Scotland could lead the world in sustainable electronics - Stephen Milne
That creates a major challenge for the sustainability of electronics. Globally, more than 50 million metric tonnes of electronic waste, or ‘e-waste’, is generated every year – equivalent to an average of around seven kilograms per capita. Yet, only 17.4 per cent of that e-waste was collected and recycled, official figures from 2019 show.
Last year, the UK produced the second highest amount of e-waste at 23.9 kilograms per capita. While there was no specific figure for Scotland, we will no doubt have accounted for our fair share, underlining why we need a more sustainable way forward – especially as the number of devices only looks like rising through greater adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), wearable technology, and the fourth industrial revolution.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThat is without mentioning the seemingly inevitable introduction of some form of carbon tax on consumer products. Policymakers are known to be considering attaching financial disincentives to goods that have a detrimental impact on the environment, so it is in both consumers’ and companies’ interests to start looking at more sustainable choices sooner rather than later.
However, it should be recognised that this is a very new area. There is a great deal of research – with the University of Edinburgh and Glasgow, in particular, at the forefront of academic enquiry – but little in the way of industrial activity. Funding bodies, including EPSRC, are beginning to provide support to those interested in addressing the challenge.
Nevertheless, for now it begins with re-designing products to remove rare materials and metals. Where they cannot come out, components and materials should be recoverable or re-usable when they reach the end of their lives.
During their use, it is also about finding alternatives to using batteries – such as energy harvesting – which are notoriously difficult to recycle. The long-term goal will be technologies like compostable electronics, which you use for their intended lifetime and then will simply degrade in an environmentally benign way. The reality is, though, that this is probably decades away from being feasible.
The good news is that we already have some exciting companies in Scotland trying to make huge changes. One of them is St Andrews-based SolOLED, which makes the key materials for a range of everyday technologies – such as TV screens and mobile phones – much more sustainable and cost-effective, by removing their need for some of the planet’s rarest metals, including iridium.
Integrated Graphene is another business doing exciting work. It is developing technology that could underpin battery-less IoT devices for a range of remote sensing applications. And, at the end-of-life stage, SEM is creating recyclable solvents that can extract gold and copper from printed circuit boards, alongside other valuable metals – such as aluminium, tin, and zinc – using co-products from the whisky industry.
At the moment, there are a lot of drivers for sustainable electronics, but not many viable solutions. While we are in the early stages of this emerging set of technologies, there is undoubtedly an opportunity to be grasped. With expertise in the disciplines that will be key to turning concepts into scalable products, Scotland could, and arguably should, be at the forefront of making that happen.
Stephen Milne, director of strategic projects at CENSIS
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.