Discarded electronics and the circuit boards inside them — a copper and precious-metal stream that is processed by specialist refiners and regulated as waste wherever it crosses a border.
Discarded electronics and the circuit boards inside them — a copper and precious-metal stream that is processed by specialist refiners and regulated as waste wherever it crosses a border.
Electronic scrap holds copper in its boards, cables and transformers, aluminium in its casings and heat sinks, steel in its frames and gold, silver and palladium in its connectors and chips. Printed circuit boards are the richest fraction and are graded by type: motherboards and telecom boards at the top, television and power-supply boards at the bottom. Whole equipment is dismantled by hand or shredded, and the boards are sent to integrated smelters that recover copper and precious metals together.
The plastics, lead solder and brominated flame retardants in e-waste are why it is treated as hazardous or controlled waste under the Basel Convention and under the EU and many national rules.
Legal e-waste trade moves to licensed smelter-refiners in Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Japan, South Korea and Canada, and to licensed recyclers in India and South-East Asia. Exports of untreated e-waste from the EU and from OECD countries to developing countries are restricted. Our Basel guide explains the paperwork.
Code: WEEE, PCB scrap, motherboards
The main importing countries for this grade — each links to the country page with its mills, smelters, price references and named firms.