In Russia, televisions and telephones are now recycled and used in road construction

Old TV sets and cell phones have started to be recycled into roads, according to an album of technologies for recycling waste from the use of goods, developed by the Russian Environmental Operator. "Izvestia" got acquainted with the information of REO on November 29.

According to the REO, in 2021-2023, more than 5.7 million tons of secondary resources and recyclable materials were applied in the construction and reconstruction of three federal highways. Among them including resources recycled from household appliances. As it is specified, eight enterprises are engaged in electronics waste recycling in Russia. All of them are included in the register of verified recyclers within the framework of extended producer responsibility (EPR).

"The utilization of waste cell phones and TVs has a great potential for development in our country. Not only can precious components like gold be extracted from old cell phones and TVs, but also secondary raw materials for road construction. For example, the plastic casing of cell phones and glass from LCD displays of TVs are recycled to road construction plants. These recycled resources are added to road pavement," said Denis Butsaev, Director General of REO, adding that this is how the closed-cycle economy works.

At the same time, as explained in REO, the recycling of smartphones begins with manual sorting by manufacturers and other criteria. At the second stage, the phones are disassembled into their component parts. The battery, plastic case and printed circuit board are sent for recycling. The current sources in these devices are the most valuable parts due to their higher content of precious metals.

The printed circuit board is sent for extraction of precious metals. The enclosures and printed circuit boards are then crushed and in shredded form go to a sorting chamber, where mechanical and chemical processes are used to separate the materials. After that, expensive metals are extracted, processed, additionally cleaned and delivered to industrial enterprises, and plastic is most often delivered to road-building plants and added to road pavement.

Butsaev also said that the glass that is in LCD TVs can be recycled into crumbs, which is used as an additive in asphalt.

Earlier, on November 26, it was reported that the REO identified in the country the production facilities where juice and milk packets are used to produce raw materials for ballpoint pens. Combined packaging - tetrapack and other types of packaging in which juice and milk are poured - in the Russian Federation are disposed of 14 plants with a capacity of 25.2 thousand tons. 240,000 tons of such packaging waste is generated per year.