End-of-life of the electronic device doesn't necessarily mean end of life of the resources which could be found inside. The materials which could still be used for production and technology processes exist inside old electronics. The problem is that they become difficult to recover after being included in the flow of general waste. This is where critical mineral recovery comes into play, putting the focus on the materials which are found inside obsolete electronics.
The first task of the organization responsible for the processing of large amounts of obsoletized equipment is to differentiate between disposing and recovering. While the former means simply getting rid of the device, the latter includes recovering materials which can still be reused.
The structure of the devices complicates the problem even further. Different types of equipment, such as data center server, battery powered device and consumer electronics device, might contain different amounts of various materials. There may be concentration of valuable minerals in particular parts of the products rather than their even distribution throughout the entire product. Consequently, efficient recycling will require proper sorting and dismantling of the product, and subsequent processing.
Indeed, the supply chains for such minerals can come under increasing strain as well. With growing demand for electronics, batteries and advanced technologies, companies will require stable sources of minerals. The use of recovered resources from those products which were already manufactured and used constitutes an alternative source of the raw materials to conventional mining.
In addition, businesses should think of the process preceding material recovery. In the case of enterprise electronics, there may be sensitive data on those devices, which means that the data destruction or sanitization process will be a necessary stage of the recovery process.
A good example of the critical mineral recovery strategy should be developed from a very early point – from the moment of collecting and classifying of electronic products intended for recovery.
The general idea behind this approach is obvious – disposed electronics do not necessarily become a material which is devoid of its value anymore. However, provided with appropriate recovery methods, these waste materials can turn into a resource which would otherwise be lost in the process of manufacturing.