Monitoring the situation

The mandatory collection and subsequent processing of obsolete televisions and computer monitors with cathode ray tube (CRT) technology is spelled out in different articles of legislation around the world, including the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive in the European Union.

The United States government does not yet have such legislation, although several states within the U.S. have passed laws to prohibit these items from entering landfills. The devices, which contain leaded glass as well as trace amounts of other potentially toxic metals, pose a threat to the soil and groundwater near any landfill, especially if it breaches its lining in the future.

To spur collection of CRT devices in the U.S., many states have put in place programs that offer incentives to companies that collect old monitors and TVs as a way of ensuring that end-of-life monitors are diverted from landfills.

As well, the U.S. electronics recycling sector for the past several years assumed somewhat of a “gold rush” aspect, as entrepreneurs streamed into the segment to harvest the refurbishable machines, re-sellable components, precious metals, nonferrous metals and recyclable plastics contained in the obsolete electronics stream.

Both the state systems and the private sector enthusiasm have raised the diversion rate of old CRTs in the U.S. For the most part, these devices have proceeded through well-traveled channels to proper end-of-life recycling methods or disposal.

Within the past two years, however, several cases of abandoned CRT monitors have been discovered, prompting debate on whether the CRT recycling market as configured contains fundamental flaws.
 

Home and away

A decade ago, much of the debate surrounding end-of-life CRT monitor disposition focused on unsafe and environmentally unsound recycling practices overseas.

The Basel Action Network (BAN), based in the U.S. in Seattle, has had among its foremost missions the enactment and enforcement of the export ban for non-working monitors from OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) nations to non-OECD nations. BAN was a key player in exposing the unsafe and hazardous recycling of monitors and TVs in Guiyu, China, in 2001. Many of those monitors and TVs bore identification tags that traced them to the U.S.

The export issue remains part of the debate to BAN and other organisations, but it now also has a domestic counterpart in the form of abandoned stockpiles of CRT devices in the U.S.

Media reports from July 2013 to April 2014 pointed to the discovery of stockpiled CRT devices in several U.S. states. Additionally, a sizable soil cleanup project in Arizona is tied to stockpiles of crushed CRT glass produced from monitors collected in California.

Electronics recyclers and non-governmental organizations such as BAN have differing opinions about the causes of the current state of the CRT recycling market, and likewise offer different suggestions as to how to improve the situation. There is, however, widespread agreement about two things: 1) there is room for improvement in how monitors are currently handled, and; 2) the decline in the use of CRT technology is likely to make profitable recycling even more difficult in the future.

Among the sources of disagreement, a major one remains the role of developing (non-OECD) nations as users of repairable and remarketable CRT monitors. BAN remains concerned that non-OECD nations are being taken advantage of as “dumping grounds” for non-working monitors while another sector of traders and recyclers say they have the data on their side to show that what they are shipping to non-OECD nations is usable and wanted by consumers there.

Although BAN continues to largely oppose the exporting of used electronics to prolong the life of monitors, it has begun to offer its e-Stewards certification to recyclers in other nations. The other major certification program, R2/RIOS, made its certification process available to overseas recyclers earlier this decade.
 

Capacity claims

As warehouses full of monitors have been discovered in the U.S. in the past 18 months, one of the logical questions to ask is whether it may be a case of insufficient processing capacity for the declining CRT technology.

“Leaded silicate can be recycled at copper smelters as well as lead smelters,” says Robin Ingenthron of Good Point Recycling, based in Vermont.

Jim Puckett, executive director of BAN, says, “We believe that [processing] capacity is not exhausted currently, but it could be if all warehousing were stopped tomorrow.”

Finland-based multinational recycling firm Kuusakoski has opened a U.S. CRT recycling facility in Illinois based in part on the premise that new processing capacity is needed in North America. A white paper prepared by Texas-based engineering firm CB&I shows “there is a capacity and cost issue specifically for CRT glass recycling,” says Anssi Takala of Kuusakoski.

“At a capacity of approximately 128,000 tons per year, existing facilities are able to manage only 60% of the CRT glass recovered annually,” the report states. “With an estimated 206,000 tons of CRT glass requiring management annually, there is an existing, immediate market shortfall of 78,000 tons per year, which may explain recent reports of the stockpiling of CRTs.”

The figures used by CB&I are referring to recycling applications tied to the production of new CRT glass as well smelting operations that currently accept limited numbers of monitors.

Agreement on what constitutes the legitimate recycling of CRT devices leads to another debate within the electronics recycling sector.
 

Highest value

As pointed out by the CB&I white paper, the decline in manufacturing of new CRT monitors in North America has placed a ceiling on the closed loop leaded glass-to-leaded glass recycling capacity for end-of-life monitors.

One of the few remaining monitor glass-to-monitor glass recycling facilities in North America is operated by India’s Videocon in Mexicali, Mexico. Ohio-based Dlubak Glass also processes monitor glass and United Kingdom-based Nulife Glass opened a CRT glass recycling facility in Dunkirk, New York, in 2013.

Many of the other recycling options do not enjoy widespread support from BAN and other recycling advocates.

The Kuusakoski process in Illinois converts processed monitor glass into a landfill alternative daily cover (ADC), an outcome not markedly different from entering the landfill, according to BAN. “The e-Stewards program has designated that cleaned and treated CRT glass that passes the TCLP (toxicity characteristic leaching procedure) leachate test is acceptable to use for landfill disposal if all other avenues are closed and it is truly a last resort,” says Puckett.

“Currently no company has been able to convince us of this being necessary as a last resort. Unless a company can show this, then they will not be able to complete their program of having all of their sites certified to e-Stewards.”

An electronics recycler who preferred to remain anonymous comments, “My rationale for being opposed to the Kuusakoski process is that the process to collect the CRTs is energy intensive and requires effort, as does the disassembly, cutting into the funnel and panel and cleaning and sizing the material. Once you have the glass in the end state, ready to be recycled, it makes no sense environmentally to put a coating on the cullet and disperse it in thin layers with garbage. It becomes unrecoverable in the future. At the same time they want to bury leaded glass, people are still mining for ore that has lower concentrations of lead than what is present in the funnel. It is insanity.”

Another non-closed loop recycler of monitor glass is Global Environmental Services (GES), Austin, Texas. The company crushes CRT monitor glass and “stabilizes the lead content to a minimal percentage,” says Kevin Czachow, managing director of sales and marketing.

According to GES president and CEO Kenny Gravitt, the resulting sand-like material is most commonly used in golf course bunkers or sand traps. “We also have a paving company that uses it,” says Gravitt, “but we sent off our glass samples to the PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) who approved it. So it goes from CRT monitor to sand trap material.”

Adds Gravitt, “We do have an applicable solution to the problem that is very simple and very efficient. Our lead content is really low,” he states, saying GES has TCLP test results that stand up to scrutiny.
 

Less volume, more difficulty

As CRT technology has lost market share to plasma, LCD and LED screens, it has created several difficulties for recyclers.

“It is difficult to justify large-scale CRT recycling processes unless they have another similar application to justify the build costs,” says Puckett.

“The smart states, like Massachusetts and Vermont, started recycling CRTs more than a decade ago when there were still glass-to-glass markets and CRT reuse markets,” says Ingenthron. “States that waited until recently to start collecting will have a much more difficult time.”

Data collected in the United Kingdom by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and circulated by Scotland-based Electrical Waste Recycling Group shows a drop in CRT monitor collection underway in that nation that may be indicative of a similar pattern in the U.S.

“The volume of CRT display units is rapidly decreasing and currently stands at 216,945 units entering the waste stream each month,” says Rebecca Patterson of the Electrical Waste Recycling Group. “However, this is predicted to stand at 152,778 units per month by the end of 2014,” Patterson adds.

Gravitt of GES acknowledges that the change in monitor technology means his feedstock will eventually dwindle, but he sees it as a distant timeline. “The production of [new] CRTs has dropped, but over the last two decades they have just inundated the [market]. I personally don’t see [the collection of old CRT monitors] going anywhere for another decade.”

The eventual shrinking market for obsolete CRT monitors provides yet one more point of discussion between the policymakers and recycling advocates who want to ensure that such monitors are handled properly and the recyclers who will be called upon to provide the business model that can make it happen in a financially viable way.

The author is editor of Recycling Today Global Edition and can be reached at btaylor@gie.net.