Tutorial EN06: Joint African MRS – MRS Tutorial on Green Electronics, Urban Mining Circular Materials

While the current availability of a wide range of electronic goods facilitates unprecedented access to education, progress in science as well as the preservation of cultures around the world, the fair and equitable distribution of these benefits has yet to happen. Moreover, our current systems of production and consumption generate vast amounts of e-waste. In fact, it is the fastest-growing solid-waste stream, expected to reach 74.7 Mt by 2030. E-waste contains toxic substances that impose great environmental pressure and cause major health concerns. Furthermore, electronics rely on the use of critical and scarce (endangered) elements, often at the center of geopolitical tensions. E-waste that does not end up in landfills, make their way to makeshift facilities that burn or process them manually. Typically, women and children operate these facilities to extract the precious metals from e-waste for subsistence revenue. Such operations carry strong adverse effects to their health, as informal facilities are seldom safe if any. These operations are predominant in Africa, in sub-Saharan countries like Ghana and Nigeria, among the largest e-waste importers. The situation is further exacerbated by illegal transboundary trafficking. While e-waste is a global challenge, they also represent a unique chance for collaboration, innovation, sustainable value chains and business models. This is by any account a great opportunity: there is 100 times more gold in a ton of mobile phones than in a ton of gold ore. Indeed, the global e-waste material value alone is $62.5 billion; triple the output of the world's silver mines. 

The learning objectives of the proposed joint African MRS-MRS tutorial are: (1) Raising awareness about a) the environmental footprint of electronics and b) e-waste illegal transboundary trafficking; (2) Developing safe and sustainable means of recycling electronics, and practices and policies thereof; (3) Designing and developing electronic devices using benign, abundant, bio-sourced organic (carbon-based) materials as a solution to the continuing reliance on the endangered (critical) chemical elements currently used.

Global e-waste Monitor 
Kees Balde, United Nations University

E-waste flows, illegal trafficking of e-waste, informal e-waste dumps & recycling in Africa, chemical elements of hope, the metal wheel.

Urban Mining 
Maria Holuszko, University of British Columbia

LED recycling, recovery of the non-metal fraction from printed circuit boards and cellphones, the recovery of Au from electronics using environmentally friendly techniques, using of eco-friendly reagents. Non-conventional techniques for the extraction of valuable metals and less valuable components such as non-metal and plastic fractions e-waste for further utilization.

Biodegradable Organic Electronics 
Nurit Ashkenasy, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Design and development of devices based on benign organic electronic materials to alleviate the environmental footprint of electronics and to extend their capabilities in emerging areas focusing on low human- and eco-toxicity, with expected important outcomes in the Manufacturing, Information & Telecommunication Technology, Green Technology and Biomedical.