This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
To construct all the solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, and other technologies needed to combat climate change, we're going to require a significantly higher quantity of metals. a lot more metals. Extracting these metals from the Earth causes harm and pollution that put ecosystems and communities at risk. However, there's another possible source of the copper, nickel, aluminum, and rare-earth minerals needed to address climate change: the mountain of electronic waste humanity discards each year.
Precisely how much of each clean energy metal is contained in the laptops, printers, and smart fridges discarded by the world? Until recently, this was largely unknown. Data on less well-known metals like neodymium and palladium, which are crucial in green energy technologies, has been particularly difficult to obtain.
Now, the United Nations has made an initial effort to fill in these data gaps with its latest report on e-waste around the world. Released last month, the new Global E-Waste Monitor reveals the astonishing scale of the e-waste crisis, which reached a new peak in 2022 when the world disposed of 62 million metric tons of electronics. And for the first time, the report provides a detailed breakdown of the metals present in our electronic garbage, and how often they are being recycled.
“There is very little reporting on the recovery of metals [from e-waste] globally,” lead report author Kees Baldé told Grist. “We felt it was our duty to get more facts on the table.”
One of those facts is that some staggering quantities of energy transition metals are ending up in the trash.
Two of the most recyclable metals found abundantly in e-waste are aluminum and copper. Both are expected to play crucial roles in the energy transition: Copper wiring is widespread in a variety of low- and zero-carbon technologies, from wind turbines to the power transmission lines that carry renewable energy. Aluminum is also used in some power lines, and as a lightweight structural support metal in electric vehicles, solar panels, and more. Yet only 60 percent of the estimated 4 million metric tons of aluminum and 2 million metric tons of copper present in e-waste in 2022 got recycled. Millions of tons more wound up in waste dumps around the world.
The world could have used those discarded metals. In 2022, the climate tech sector’s copper demand stood at nearly 6 million metric tons, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. In a scenario where the world aggressively reduces emissions in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, copper demand for low-carbon technologies could nearly triple by 2030.
Aluminum demand, meanwhile, is expected to grow up to 80 percent by 2050 due to the pressures of the energy transition. With virgin aluminum production creating over 10 times more carbon emissions than aluminum recycling on average, increased recycling is a key strategy for reducing aluminum’s carbon footprint as demand for the metal rises.
For other metals used to transition to different energy sources, the rates of recycling are much lower. An example is the rare-earth element neodymium, which is used in the permanent magnets present in various tools and devices, such as iPhone speakers, electric vehicle motors, and offshore wind turbine generators. wind turbine generators. In 2022, Baldé and his colleagues estimated that there were 7,248 metric tons of neodymium in e-waste around the world. This amount is roughly three-quarters of the 9,768 metric tons required by the wind and EV sectors that year, according to the IEA. However, less than 1 percent of all rare earths in e-waste are recycled due to the underdeveloped recycling technologies and the challenges and costs associated with collecting rare earth-rich components from technology.