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! redefining trash

Redefining Trash
Compact Oxford English Dictionary
Trash (ORIGIN of unknown origin) :

• noun chiefly N. Amer. 1 waste material; refuse. 2 worthless writing, art, etc.
3 a person or people regarded as being of very low social standing.
• verb informal, chiefly N. Amer. wreck or destroy.

Deriving Value from What We

Do Not Need
 ?
! redefining trash the trash generation

In wealthy countries, waste per capita increased by nearly three fold in the last
two decades. Waste generation will increase by a factor of five by 2025. - Lexean,
issue 12

Ireland Singapore
804 kg per capita 1176 kg per capita

United States China

747 kg per capita 440 kg per capita

United Kingdom Japan

588 kg per capita 427 kg per capita
Germany Korea
566 kg per capita 386 kg per capita

Italy Thailand
545 kg per capita 220 kg per capita

Belgium Indonesia
475 kg per capita 10 kg per capita

Trash or Municipal Waste are typically newspapers, appliances, clothing and bottles collected from households, small
businesses and other commercial activities.
?
! redefining trash concerns on trash

METHANE
METHANE

Methane-spewing landfills
are turning into battlegrounds

Municipalities can't easily build new dumps because people refuse to live near one.
"NIMBY" (Not In My Back Yard) is giving way to "BANANA" (Build Absolutely Nothing
Anywhere Near Anything).

Is this method sustainable?

?
! redefining trash drivers behind trash management

Growth of Environmental
Developing Awareness /
Countries Civic Movement

Rising Affluence Government

And Excess of Regulations
Middle Class

New Angle of Consideration

Commodities
Raw Material
High Fuel Costs Shortage
Price rise
Esp Peak Minerals
?
! redefining trash what is getting more expensive now?

LET’S FOCUS ON
Rare Metals and Metal Commodities

Gold
Lithium Palladium

Steel Rare Metals Alumnium

Metal Commodities
Wood Building Materials Zinc

Concrete Raw Materials Copper

Glass Plastic
Paper
?
! redefining trash despite recent price correction …

History has told us to expect cycles and upturn

Not to scale

Gold miners await upturn 4 Nov 2008 WSJ
Some add capacity, seeking market
share; strong dollar helps
Swiss smelters running hot as rich turn to gold
18 Dec 2008 BT People buying gold bars at the
Swiss smelter Argor-Heraeus have to wait
about a month, taking into account the
year-end holiday season.
 ?
! redefining trash the world mineral stock is finite …

Where are the minerals?

RUSSIA
CANADA
Indium 5%
Indium 33%
Nickel 6%
Lead 6% CHINA
Platinum/Rhodium 8%
Nickel 10% Aluminum 7%
Antimony 10%
Silver 6% Antimony 62%
Zinc 7% Copper 7%
Gold 5%
USA Indium 22%
Copper 7% Lead 25%
Lead 14% KAZAKHSTAN Nickel 5%
Phosphorus 7% Chromium 60% Phosphorus 26%
Silver 14% Lead 5% Silver 21%
Zinc 20% Uranium 16% Tin 31%
Uranium 10% Zinc 8% Zinc 20%

PERU
WORLD TOTALS
Copper 6%
Phosphorus 49,750 mil ton
Gold 5%
Aluminum 32,350 mil ton SOUTH AFRICA
Silver 7%
Copper 937 mil ton BRAZIL Antimony 5% AUSTRALIA
Tin 9%
Chromium 779 mil ton Aluminium 8% Chromium 35% Aluminum 24%
Zinc 460 mil ton Nickel 6% Gold 40% Copper 5%
Lead 144 mil ton Tin 22% Nickel 8% Gold 7%
Nickel 143 mil ton Uranium 5% Phosphorus 5% Lead 19%
Tin 11.2 mil ton Platinum/Rhodium 88% Nickel 19%
Antimony 3.86 mil ton Uranium 8% Silver 7%
Uranium 3.3 mil ton Uranium 23%
Silver 569,000 ton Zinc 17%
Gold 89,700 ton
Platinum/Rhodium 79,840 ton
Indium 6,000 ton Source : “Earth’s Natural Wealth, An Audit”, 23 May 2007, New Scientist
 ?
! redefining trash how long will these resources last?

1027
1000

360 345 Likely to be depleted within the next 100 years

Likely to be depleted
143
Number of Years (Log Scale)

116
90
within the next 50 years
100
61 59
46 45 42 40
30 29
510
13 If the world
142 consumes at
10
57 half the US
42 40 38 34 36 consumption
20 19 17 rate
13
8 9
If the world
4
consumes at
today’s rate
1
Chromium
Aluminium

Antimony
Nickel

Copper

Zinc
Uranium

Indium
Platinum

Gold

Lead
Phosphorus

Tin
Tantalum

Silver
Source : “Earth’s Natural Wealth, An Audit”, 23 May 2007, New Scientist
 ?
! redefining trash scarcity of resources

Urban Miners look for Precious Metals in Cellphones

27 April 2008, Int Herald Tribune
A tonne of ore from a gold mine produces just 5
grams of gold on average, whereas a tonne of
discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams or
more... The same volume of discarded mobile
phones also contains around 100 kg of copper and
3 kg of silver, among other metals.
Urban M

A tonne of ore from gold mine A tonne of discarded mobile phones

Ave 5g of gold Ave 150g of gold

 ?
! redefining trash what can be mined from a cellphone?

USGS report July 2006 “Recycled Cell Phones – a Treasure Trove of Valuable Metals”
• Less than 1 percent of cell phones are recycled.
• Material content of a typical cell phone : copper, iron, nickel, silver and zinc, with small amounts
of aluminum, gold, lead, manganese, palladium, platinum and tin.

One tonne of obsolete cell phones contains :

Based on 12 feb 09 prices, equals US$13,078
3.1kg
Silver
300g 3g
140kg Gold Platinum

Copper
130g
Palladium 1.2 billion phones were sold worldwide (2007)
Source : USGS Report
60% of them probably replaced existing ones
- ABI Research, NYTimes 13 Jan 08

⇒ Annually 720 million units or 80,000 tonnes of cell phones are trashed
⇒ Potential of US$1Bil worth of minerals to be extracted
 ?
! redefining trash what can be mined from a pc?

160g
Gold 70kg
1.9kg Copper 140kg
Silver
Aluminium

250kg
Silica
230kg 10kg
Plastic NIckel

One tonne of obsolete desktop PC contains :

Based on 12 Feb 09 prices, equals US$1,852
210kg 60kg 10kg
Iron Lead Tin
Gartner Says More than 1 Billion PCs In Use
Worldwide & Headed to 2 Billion Units by 2014 Source : Composition of a Desktop Personal Compute
Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MMC) 1996

“We forecast just over 180 million PCs — approximately 16 percent of the existing installed
base — will be replaced this year,” said Meike Escherich, principal research analyst at Gartner.

=> Potential of US$11.3Bil worth of materials to be extracted

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! redefining trash so, are we recycling our phones?

According to Nokia’s Global Consumer Survey on Recycling (Jul08)

• Around 3 billion people are using mobile phones in the world
• People on average have each owned around five phones

Others (lost, stolen, Recycled

Only 3% of the
etc)
8%
3%
people recycles
Landfilled
4%
their mobile
Passed to phones
Relatives/Friends
25%

Kept at Home Sold to Secondary

74% said they don’t think about recycling
44%
Markets their mobile phone
16% - 88% of people in Indonesia
- 84% of people in India
- 78% of people in Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Finland

What do People do with their Old Phones?

The United States Geological Survey estimates that in 2005 there were already more than
half a billion old phones sitting in American drawers. That added up to more than $300
million worth of gold, palladium, silver, copper and platinum
?
! redefining trash 1 tonne 1 tonne recycling saves energy
(virgin materials vs (max recycled
only) materials)

Each sphere represents the energy saved in the US, in millions of BTU per ton, when
products are manufactured using the maximum percentage of recycled materials,
compared with using virgin materials alone.

Aluminium
Carpets
Cans
PET

6 106
Steel
Cans 20 53
Fibres
Newspaper Corrugated
20 Plastics Cardboard
Metals
16
51 15
56
83
HDPE
Copper
LDPE 10 Office
Paper
Wire Source : Recycling, the Big Picture, Nat Geo Jan 08
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! redefining trash environmentally, ore mining is bad…

ORE MINING GENERATES A LOT OF WASTE …

Earthworks estimates that mining the gold needed for the circuit board
of a single mobile phone generates 220 pounds of waste.
Source : “The Afterlife of Cellphones”, NYTimes 13 Jan 08

“A tonne of copper produces

Generates
220lb of waste
around 250 tonnes of solid waste.”
Monash U, Dr Gavin Mudd

… AND IT WASTE RESOURCES

To get one kilogram of gold, it takes

691,000 litres of water and
141 kg of cyanide
The Sustainability of Mining in Australia, 2007
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! redefining trash

''If we know these metals are, overall, bad for us,

it doesn't make sense to keep digging them up
from the earth's crust
and bringing them into the biosphere
while -- at the same time -- we're taking the ones
we've already got and burying them.''
Tim Townsend, Environment Engineer, U of Florida
?
! redefining trash In the world of redefined trash

What can Singapore do?

 ?
! redefining trash etido has included e-recycling r&d within their charter
ETIDO = Environment Technology and Industry Development Office
Waste Management
Challenges: Manage the increasing amount of waste in
a sustainable manner
Towards zero waste and zero landfill
Need to develop Convert more waste into useful resource
technologies to: Extract higher value products from waste
Lower the unit treatment cost at our waste to
energy incineration plants
Move Singapore ahead of the technology curve
Treat special waste being disposed of at the
landfill for reuse
Remediate old landfills
R&D Focus Areas: Resource Recovery Technology
(Convert waste to useful resource & extract high
VA products from waste)
Energy Recovery Technology
Special Waste Treatment Technology
(Remove heavy metals, remediate old landfills)
Pollution Control
Keep our air free from pollution
Address the pollutants of tomorrow
Treat pollutants at source
Ascertain what is getting out into the
atmosphere
Provide faster and more accurate
measure of pollutant emission levels
Capture CO2 at source
Abate noise pollution to address rising
affluence
Treat pollutants at source, carbon capture
Online and remote analysers
Noise cancellation devices
Source : ETIDO Clean Environment
Programme 27 Aug 08
 ?
! redefining trash In the world of redefined trash

What can Singapore do?

Design4 Trading
Motivation:
Recycling
Financing
Economics Better Yield
Better Techniques Consultancy
Recycling Hub
Training
Minerals Sorting
Recovery Technology Regional
Watchdog

Technology Hub Headquarters

Research&Development Operational Export of Services

LIFECYCLE CHAIN OF ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS Urban Mining

Design & Retail &

Mfg Collection Extraction Trading
Innovation Consumer

Enabling Ecosystem
?
! redefining trash idea 1 : develop world class capabilities in urban mining?

26% 26%
31%
35%

CU SN
43%
AU NI ZN

Gold Nickel Copper Tin Zinc

Singapore can be the R&D Hub for Extraction Technology for

peak minerals ?

Attract recycling MNCs and develop SMEs in Singapore for

entire value chain ?

Develop World Class recycling ecosystem, including logistics

network, access channel and product-to-market channel ?

Include manpower specialization programmes in our tertiary

education system ?

Electrolysis
Selective Precipitation Cyanide Leaching
Acid Leaching Mechanical Processing
?
! redefining trash recycling is not a bed of roses

Ecosystem
Pro Green

BLUE SKY – No Trash GREEN THUMB - New Horizon

Reduce rubbish Strong recycling
Develop new products that Develop new technologies to extract
generate no rubbish every ounce
with most green method

Commodities Bust Commodities Boom

Trash Avalanche THE SHARKS – Exploitation

No recycling Efforts Strong recycling
Ship trash to Dumpster Countries Opt for cheapest methods
even if it is environmentally unfriendly

Ecosystem
Indifferent

Ecosystem covers the government, industries, NGOs, society and so on

?
! redefining trash in the sharks’ world : speed and not safety

High Tech Trash

National Geographic, Jan 08
He buys the machines for less than $10 on
Internet liquidation websites. Or he buys bulk
loads from charity stores. They strip resalable
parts such as drives and memory chips. Then
they rip out wiring and burn the plastic. He sells
copper stripped from one scrap load to buy
another.

“A Pentium 3 brings $150 in Accra”

Elevated Concentrations Of Toxic Metals In

China's E-waste Recycling Workshops
ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008)
Recycling methods used in family-run workshops could pose
a serious health risk to residents of the area through
ingestion and inhalation of contaminated dust
 ?
! redefining trash wrong techniques can be fatal

Neurotoxin that harms

kidneys and reproductive
systems

Incineration produces
highly toxic dioxins

May cause thyroid

damage and harm fetal
development
Can damage livers and
kidneys, increased risk of
lung cancer and cause
asthmatic bronchitis

Brain and kidney damage

and harmful to developing
fetus
Carcinogenic

Carcinogenic. Damages
kidneys and bones.
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! redefining trash basel convention

Negotiated under UN Environment Programme

Mauritius Monaco Mongolia 170 Member Countries, in force since 1992
Montenegro Morocco
Mozambique Myanmar Namibia • Regulates transboundary movements of
Nepal Netherlands New Zealand waste – “Prior Informed Consent”
Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Oman • Obliges its Parties to ensure that waste are
Pakistan Panama Papua New managed and disposed of in an
Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines environmentally sound manner
Poland Portugal Qatar Romania
Russia
Saint n F eSaint
Lucia d e r a Vincent
t i o n R w and
andaGranadines Samoa Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovak Republic
Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname
Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Thailand Togo Trinidad and
Tobago Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United
Kingdom and Northern Ireland United Republic of Tanzania United States Uruguay
Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Yemen Yugoslavia Zambia
Zimbabwe

Basel Convention handled issues on disposal of electronic and electrical waste

such as mobile phones and computers
?
! redefining trash Singapore’s technology is also quite good

CH E-Recycling
11 Tuas Ave 10

65 Tech Park Crescent Recovery of Precious Metals Recovery

1 Joo Koon Way of Copper

R2 Japan Pte Ltd

5 Tech Park Crescent
Recycling and Refining
Established in 15 Tuas South St 3 of precious & rare Enviro-Hub
3 Tuas Ave 2
1999 to provide metals
refining,
manufacturing,
recycling and
trading of
precious metal
content products
Recovery of
and material.
Precious Metals

According to Tes-Amm, NEA stipulates that 98% of imported e-waste must be recycled and accounted for.
Company’s processes are closely audited by NEA and the electronics
client companies (in compliance with Basel and WEEE)
 ?
! redefining trash tes-amm is world number one?
• Incorporated on Jun 2005
• Leading electronics waste recycler offering precious metal recovery, de-manufacturing (take back scheme)
and repairs/refurbishment of computers.
• ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 accredited
• Turnover about $100M, with 500 employees worldwide (70 in Singapore)

UK France

Seoul
Beijing
Shanghai
Guangzhou
Chennai Suzhou Taiwan
Thailand Hongkong

Penang
Singapore

South Africa
Full processing facility
Collection centres
Sydney

New
Zealand
 ? attract next generation of
! redefining trash
bluechip/recycling companies to singapore?
Frost & Sullivan finds that the European Waste Management and Recycling market
earns annually revenues of 100 billions Euros in total.

A new life for zinc and nickel

Veolia Environment’s R&D and CEDILOR, a subsidiary
of Veolia Environmental Services, joined forces with
the University of Metz in order to develop a new
process aimed at extracting zinc and nickel from
industrial wastewater and discharge.
(www.veoliaenvironnement.com)

US$236 billion revenue in 2007 – US

“Waste and recycling" drew record $622 million of investment in
2007 ($245 million a year earlier and just $20 million in 2001),
according to Cleantech Group, a green investing consultancy.
HQ : Belgium
Sober investors are <investing, including>… Austin-based e-
waste recycler TechTurn Umicore has become
the world’s leading
recycler of precious
Cell Phone Recycling Leader ReCellular Receives 2008 Best of metals: almost 100% of
Dexter Award. ReCellular, a global cell phone recycling and the inflow of precious
electronics-sustainability company, earns accolades from the metals originates from
U.S. Local Business Association. secondary materials
?
! redefining trash are we ready to make this part of our urban solution?

Build world class technology / capability

Leverage on Singapore’s position as globalised

hub to set up and manage Regional
Recycling/Recovery Nodes and the produce

Develop world class access to high quality

Training
e-waste, world class logistics network and Financing
world class channel to offload the Pricing & Trading
produce Technology
Consultancy

Develop SMEs to complement urban mining

entities – eg paper, plastic recycling

Set up regional recycling hubs

in “hot” areas
 ?
! redefining trash In the world of redefined trash

What else can Singapore do?

Design4 Trading
Motivation:
Recycling
Financing
Economics Better Yield
Better Techniques Consultancy
Recycling Hub
Training
Minerals Sorting
Recovery Technology Regional
Watchdog

Technology Hub Headquarters

Research&Development Operational Export of Services

Design for Recycling LIFECYCLE CHAIN OF ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS

Design & Retail &

Mfg Collection Extraction Trading
Innovation Consumer

Enabling Ecosystem
?
! redefining trash Idea 2 : cradle to grave approach – design for recycling

Pop Goes the Cell Phone Singapore can encourage

… in 2 secs Worldchanging, 2006 Design for Recycling
amongst our Manufacturing Firms?

Active
Disassembly

Singapore is a manufacturing hub for Electronics,

having accounted for one third of S$16.1B FAI in
2007 and created more than 6,000 new jobs. This
sector employed 90,000 employees and
generated S$73B of output in 2007.
source : www.edb.com
?
! redefining trash how to build capabilities in design for recycling?

Set the STANDARDS Inculcate the THINKING

R&D Cluster

As part of CSR

Attract MNCs Encourage SMEs

Develop Talents
Accreditation
& Recognition

Tertiary Retraining
Education Workforce
Most DFR Product? ISO DFR?
?
redefining trash
! what sort of world are we leaving to our children?

Green & Green

 ?
! redefining trash in the world of redefined trash

What can Singapore do?

Design4 Trading
Motivation:
Recycling
Financing
Economics Better Yield
Better Techniques Consultancy
Recycling Hub
Training
Minerals Sorting
Recovery Technology Regional
Watchdog

Technology Hub Headquarters

Research & Development Operational Export of Services

In Summary : 1) Develop total expertise in Urban Mining

2) Develop “Design for Recycling” capability

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! redefining trash 3 key messages

• Peak minerals will cause worldwide shortage

of metals within 50 years
• Recycling is not only environmentally
motivated, it is economically motivated too
– Singapore should start developing Urban Mining
capabilities
• Beyond actual extraction, Singapore should
promote Design for Recycling amongst our
innovations