By Gabrielle Nelson
Electronics contain critical minerals such as copper, nickel, gold, lithium and cobalt needed to make batteries for electric vehicles and to electrify Michigan’s energy grid. Image: Gabrielle Nelson
Lily Wilkin has four old phones tucked away in her closet — and no plans to recycle them.
“I keep them for nostalgia,” she said.
Wilkin works at Best Buy, the nation’s largest retail collector of electronic waste — from CRT TVs to hard drives to fans. Wilkin said at least two customers drop off electronics for recycling every day at the East Lansing Best Buy.
Even though she knows about the e-waste collection program, she’s choosing to keep her old electronics.
Whether it’s due to nostalgia or indifference, many people are making the same choice and withholding a valuable source of “critical minerals,” 50 non-fuel materials or substances that the U.S. Department of Energy has declared essential for clean energy technology but at risk of supply chain disruptions.
As the lack of critical minerals becomes a looming choke point in the U.S. energy transition, experts say there’s major potential in the piles of unwanted electronics lying in junk drawers across the nation.
Michigan’s electric vehicle future will require millions of batteries, hundreds of thousands of charging stations and moving the state to renewable sources of energy.
And while an old phone or charger may seem small compared to that large undertaking, the rare materials those electronics hold are valuable, said Jeff Spangenberger, the group leader in materials recycling at Argonne National Laboratory.
“It all adds up,” he said.
For every million smartphones, 35,274 pounds of copper and 772 pounds of silver can be reused, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The problem is getting those million phones recycled.
While it might be inconvenient, electronics recycling is relatively easy.
And aside from capturing valuable material, it diverts electronic waste from landfills, reducing air and groundwater pollution.
Some retailers, such as Best Buy, take most electronics to recycling centers for free. And many Michigan townships have drop-off centers or events where residents can bring \their old electronics for a small fee.
Delta Township, just outside Lansing, holds a monthly electronics recycling event and says it will take “anything with a cord,” charging 50 cents a pound.
Last year, the township collected 2,734 pounds of electronics from residents.
Registered recyclers in Michigan are required to destroy data before recycling a device, but to ensure sensitive data is wiped, erase your hard drive before turning it in.
Once the electronics are collected, they head to a recycling plant, where they’re dismantled, shredded and sorted by the type of material.
Matt Flechter, a market development recycling specialist at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, said he’s seen firsthand that electronics recycling works despite community skepticism.
“If you have some old phones that you know you’re not going to use, get it recycled for goodness sake,” he said. “Those materials need to find their way back into new products. And they will.”
Getting e-waste out of homes and back into supply chains has become a key focus of the state government and researchers, who are scrambling to create a profitable recycling pipeline for this valuable waste stream.
To boost Michigan’s market for critical minerals, Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is offering $4.75 million in grants for university research about critical mineral recycling.
Universities are slated to receive funding starting this fall.
Flechter said nationwide investment in critical minerals is ramping up, and Michigan is trying to get ahead of that with its critical mineral recycling grants.
“We’re a hub for manufacturing,” said Flechter. “It only makes sense that this region of the world is a leader in recycling and recirculating materials back into the manufacturing process.”
Michigan already requires manufacturers to take back customer’s unwanted electronics for reuse or recycling at no charge.
The law applies to “covered electronics,” which include but are not limited to computers, TVs and printers.
But it’s not clear if the law is effective since the last publicly released electronic waste report is from 2016. And from that report, most manufacturers were consistently missing their goal to recycle 60% of the previous year’s sales by weight.
Plus, cell phones, a potentially large source of critical minerals, are not included in the law.
“There is a real need for manufacturers to step up,” said Flechter, but manufacturers are only one piece of the puzzle.
In addition to not recycling enough, when waste does get recycled, recyclers can’t capture all the critical minerals they contain.
Michigan Technological University researchers are looking to change that.
Lei Pan, an associate professor in chemical engineering, and his lab are improving recycling technology for lithium-ion batteries, which are found in cell phones and laptops.
Pan, who works with the ReCell Center, a national collaboration of industry, universities and labs improving recycling technologies, said that new technology will be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly, reducing carbon emissions by at least 50 percent compared to mining new material.
“Most importantly, we can do it,” said Pan. “We can produce those materials at a larger quantity compared to other producers.”
The new technology uses chemicals to separate and refine critical minerals after crushing the batteries and sorting out the materials. The process captures more product and results in higher quality material that can be reused up to 10 times.
According to the ReCell Center, the recycled materials can cut battery production costs by 10 to 30%, which would bring down the price of vehicle batteries.
Argonne National Laboratory’s Spangenberger, director of the ReCell Center, said recyclers need to make a profit to invest more in electronics recycling, and Pan’s research is one way to get there.
“New technology is going to reduce costs and increase the value of the products, and at the same time, it’s going to reduce our need to depend on other countries,” he said.
New recycling plants will bring jobs back to Michigan and reduce carbon emissions from transportation since most lithium-ion recycling occurs overseas, said Spangenberger.
Pan’s lab is opening a testing facility next summer with $8.1 million awarded to Michigan Tech from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“E-waste can be recycled,” said Pan. “And once it’s recycled, all the material can be returned to new products.”
Even with advancements on the horizon, experts say e-waste recycling isn’t a silver bullet.
Access to critical minerals needs to increase dramatically and rapidly, which means a likely need to get better at extracting minerals from other sources.
That includes taking a second look at the leftovers of mining.
Pan’s lab works with Eagle Mine in Marquette County to extract an additional 56 million pounds of nickel and 2 million pounds of cobalt from its mine tailings.
If successful, the refining process could be used at other mines in the nation.
stands now, critical mineral recovery and supply is not ready to support the state’s energy Where Michigan decarbonization goals.
But we’re a state built on manufacturing and innovation, said Flechter.
“We double down on the work that’s already being done,” he said, “and make it even more efficient and effective.”
Gabrielle Nelson has an environmental reporting internship under the MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism’s diversity reporting partnership with the Mott News Collaborative. This story was produced for Bridge Michigan.