Colin Staub is a reporter at Resource Recycling. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Although the 2025 Basel Convention changes were confined to e-scrap materials, a wider range of scrap metal exports to Thailand have gotten caught up in the fray. | Mayday6510/Shutterstock
In Thailand, import regulations meant to control the flow of end-of-life electronics are creating headaches for shipments of a wider array of metals, including automotive scrap materials. The Recycled Materials Association recently traveled to the country to clarify the confusion. Continue Reading
The Basel Convention regulated e-plastics in 2021, but each party country must adopt domestic laws to enforce those rules. | Sutthisak Tasri/Shutterstock
The Malaysian government recently published regulations indicating the country will stop all U.S.-sourced imports of scrap plastic, including e-plastics from electronics, on July 1. Reports from plastic traders indicate the flow of scrap plastic into Malaysia has already slowed. Continue Reading
Although the investigation focused on 500 devices, the former driver admitted he couldn’t remember how many thousands of devices he stole. | Andrii Zhezhera/Shutterstock
An IT asset disposition employee who admitted to stealing and reselling client devices from federal government agencies was recently sentenced for the crime. Court documents also reveal new details about the scheme, including that it involved thousands of devices that received little to no data destruction, many of which remain unaccounted for. Continue Reading
The New York-headquartered firm has grown its geographical reach and service capabilities. | Photo courtesy EWASTE+
Victor, New York-based EWASTE+ has acquired a Connecticut-headquartered e-scrap firm, growing the private equity-backed processor’s footprint in the Northeast. Continue Reading
An ERI collection event in Madison, Wisconsin, detailed in the company’s 2024 impact report. | Photo courtesy ERI
Last year was a busy one for ERI, bringing the launch of the company’s first in-house alkaline battery processing facility, establishment of a new stable e-plastics downstream and the rollout of the latest edition of the company’s automated device identification system.
Cathode ray tubes are heavy, contain hazardous materials, are labor-intensive to process and have had unstable end markets. | Boonchuay1970/Shutterstock
Ten years ago, Indian cathode ray tube manufacturer Videocon was recycling end-of-life CRTs from U.S. processors into new CRT displays. New York-headquartered Nulife Glass was preparing to start up its first CRT glass furnace. In Illinois, Kuusakoski was placing CRT glass in storage cells for future potential recovery. And e-scrap processors around the country were shipping CRTs to Closed Loop Refining and Recovery warehouses in Ohio and Arizona. Continue Reading
Size-reduced solar panels at Com2 Recycling Solutions’ Illinois facility. The company is using the glass to offset declining CRT volumes. | Photo courtesy Com2
Electronics processors are increasingly adding solar panel recycling capacity, in some cases processing the panels similarly to declining streams like CRT glass and in other cases rolling out entirely new technologies, companies said in recent interviews. Continue Reading
Eric Frederickson, vice president of operations at Call2Recycle, presented a battery burn demonstration alongside the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. | Colin Staub/E-Scrap News
After a year that recorded a notable increase in e-scrap facility battery fires, the growing hazard and ways of mitigating it received ample attention at the Recycled Materials Association’s annual conference in San Diego this week.
Gaylord boxes of cathode ray tube glass stockpiled wall to wall in a former Recycletronics site in Akron, Iowa, which was cleaned up in 2022 under the U.S. EPA’s purview. | Photo Courtesy U.S. EPA
Two e-scrap collectors that allegedly sent cathode ray tube glass to failed Midwest processor Recycletronics recently received demand letters from the U.S. EPA seeking compensation for more than $1.3 million in cleanup costs from Superfund remediation activities in 2022.
The safety-focused summit came after the latest federal data showed a backslide in waste and recycling industry safety. | Susan Montgomery/Shutterstock
As recycling companies seek to improve workplace safety amid an industry-wide increase in on-the-job fatalities, experts at a recent industry summit advised managers to focus their attention on — and for top executives, even to attend — the regular pre-shift safety meetings.