With the grand challenges of growing population, urbanization, and climate change; management of our resources, including wastes, has emerged as one of the most critical issues. As a specific instance, the ‘solving the e-waste problem’ United Nations StEP initiative identified that approximately 41.8 million metric tons of electronic waste (e-waste) were generated globally in 2014, of which a mere 16% were recycled, while the remaining 84% was landfilled or incinerated. Hence the necessity to move toward a more functional Circular Economy which requires to turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resources, thus closing loops in industrial ecosystems, minimizing wastes and ultimately changing the economic logic by replacing production with efficiency.

There are still many technical challenges in the current waste recycling stream including processes’ high cost, high energy consumption, and low efficiency etc. This symposium will assess the current materials circularity, followed by presentation of potential pathways to an improved materials recycling process. It will focus on advanced waste treatment processes for municipal wastes, E-wastes including battery recycling, toxic waste, and building demolition rumbles and incineration ashes, including sorting, hydro-metallurgy process (solid/liquid and liquid/liquid) as well as other ones enabling to turn old waste landfills into urban mines.

metal purification recycling vapor pressure