

Instead, most of the time they end up in landfills, or go to feed clandestine recycling in poor countries, with very serious environmental and health implications for workers.

In Italy, Iren Ambiente, a company of the Iren group, will build a plant for the treatment of WEEE waste, with the aim of extracting all the precious materials that electrical and electronic waste contain.

The plant will carry out two work phases: the first dedicated to the disassembly of the boards, the second to the separation and refining of precious metals through a hydrometallurgical process.

The process, the subject of an article that appeared a few weeks ago on the rMIX recycling portal, will have a work cycle with a low environmental impact and a waste of CO2 content , compared to the traditional mining of precious minerals.

The WEEE processing plant, with the extraction of precious metals, will be located in Tuscany and should be operational in the second half of 2023, with the precise aim to favor the chain of goldsmiths active in the region.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.