A Sahaj Solution ?
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Indian Express ( 10 April ) carries following news :
An Indian-origin scientist in Australia
has launched the world’s first micro factory that can transform the components from electronic waste items such as smartphones and laptops into valuable materials for re-use.
According to Veena
Sahajwalla,
a professor at the University of New
South Wales, the e-waste micro factory has the potential to reduce the rapidly
growing problem of vast amounts of electronic waste causing environmental harm
and going into landfill.
It can also turn many types of consumer
waste such as glass, plastic and timber into commercial materials and products,
she said.
For instance, from e-waste, computer
circuit boards can be transformed into valuable metal alloys such as copper and tin while glass and plastic from e-devices
can be converted into micro materials used in industrial grade ceramics and plastic
filaments for 3D printing.
“Our e-waste micro factory and another under
development for other consumer waste types offer a cost-effective solution to
one of the greatest environmental challenges of our age,” said Sahajwalla, who
earned her BTech degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1986.
“Using our green manufacturing
technologies, these micro factories can transform waste where it is stockpiled
and created, enabling local businesses and communities to not only tackle local
waste problems but to develop a commercial opportunity from the valuable
materials that are created,” she said. Sahajwalla said micro factories present
a solution to burning and burying waste items that contain materials which can
be transformed into value-added substances and products to meet existing and
new industry and consumer demands.
The modular micro factories can operate on a site as
small as 50 square metres and can be located wherever waste may be stockpiled.
A micro factory is one or a series of
small machines and devices that uses patented technology to perform one or more
functions in the reforming of waste products into new and usable resources. The
e-waste micro factory that reforms discarded computers, mobile phones and
printers has a number of small modules for this process and fits into a small
site, said Sahajwalla.
The discarded devices are first placed into a module
to break them down. The next module may involve a special robot for the
identification of useful parts, she said. Another module then involves using a
small furnace which transforms these parts into valuable materials by using a
precisely controlled temperature process developed via extensive research.
These transformed materials include metal alloys and a range of micromaterials,
Sahajwalla said.
These can be used in industrial-grade ceramics while
the specific quality plastics from computers, printers and other discarded
sources can be put through another module that produces filaments suitable for
3D-printing applications. The metal alloys can be used as metal components for
new or existing manufacturing processes, she said.
CONTEXT :
In
2014, approximately 41.8
million tons of
e-waste was generated worldwide.
The amount of worldwide
e-waste generation is expected to be 49.8 million tons in 2018
Only 6.5 million tons of total global e-waste
generation in 2014 was treated by national electronic take-back systems
Currently, only 15-20 per cent of all e-waste is recycled.
According to a recent report by EPA,
every day, we are to get rid of over 416,000 mobile devices and 142,000
computers either by recycling or disposing of them in landfills and
incinerators.
Another EPA report reveals that by
recycling one million cell phones,
we can recover more than 20,000
lbs of copper, 20 lbs of palladium, 550 lbs of
silver, and 50
lbs of gold.
Cell phones contain very high amount of
precious metals such as silver and gold. Americans throw away approximately $60
million worth of silver and gold per year.
Each year, globally, around 1 billion cell phones and 300 million computers are put into
production.
The amount of global e-waste is expected
to grow by 8 per cent per year.
Roughly 80 percent of e-waste generated
in the U.S. is exported to Asia, a trade flow that is a source of
considerable controversy.
QUESTION :
Can
, at least 5 million Indian
youth get self
employed , repairing / recycling ” E Waste “ generated
globally ?
ANSWER :
* Obtain micro-factory technology
from Ms Sahajwalla (veena@unsw.edu.au )
* Give away this design for
free to any start up which wants to manufacture it
* Provide special MUDRA
loans to Self Employed who want to get into this e – waste
recycling
business , using this micro-factory process
* Donations made to such “
Self Employed “ by manufacturers of Electronic Devices ,
be adjusted against
their CSR obligations
I do hope Shri
Ravi Shankar Prasadji will consider my suggestion
19 April 2018
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs
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