An alternative and an opportunity: circular economy

"There's gold in them thar bins"... and that's no joke! According to the studies carried out by the rare resources working group, throwing a mid-range mobile telephone in the bin means throwing away around 10 grams (0.38 USD) of gold, which is contained in the connectors and electronic components. While this may not seem much, think about how many handsets reach the end of their life cycle each year. The annual production of new computers, mobiles, tablets and other mass market electronic products requires 320 tons of gold per year and 7,500 tons of silver, which represents around 8% of the global demand. And when you consider that the earth's reserves of gold will only last another twenty years at current extraction rates, the importance of recycling Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE, etc.) becomes clear.

Rich and concentrated "urban deposits"

What is true for gold is also true for most other rare metals and minerals contained in all types of equipment: boxes, network equipment, electronic cards, IT hardware, etc. The quantities of strategic raw materials contained in WEEE are often vastly superior to natural deposits and are found in much higher concentrations: generally, five grams of gold are extracted from one ton of ore compared to 200 to 1,000 grams per ton from different types of WEEE!
Exploiting "urban deposits" has emerged as a solution to prevent underground depletion and to secure the supply of rare resources in non-producing areas – as is the case in Europe whose consumption of many strategic metals relies 100% on imports, with the exception of copper of which the continent produces about 50% of its needs, zinc (35%), iron and bauxite (nearly 20 %).

Making recycling central to the Group's strategy

The recycling issue is not new. As Gilles Dretsch, head of environmental projects and member of the working group on rare resources, explains: "The Group has been working for several years to optimise WEEE management in the framework of its CSR policy. Besides, collecting and processing waste through reliable and traceable recycling channels is now mandatory in Europe. And even if the legal framework is not the same in all countries, all our subsidiaries are mobilised; including in the AMEA zone where recycling channels are not very common.
However, we need to speed things up. Recycling should no longer be seen from a purely CSR standpoint but as a key strategic element in securing the Group's supplies. This is one of the missions of the working group on rare resources and the purpose of the COMES committee of which Orange is a member along with all major industrial sectors: telecoms, aeronautics, automobile industry, chemical industry, recycling, etc.

Channels to be structured

"We are trying to place ourselves in a global perspective," explains Gilles Dretsch. "We must continue to develop our knowledge of the exact composition of our waste and ask ourselves how we can make better use of it." The situation varies significantly from one country to another: "in Africa, we must support the emergence of collection and recycling channels and select reliable operators and this is why have formed a partnership with the ITU. In Europe, channels have been established; in France our WEEE is handed over to ecological organisations, who are responsible for decommissioning it. One way to optimise this system might be to have greater involvement in the recycling process".

No El Dorado but real potential

We are not suggesting that Orange should play an operational role in this emerging market like NTT and Deutsche Telekom, for example, who are considering using wind power and mini power generating stations respectively to manage their energy supplies, which are becoming rare and costly. However, it may be worth examining the global economy of the burgeoning recycling industry for strategic metals: the market stakeholders are still relatively inexperienced and small compared to the volume of WEEE. This market is no El Dorado, and while the value of recycled materials is potentially high, the cost of storing, processing, decontaminating and transporting WEEE must not be underestimated. 
"Exploiting 'urban mines' shows real potential as long as it is not too costly and that we can develop appropriate industrial procedures", says Gilles Dretsch. "However, the recycling chain is complex and every link is vital: there is no point having foundry and refining procedures that allow us to recuperate 95% of WEEE materials if only 30% of WEEE is actually collected".

Do you know?

• by 2020, Africa will produce as much WEEE as Europe,
• in 2013, Orange collected 1.5 million phones in 6 countries of the Group: Belgium, Spain, France, Poland, Romania, Slovakia.

Find out more

1. Recycling: a new social issue [FR]
2. WEEE: how does it work [FR]