Survey Finding: Public Seeks Printed Electronics Recycling Initiative
A European-wide survey has found that over 70% of respondents have never encountered any information relating to the recycling of printed electronics.
To address the issue, respondents called for convenient drop-off points to deposit waste products containing printed electronics, greater regulation, and education to raise awareness about the importance of recycling printed electronics.
Fortunately, the survey, which was conducted as part of the Horizon Europe-funded REFORM project, also found that the public had a developed understanding of printed electronics and their use in products.
Max Torrellas Marcó, a chemical recycling researcher with AIMPLAS, believes that the public’s appreciation of printed electronics gives policymakers a foundation from which they can develop legislation that promotes recycling.
“The vast majority of survey respondents correctly identified products that contain printed electronics and the types of raw materials used to construct them”.
“Respondents also highlighted hurdles associated with recycling printed electronics, including challenges around the separation of raw materials, the lack of specialist recycling infrastructure and limited awareness”.
“This should hearten EU policymakers who may be seeking to expand the WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive to incorporate printed electronics”.
“Presently, printed electronics are not mentioned in the WEEE directive, meaning that smart packaging and regular packaging are treated in the same way”.
“If we want to recycle printed electronics, we need to legislate for it so that we can recover the raw materials used in their construction”.
To recycle those raw materials, the REFORM project will develop a novel bio-recycling method to recover metals such as gold, silver and platinum from printed electronics.
To do so, Max and the AIMPLAS team have already identified a bacterial strain to begin testing the recovery potential of the project’s bio-recycling process.
REFORM project coordinator, CIDETEC Surface Engineering’s Yolanda Alesanco, believes that bio-recycling represents a high-impact opportunity for the recovery of raw materials.
“Metal bio-recovery has emerged as an alternative waste processing technique for electronic devices”.
“For example, Acidithiobacillus ferroxidans has been shown to be capable of recovering 80% of metals from printed circuit boards”.
“We plan to optimise the biological recovery of valuable metals by designing experiments that measure the productivity of the process”.
“We’re delighted to be working alongside AIMPLAS to develop a bio-recovery process that deliberately targets printed electronics”.
“AIMPLAS has worked with many different bioprocesses for waste valorisation and has cutting-edge bioreactors available for the recovery of metals”.
REFORM is a 42-month project and was awarded funding under the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.
The project brings together world-leading academics, non-profit research organisations, industry experts and innovative businesses from across eight different European countries.