E-Waste Management and Recycling in Malaysia

E-WASTE is defined as waste from the assembly of electrical or electronic appliances that consist of components such as accumulators, mercury-switches, glass from cathode-ray tubes and other activated glass or polychlorinated biphenyl-capacitors, or contaminated with cadmium, mercury, lead, nickel, chromium, copper, lithium, silver, manganese or polychlorinated biphenyl.  Details on the criteria and classification of used electrical and electronic equipment, please refer to the Guidelines for Classification of Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment in Malaysia.

COLLECTION AND RECYCLING OF E-WASTE FROM HOUSEHOLD

The public can now send their e-waste, for a start, limited to used mobile phones, mobile phones’s batteries and their accessories, computers and their accessories, and television set to the e-waste collection centres operated by Local Authorities,  Alam Flora Sdn Bhd or SWM Environment Sdn Bhd.

Please click here for the list of E-Waste collection centres.

Recycling

Today the electronic waste recycling business is in all areas of the developed world a large and rapidly consolidating business. Part of this evolution has involved greater diversion of electronic waste from energy-intensive downcycling processes (e.g., conventional recycling), where equipment is reverted to a raw material form. This diversion is achieved through reuse and refurbishing. The environmental and social benefits of reuse include diminished demand for new products and virgin raw materials (with their own environmental issues); larger quantities of pure water and electricity for associated manufacturing; less packaging per unit; availability of technology to wider swaths of society due to greater affordability of products; and diminished use of landfills.

Jinjang waste center

Staff will collect any valued E-waste

Transformer is one of them. Can sell it straight away to Kedai Besi Buruk

However, for better price, they will segregate into components such as below:-

Transformer iron core

Transformer copper winding

Audiovisual components, televisions, VCRs, stereo equipment, mobile phones, other handheld devices, and computer components contain valuable elements and substances suitable for reclamation, including lead, copper, and gold.

E waste is valuable 

One of the major challenges is recycling the printed circuit boards from the electronic wastes. The circuit boards contain such precious metals as gold, silver, platinum, etc. and such base metals as copper, iron, aluminum, etc. Conventional method employed is mechanical shredding and separation but the recycling efficiency is low. Alternative methods such as cryogenic decomposition have been studied for printed circuit board recycling,and some other methods are still under investigation.