At an industry presentation held this week, recipients of the Western Australian government’s WasteSorted E-Waste Grants presented their programs, ahead of the upcoming ban of e-waste in landfill across the state in 2024.
Last year, combined funding of $600,000 had been allocated to Curtin University, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Epichem to facilitate research and development programs that support new solutions to process collected e-waste, by reducing the amount that ends up in landfill.
Why e-waste?
As the old saying goes “one man’s trash is another one’s treasure”.
After all, there is 1 gram of gold in 41 mobile phones. It can be extracted along with many other precious minerals such as copper, tellurium, lithium, cobalt, manganese and tungsten.
This is why a mobile phone that is severely damaged can still have a monetary value.
Given there are estimated to be around 32 million active mobile phones in Australia – 1.2 or so per person – and the average Australian changes their phone every three years, it is no surprise extracting precious minerals and other recyclables from old phones, monitors and PCs presents a significant opportunity for local businesses and startups. It could be a $10 billion industry in WA, alone.
“With e-waste becoming a growing concern, we are proud to see that Western Australian researchers are developing innovative ways to inform best practice when reducing e-waste ending up in landfill,” said Environment Minister, Reece Whitby.
Through funding such as the WasteSorted E-Waste Grants, we are making progress towards the commitment to ban e-waste from Western Australian landfill by 2024.
Reece Whitby MLA, Minister for the Environment and Climate Action
The projects
All three projects are tackling e-waste through the use of different methods. Curtin University’s project involves recovering valuable metals and removing toxic metals from e-waste using a safe leaching program.
CSIRO’s project on the other hand involves developing innovative bioprocesses to extra precious and base metals from waste using a laboratory-scale prototype.
Bentley Tech Park-based Epichem has a project that uses oxidative hydrothermal dissolution (OHD) to break down e-waste to produce a range of high-value and useful chemicals.
Through the grants, the WA government has also invested $400,000 across six projects led by Total Green Recycling, Marlpa Waste Logistics, the Shire of East Pilbara, the City of Rockingham, the WA Local Government Association (WALGA) and the City of Bunbury.
Stephen Dawson, the Innovation and ICT Minister, added that when fully implemented, the initiatives will divert around 1,000 tonnes of e-waste from landfill in WA.
The WasteSorted E-Waste Grants are a good example of how different organisations, from across government, academia and industry, can work together to help solve this growing problem.
Innovation Minister, Stephen Dawson MLC
The grants have been funded by the New Industries Fund, and are administrated by a partnership between the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.
The grants complement and support the WA Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020 objectives.
Waste management has become a growing niche for startups with many local players such as Matter and BinSense, both of who are tackling the issue of recyclable waste going to landfills.
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Curtin University is a sponsor of Startup News.
