This review firstly contributes to the international body of knowledge by addressing some key issues associated with the recycling, disposal of electronic products in Singapore and server disposal in Singapore, and electronic recycling program companies in Singapore. Secondly, the extended producer (hare) and consumer responsibility principle of product stewardship, which is becoming an increasingly attractive policy option for both disposal and recycling issues, is explained in some detail. Thirdly, potential strategies and the implications of these methods for both product life cycle management and Singapore-related electronic products disposal and recycling are discussed. The study concludes that the extended responsibility of firms until the end of the useful life of their products is both environmentally effective and cost-effective. However, product stewardship has to be seen as only one component of a dynamic and interconnected suite of educational, economic, and regulatory strategies. In short, recycling cannot be sustained without stopping the harm at the beginning.
The Bureau of International Recycling has identified electronic scrap as the fastest growing and most environmentally hazardous segment of the municipal waste stream. This situation has resulted in serious concern across the developed world because of the function of electronic equipment in today’s society, and the quality of the raw materials used in developing these products. Singapore is one of the most rapidly developing countries in Asia and a leader in high technology product services. Legislative, regulatory, and public pressures for action on managing electronic scrap disposal are increasing.
Background of Electronic Waste Recycling
Recycling or proper disposal of electronic waste is essential to the prevention of human health problems and conservation of the environment. In this aspect, the National Environmental Agency (NEA) in Singapore aims to minimize used electronic discard, reduce e-waste, promote the responsible disposal of electronic waste, and use safe technology for the handling of hazardous materials. The NEA plays a proactive role by collaborating with local trade organizations such as the National Computer Systems; multinational corporations, consultants, the building and construction authority, the funding support center, and suppliers to discuss and address the e-waste crisis. On the international stage, Singapore is currently negotiating a waste exchange agreement with its border countries. The parameters of the agreement aim to facilitate the export of hazardous materials from the border countries and the import of e-waste, thus making Singapore the regional center for the safe handling and disposal of e-waste. Despite these aggressive plans, unstable global and local economic forces are driving the export of e-waste collection in Singapore. To satisfy international concerns about food safety and trading with the transshipping hub, Singapore has drastically increased the self-sufficiency of the waste handling system and the disposal of its e-waste. Additionally, it has also called for stakeholder discussion to brainstorm different handling strategies.
Electronic waste or e-waste is the term used to describe used electronics that are at the end of their useful life. They include discarded computers, office electronic equipment, entertainment devices, mobile phones, and television sets. In fact, the Commodity Classification Standard, Trade Standard Diffusion, and Production of the United Nations recognize 6,903 commodity groups and about 1,200 of them contain used electronic products. As of the year 2000, the world generated 10%, or 316,302-453,377 tonnes, of e-waste. Current estimates are that, as of 2007, 9.23 kg of obsolete electronics were abandoned each year. By 2010, that number will reach 40-50 million tonnes worldwide. The growth rate for e-waste is between 7% and 10%, two to three times the growth rate for other solid waste composition (e.g., agriculture, construction, industrial, and municipal by-products). It can be concluded that e-waste has grown as a new category of waste, containing non-decomposable materials such as metal and plastics.
Importance of Proper Disposal and Recycling
Demand for electronics has been increasing and will continue to do so as people are getting wealthier and the number of electronic gadgets in the market increases every year. The lifespan of most electronic products is becoming shorter, which consequently shortens the lifespan of these electronic devices. The advancement and change in technology have caused many people to change their electronic equipment such as personal computers, mobile phones, and electronic gadgets frequently to keep up with the latest models. As equipment gets replaced, higher disposal rates result. With the advancement of technology, people are getting more practical and hate to live with old equipment as they want to enjoy the benefits of new impressive performance items. estimated that by the year 2020, electronic waste would grow by 40% from 110.9 million metric tons in 2013. For televisions and hand phones, it could grow substantially.
Electronics waste is a rapidly growing waste stream in Singapore and around the globe. Recycling and disposal of electronics are relatively sensitive topics, as with improper handling, recycling, and disposal of such items, it could result in the leakage of toxic substances and increase the risks to humans and ecosystems. To prevent this from happening, working electronic products which are still in good condition and can be repaired should be reused locally or exported to other countries with similar usage voltage where the equipment can be used. However, factory-rejecting electronic equipment that is seriously damaged or that has reached the end of its lifespan will have to be properly disposed of and recycled.
Current State of Electronic Waste in Singapore
The export of such e-waste is illegal under the Basel Convention, and the Asian countries of concern are China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The speaker from Malaysia stressed the importance of international cooperation from all the major stakeholders: people, producers, recyclers, and other waste management authorities to solve the e-waste problems that are faced by many Asian countries today. Countries should stop exporting non-tested end-of-life electronic products and obsolete equipment to developing countries, especially those countries with poor infrastructure to control the proper carrying out of reclamation and recycling activities for precious metals, metals, and plastics.
The Tenth Congress of the Asia and Pacific Division was advised by the Japanese delegation of the explosive growth in e-waste in Asia today due to vigorous economic development and the better quality of life in the region. E-waste is difficult to manage as it requires sophisticated technologies for dismantling and processing. Therefore, around 70 percent of e-waste in Asia is disposed of in an unsafe manner, often by burning or dumping in water bodies, and only the metallic and plastics-containing fractions are recycled.
Electronic waste is not only a problem in the developed western countries, who are now grappling with how to manage their own domestic e-waste arising. The rapid economic development and inflow of waste electronic products for reclamation and disposal purposes have also made the problem acute in Asian countries. Singapore is not exempted from the e-waste menace. This paper provides the backdrop to the situation facing the Lion City.
With the advancement of microelectronics, computers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices have become cheaper and more pervasive. This has led to high consumption rates and increasingly shorter lifespans, leading to an unprecedented rise in the amounts of used or end-of-life electronic products, which has fast become the fastest-growing solid waste stream. Hence, the management of these products, known as electronic waste (e-waste), has attracted worldwide attention.
Statistics and Trends
In 2013, REN estimated that the average e-waste production generated by Singaporeans was 11.9kg, which is above the Asia-Pacific average of 9.3kg. The upswing in e-waste generation is a significant concern for a small and highly urbanized city-state such as Singapore due to environmental pollution, the release of toxic substances, resource depletion, and potentially significant economic loss if valuable resources are not recovered from this e-waste.
Singapore has generated an increasing amount of e-waste over the years due to the increasing usage of EEE. For instance, Singaporeans own a whopping 7.3 million mobile phones in 2015, which translates to 3 to 4 unique mobile lines per person. Unsurprisingly, the Lion City’s EEE disposal rate had also greatly increased from some 1094 tonnes in 1999 to 45,000 tonnes in 2010, with the largest amount of e-waste in 2010 coming from domestic sources, which contributed 60% of the country’s e-waste. That year, only some 6% of e-waste was recycled and around 34% were disposed of at the landfill.
Government Regulations and Initiatives
The control over the supply of new equipment generates a significant impact on the approach of the manufacturers and on the producers of electrical and electronic equipment. This process includes compliance with international environmental laws, especially the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (EU WEEE). The WEEE directive aims to lessen the number of waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) and encourage recycling by requiring manufacturers to accept the return of consumer goods and electronics when they are no longer operational. It also sets specific goals to aim at reducing the quantity of non-metallic waste material sent to landfill. In fact, the WEEE directive was drafted to ensure greater environmental responsibility and the reduction of risks for human beings and for the Earth due to leachate emanations, including Organic Inorganic Compounds (OGCs), into water and soil. The enforcement legislation for the WEEE directive came into effect in August 2005. In the U.K., a Landfill Directive was also deposited in 1991, obliging Local Authorities in England to introduce environmental treatment tax, covering the majority of non-hazardous waste directed into landfills.
Recycling and Disposal Methods
Electrical and electronic equipment become obsolete or reach the end of their useful lives for various end-of-life reasons. The technology may become outdated, the equipment may not be saleable because of changes in market demand, or it may have mechanical problems that are not cost-effective to repair because replacements are readily available. The equipment becomes waste when it is not possible, practical, or economic to treat it further or repair it, or if the manufacturer no longer wishes to use the equipment. The main disposal pathways include waste disposal, recycling, reuse, remanufacturing, and open burning.
End-of-Life Strategies
The recycling and disposal of electronic waste varies considerably from place to place, as environmental, economic, and legal parameters dictate the course of action. To be precise, in countries where environmental awareness is high, electronics are disposed of as hazardous waste and are dealt with only by authorized facilities, while in other countries, electronics are commonly disposed of in the household waste. This paper discusses the various recycling methods in detail and contrasts differences in stringencies of environmental standards of EU, USA, and RoW. Case studies of Singapore, Hong Kong, and other countries concerning the containment of e-waste problem in Asia are also presented.
Recycling vs. Disposal: Key Differences
For example, a computer can contain about 9.1 kg of lead, 2.2 kg of cadmium, and 4.5 kg of flame retardants, and a monitor can contain 2-6% lead by weight. Recycling tends to direct assets containing toxic valuable materials away from landfills and incinerators to reduce the environmental health impacts of complex used electronics and thus reduce the overall ecological footprint of electronic waste. Available mechanisms in Singapore for returning, recycling, and disposing of e-waste are examined in this paper. Overall, while manufacturer-based programs may be aimed at redirecting used assets back to their respective brands, the programs carried out by their agencies aim to be all-inclusive and typically offer more payment options to the public for the collection of assets.
With environmental concerns growing worldwide and many of us going green by recycling our newspapers and cans, confusion may arise when it comes to our e-waste. It is important to address the issues correctly. Recycling is the process used for extraction of valuable materials from the waste stream. Used electronic products such as computers, TVs, and electronic goods contain not only valuable materials and components but also substances that can have an immediate impact on the environment (e.g., lead, nickel, cadmium), substances that pose long-term health risks (e.g., mercury, beryllium, brominated flame retardants), in addition to other materials and components that pose their own set of waste management issues. Disposal of e-waste via hazardous waste or municipal solid waste landfills can pose environmental and human health risks due to these and other contained toxins.
Common Recycling Technologies
The processes for recycling the e-waste have to take into consideration the types of material from e-waste and, to the greatest extent possible, the composition of materials. In addition to these processes, the political, business and public considerations and mindset have to change as well. Knowledge on proper recycling and disposal of e-waste with the necessary handling processes according to the specific composition of the material has to be considered. Otherwise, new technological advancements for e-waste recycling and disposal may come to a standstill due to lack of recoverable material.
No two e-waste products are equal and almost all e-waste products vary in their composition. Components such as printed circuit boards (PCBs) and semiconductor chips of electronic and electrical equipment contain precious metals (PMs) and hazardous substances. There is no one-size-fits-all recycling approach and several technologies are used to process e-waste. This contributes to more challenges when it comes to recycling the e-waste with the implementation of sound recycling technologies. Common recycling technologies include mechanical separation, pyrometallurgical treatment, hydrometallurgical treatment, and other processes such as biometallurgical treatment, electrowinning, ionic liquid-based electrolyte for recovering precious components, as detailed in Table 1.
Case Studies of Electronic Recycling Programs in Singapore
The electronic and electric waste (e-waste) stream generated in Singapore is increasing rapidly with the end-of-life (EOL) of electrical and electronic products from the industrial, commercial, and household sectors. The National Environment Agency (NEA) had targeted to collect 4,000 tons of e-waste in the year 2000. By 1998, the total e-waste recycling collection had exceeded that target; a total of 4,113 tons were collected. In the previous year, the recyclers reported that about 1,700 tons of e-waste were processed for recycling. The major reasons for the poor performance of the local e-waste recycling activity were the small quantities of e-waste received at the recycling plants and the presence of valuable materials—such as copper, gold, and aluminum—in only minute proportions, which made it difficult to extract the precious materials in a cost-effective manner. The low market demand for the extracted materials, as well as enormous competition from other countries that had invested heavily in their e-waste recycling industries, also hindered the local recycling plants’ recovery operations.
The General Household Survey in Singapore conducted in 1990 reflected that 94.2% of households owned television sets, 82.7% had refrigerators, and 66.4% had washing machines. Electric fans and electric irons are household items used daily in Singapore, while cassette tape recorders provide entertainment for residents, and telephones are essential to the daily communication of all members of society. The average lifespan of these electronic consumer products ranges from five to ten years. The ownership of home computers has seen significant growth in the past few years. By 1994, there were about 180,000 personal computers in the island nation of 3.33 million residents. The current estimate of household computer ownership, including computers bought within the past five years, is about 300,000. The use of capital equipment in Singapore’s 50,000 offices has also seen significant growth. As of 1994, volume was estimated at about 80,000 personal computers and 30,000 word processors. Recent surveys conducted in the schools have reported that the number of personal computers is increasing at a rate of 15,000 units per year. On the downside, due to rapid advancement in technology and intense marketing, the average lifespan of computers has plummeted to less than three years, resulting in obsolete computers being discarded with increasing frequency.
Creating a successful electronic waste recycling program depends greatly on public awareness of the problems associated with electronic waste and the opportunities for environmental protection. The efficiencies governing the implementation of a recycling program depend on program design, including the levels of government and industry financial commitment, as well as technological advancement in the recycling plants themselves. The design of a recycling program should take into account the key principles of environmental protection, pollution prevention, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness, all working in concert to create maximum benefit for society. This paper provides an exploration of the current electronic and electrical waste recycling programs and presents some viable options for future successful programs both in Singapore and other locales.
Company A: Overview and Impact
In the first step, all the plastic casings are shredded into small pieces. Then, the shredded mixture is stuffed with a family of chemicals that selectively dissolve either the copper or the solder. This process can be performed at the temperature as low as 55°C. The mixture is then filtered to collect two different solutions: one contains copper and the other contains solder. After selective recovery of metals is performed, the remainder will be melted and poured into a mold for solidification. The base metal that contains tin and lead in the form of eutectic alloy will need to be continuously stirred or agitated during the solidification process to prevent the deadpoint formation, which may increase the strength of the sample or be casted.
At Company A, every single incoming mobile phone is checked to ascertain whether it can still be used. Because the age distribution of incoming phones is very broad, it has thus been practical for Company A to plan on refurbishing/repairing a significant fraction (60%-70%) of incoming phones that can still be used. If there is totally no value in the phone (i.e., it is a nonworking phone and it cannot be collected for recycling of the materials), then it is given away to people in Africa or India, who may try to extract some of the components to be used again. For phones that cannot be used, which are collected from people through trash cans or as displayed samples in the stores, and the phones that cannot be used and are received from the repair shops, Company A plans to export these EOL phones to Chief Technology Pte Ltd, where they will be shredded and the valuable materials such as gold, silver, and palladium will be recovered.
Company B: Best Practices and Innovations
The interviewees from Company B, with more than 10 years of full-product life cycle service experiences, are devoted to innovating repair and other services to provide integrated solutions to customers. They are featured in dealing with a number of electronics such as home appliances, digital cameras, mobile phones, and computers of diverse brands. A special nomination is their repair innovation of liquid crystal display (LCD)/liquid crystal module (LCM) of different brands by reverse engineering techniques. In relation to their relevant company status and managed repair and other services, Company B reveals their related repair and related process innovations as follows. Hundreds of their own repair process steps of high-tech consumer products such as liquid crystal module (LCM), liquid crystal display (LCD) of different technologies, mobile phones, chip- or printed board-level home appliances, and serviceable electronic products with related production processes shall be analyzed for valid repair, refurbish, and remanufacture activities. Their 6-R (requirement, requirement, requirement, reduction, refinement, and reporting) innovative framework is also developed to standardize different innovated process steps with necessary requirements for ensuring reliable and practical repair, remanufacture, recycle & disposal laptop, and reuse projects.
This section proposes “Best Practices and Innovations” with reference to Company B – a full-product life cycle service provider, a potential company seeking to incorporate its services in the proposed model. Interviewed companies are real Singapore companies. Yet, for protecting their company identities, it is avoided to disclose their real company names and their service details. Instead, R and D activities and innovations from them are deeply discussed as follows.
Challenges and Future Directions
First, more legislation to improve the WEEE recovery will bring more recyclable volume and plastic sources. However, it is almost impossible to bring down the plastic recovery cost, even if the price penalty is initiated. The government and manufacturers should be responsible for organizing daily waste management and EOL collection services to fulfill their extended producer responsibilities related to long-term environmental protection and public health, rather than only short-term warranty obligation.
This paper identifies specific issues and challenges of the recycling and disposal practices observed in Singapore. These include a limited number of major recycling channels, high recycling cost, new EEE markets for old EEE, insufficient consideration for disposal at the EOL stage, predominant lead recovery from cathode ray tubes (CRTs), and a lack of credible investigations regarding the end final disposal. It is recommended that the local government and manufacturers undertake more responsibilities in the future. Legislation should be implemented to realize the important function of EPR to lower both the treatment cost of WEEE and the end final disposal risk. The manufacturers should also revise the product designs to promote easy removal of only malfunctioned parts for repair or recycling/reuse purposes by the recyclers.
Barriers to Effective Recycling and Disposal
The corporate sector was found to be most affected by legislative and financial barriers, with the lack of clarity about legislation affecting strategic and operational planning activities, and costs associated with waste management, being the most limiting. Design-for-environment practices were identified as key incentives. At the governmental level, major barriers identified were people, cost of enforcement, and difficulties in monitoring wastes; incentives were found to be policy and technologies that governments have in place or provide. For producers, incentives were seen to be reputation, labor, and economies of the second-hand market scale, with legal compliance and financial barriers comprising the highest number of barriers for them. At the third-party level, business case barriers were weighted against social drivers in 3-box consultancy framework adoption; financial attractiveness, stakeholder pressure, good government, and end-of-life legislation and regulations were seen to be the main incentives for them. Retaining primary and secondary market share were the most significant incentives for retailers, especially in the face of increasing legislative and economic pressures. Barriers to consumer efforts of the stakeholders were identified and included people, capacity, and knowledge, with clear incentives for consumers periodically provided by take-back programs in place.
Barriers and incentives to proper disposal and recycling of e-waste are identified in literature study based on reviewing numerous case studies and initiatives at the organization, national and international levels. Table 6 summarizes these barriers and incentives, with the major categories of stakeholders covered as the corporate sector, governments and regulators, producers, third-party service providers, retailers, and consumers.
Potential Solutions and Future Developments
One possible solution may lie in adopting and refining the biological waste treatment strategy. The strictly biogenic, robust and sustainable use of microorganisms, i.e., Rhodococcus, Alexandrium and Thraustochytrids, appearing in the literature root from purified and/or mixed cultures in large laboratory scale bioreactor settings appears to be particularly eye-catching in that we can have a personalized control over what physically occurs in these microbes in vivo and, in addition, the reactions involved appear to be template-able and, therefore, have the potential to be exploited in a sustainable yet focused approach. With regard to the application prospects discussed in this manuscript, the achievement of breaking down the trace organic components on a thorough and selective manner from such a complex input source was indeed eye-catching, given the fact that these organics in very low concentration could not be detected by the GC-MS or GC-ECD techniques. With over 150 reference spectra and several literature values actively nurtured by the Chemical Abstracts Service, the NIST 11 library employed in this study is one of the most broadly inclusive selection of microorganism dependent organic signatures available commercially to date. The identification threshold level used was set at 700, in consideration that nearly all of the detected peaks had relative abundances greater than 0.5%. Moreover, the Bioinformatics portal Progenesis QI carries out the translations of the raw data to their respective technical replicate data, clearing the pathway for the maintenance of biological/laboratory data accuracy, data quality and data comparability in a digital format within the ProteomeXchange Consortium. With the compiled Bioinformatics portal holding approximately 150,000 utilized high-resolution masses and a quality promise, so to speak, for stakeholders using Archaeometry-related analytical technique such as polysaccharide wellness checks, as well as the recently apparatus-dependent automated procedures in various analytical research activities, the progress is worthy of note. In essence, a clearer idea of the inventory that is present will allow better strategies to cater for the decomposable as well as the totally non-decomposing constituents of the e-waste items in Singapore.
As highlighted earlier, the e-waste recycling approaches and disposal services in Singapore appear to be not very comprehensive with regard to the electronics’ constituents to be handled, as well as the fast pace associated with the market entrance of novel electronics. It seems that a viable and agreement-filled strategy on what should be done to effectively manage the impending domestic load of e-waste is of overdue imperative, before available e-waste volume forming the more classical sources such as operations on dredging, demolition and excavation causes similar illegal practices to go viral and underground, and subsequently impacts Singapore’s sea and/or air natural ecosystem. In addition, it will also take some time before international and/or bilateral agreements on the transboundary flow of e-waste material are formally coordinated. For other rapidly developing economies in the Southeast Asian region, analogous issues and/or concerns were reported in the literature.
