497 words What’s good for consumers and the planet is not always good for corporations, of course. Apple makes money if you buy a new iPhone; it makes nothing if you get your old iPhone fixed at an independent repair shop. That’s why companies of all sorts have, for decades, discouraged repair and encouraged customers … Read more

355 words Sooner or later, all electronic products will stop working. Some part will get fried. Some internal system will slip out of whack. Entropy will inevitably collect its due. What do you do then? If the product in question is a car, no one would answer, “Recycle it and get a new one.” Recycling … Read more

554 words Li-Cycle’s original Kingston operation is relatively small, but it encompasses much of the battery recycling process. On the day of my visit, a truckload of consumer batteries from laptops, cell phones, and power tools has come in, delivered by a “recycling” company that picked them up from a big hardware store. It all … Read more

674 words Abubakar buys and sells all manner of e-waste, but he specializes in mobile phones. It’s a solid twenty-first-century business. All over the developing world, mobile phones have become as common as T-shirts. There is just shy of one registered mobile account for every single one of Nigeria’s 220 million people. “Everybody has a … Read more

332 words Digital e-waste is a uniquely troublesome form of trash, because if you just dump those gizmos in a landfill, toxic chemicals can leach out of them into the soil and water. In rich countries, most people have no easy way to recycle their old Samsung Galaxy phones, Xbox controllers, and other devices, so … Read more

243 words Most businesses that call themselves metal recyclers don’t actually turn old junk into new metal. They are primarily collectors, aggregators. They process the junk, to varying degrees, and sort it into piles big enough to sell on down the chain to someone who can take it to the next stage. This is exactly … Read more

377 words. The reverse supply chain is like a bizarro mirror version. The raw materials at the start of this backward chain are finished products: hot water heaters, car bodies, coffee makers, computers. That’s why metal recycling is sometimes called “urban mining.” Like ore, those products contain valuable metals that are mixed with, bonded to, … Read more

769 words Lithium may be the oldest metal in the universe. Scientists believe it was created along with hydrogen and helium in the Big Bang. Humans discovered it quite a bit later, in 1817, thanks to the work of yet another industrious Swedish chemist, Johan August Arfwedson. (What is it with those Swedes?) Lithium turned … Read more

101 words Nickel comes in two basic forms: sulfides and laterites. Both require processing to be refined into battery grade metal, but nickel sulfides require much less processing than laterites. Russia has lots of sulfides. Most of Southeast Asia’s nickel, however, is lower-quality laterites. Refining this kind of nickel is considerably dirtier and more complicated. … Read more

338 words Humans have been using nickel for ages, but we didn’t actually realize it until fairly recently. The metal often comes mixed in ore deposits with copper and iron, adding a silvery shine that ancient blacksmiths liked for their tools, weapons, and armor. It wasn’t until 1750 that metallurgists in Saxony came across some … Read more