Waste streams containing precious and special metals: new UBA texts

bifa undertook the project on behalf of the German Environment agency (UBA) together with its subcontractors, the lawyer firm avocado Rechtsanwälte and Prof Krupp of the HSAOps research group at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. In the project, magnetic materials containing rare-earth metals, vehicle electronics and other waste streams with precious and special metal fractions were examined with the objective of increasing recovery of these metals. To this end, the project mainly analysed the following aspects:

• Collection logistics concepts and flows of information for consolidating and treating waste
• Legal aspects of the removal, recovery and labelling obligations and the duty to provide dismantling instructions for waste streams containing precious and special metals
• Recovery processes, consolidation and information concepts for a large number of waste streams containing precious and special metals
• Legal, technical and economic analysis of the possibilities of interim storage until recycling technology is available
• Environmentally optimal or realistically achievable recovery yields of precious and special metals from selected waste streams
• Assessment of possible measures for increasing the recycling of precious and special metals

The results have been published in two UBA texts. The English text can be found under the following link:

ILESA - Smart steering of waste streams containing precious and minor metals

You want more information?
You are welcome to contact me
Dr. Karsten Wambach
kwambach[at]bifa.de