Abstract
Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) contains both valuable and hazardous substances and there is great demand for metal scrap. To better understand both material recovery and the environmental impacts by informal recycling of e-waste, and to find potential ways to improve the process, we carried out a field survey at an informal recycling site in the Philippines. We identified the Au recovery process used at the site and evaluated the layout of the recycling site. We collected 31 soil samples at the recycling site and analyzed the metal contents of each sample to clarify the metal distribution within the site. We determined that valuable substances (such as Au), as well as hazardous substances (such as Pb), were scattered throughout the soil at the informal recycling site. The results of our cluster analysis indicated that Au, Ag, Pb, and Sb were categorized in the same group. Improvements are needed in the metal recovery process and in hazardous substance emission control in the informal recycling.
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