Cooking Oils can Recover Silver from e-Waste

Context

Researchers in Finland have advanced a green method that uses natural fatty acids found in cooking oils to recover silver from electronic waste (e-waste).

Key Highlights

• This innovation emerges amid a global surge in silver demand and escalating e-waste challenges, especially in countries like India.

About E-Waste

• E-waste refers to the discarded electronic and electrical devices which have reached the end of their lifespan or grow to be out of date due to rapid technological changes, which include computers, phones, TVs, and different devices.
• India ranks as the third-biggest producer of electronic waste globally, following China and the US. 
• According to the World Silver Survey 2024, industrial packages account for over 50% of total silver demand.
• Yet, only around 15% of silver is presently recycled, inflicting widespread lack of a non-renewable, high-demand aid.

Challenges in E-Waste Management

• Lack of Consumer Incentives: Consumers lack economic or logistical incentives to take away e-waste responsibly.
• Sparse Collection Infrastructure: There is a dearth of approved series centres, in particular in Tier-II and Tier-III towns.
• Unsafe Recycling Practices: Over 90–95% of e-waste is handled by the casual zone, which makes use of crude techniques inclusive of acid leaching, open burning, and guide dismantling without safety tools.
• Grey Channel Imports: Used digital goods frequently input India under the guise of “donations” or “refurbished objects,” which eventually turn out to be waste.

Silver Recovery Using Cooking Oils

• The traditional Silver extraction system generates poisonous waste leading to high environmental and health risks.
• The new approach used natural unsaturated fatty acids like linolenic and oleic acids, typically determined in sunflower, groundnut, olive, and other vegetable oils.
• These are mixed with 30% hydrogen peroxide to form a green solvent that can dissolve silver under certain conditions.
• Ethyl acetate, a safer alternative to harsh chemical substances, is utilized in a second step to separate and recover the silver.

Other tasks for E-Waste Management in India

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Producers, importers, and brand proprietors are made liable for coping with their product’s end-of-life waste.
  • An online EPR E-Waste portal has been advanced by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) where entities such as producers, producers, recyclers, and refurbishers of the e-waste are required to be registered.
• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has comprehensively revised the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016 and notified the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022.
• India’s first e-waste sanatorium was inaugurated in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. 
• It’s a facility for segregating, processing, and eliminating e-waste from both households and commercial units.

Conclusion

• India’s e-waste project reflects a broader conflict between technological development and environmental sustainability. 
• As the country climbs the digital ladder, it must not permit poisonous waste to undermine its economic and ecological basis.
• The purpose need not merely be to control e-waste, but to extract value, protect health, and foster efficient economic growth—all of which might be crucial to India’s adventure closer to Viksit Bharat.

Source: The Hindu

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. What are the impediments in disposing of the huge quantities of discarded solid waste which are continuously being generated? How do we safely remove the toxic wastes that have been accumulating in our habitable environment? (2018)

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