城市採礦工廠能夠破解全球電子垃圾氾濫難題嗎

On a recent, rather stormy Tuesday afternoon, former U.S. vice president Al Gore and an assortment of Silicon Valley executives assembled in an unlikely spot—Osceola, Arkansas—to break ground on a promising new venture.

最近一個暴雨如注的週二下午，美國前副總統艾爾o戈爾和一衆硅谷高管聚集在一個他們似乎不大可能出現的地方——阿肯色州奧西奧拉市，參加一家很有前途的新企業的動工儀式。

Backed by $35 million in financing, California-based startup BlueOak Resources is building a brand-new facility in this city of 8,000 or so, but it’s not to manufacture a new high-tech gadget. Quite the opposite, in fact: BlueOak’s new operation will be what it calls the nation’s first “urban mining” refinery dedicated to recovering valuable metals such as gold, silver, copper and palladium from the growing mountains of e-waste currently threatening to overwhelm the planet.

在高達3,500萬美元融資的支持下，總部位於加州的藍橡樹資源回收公司(BlueOak Resources)準備在這座擁有大約8,000人口的小城建設一家新工廠，但它要生產的並不是某種高科技新玩意。恰恰相反：在電子垃圾堆積如山，似乎要淹沒全球的大背景下，藍橡樹的新設施將成爲全美第一家致力於回收金、銀、銅和鈀等貴重金屬的“城市採礦(urban mining)”冶煉廠。

“Every day, U.S. consumers dispose of enough cell phones to cover 50 football fields,” said Privahini Bradoo, BlueOak’s chief executive.

藍橡樹公司CEO普里瓦伊尼o布拉多說：“美國消費者每天扔掉的手機足以覆蓋50個橄欖球場。”

Although between 7% and 10% of the world’s gold and 30% of the silver produced goes into electronics, only 15% of the 50 million tons of e-waste created globally each year undergoes any recycling, Bradoo said. Instead, the vast majority of devices are dumped in landfills or exported to countries where e-waste is hand-picked over open fires.

布拉多表示，儘管全世界生產的7%到10%的黃金和30%的銀都變成了電子產品部件，但在全球每年產生的5,000萬噸電子垃圾中，僅有15%經過某種形式的回收處理。絕大多數設備都被棄置於垃圾填埋場，或者被出口到海外，最終用明火焚燒。

The city of Guiyu, China—widely considered the world’s e-waste capital—receives some 4,000 tons of the stuff per hour. It also has the highest-ever recorded level of dioxins, and 90% of its residents have neurological damage, Bradoo said. “Not only is it a humanitarian disaster, but when we looked at the value contained in e-scrap, it was shocking,” she added.

外界普遍認爲，位於中國廣東省汕頭市的貴嶼鎮是全球電子垃圾之都。貴嶼鎮每小時大約收到4,000噸垃圾。這座小鎮的二噁英類有機污染物目前已達到有記載以來的最高水平，布拉多說，當地九成居民的神經系統都受到了損傷。她補充說：“這當然是一場人道主義災難，但這些電子廢料包含的價值同樣令人震驚。”

With support from the Arkansas Teachers’ Retirement Fund, a consortium of European and domestic investors, and the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, BlueOak’s new refinery will process 15 million pounds of electronic scrap per year initially, rapidly expanding from there. Production will begin by the end of 2015, bringing 50 technical jobs to the area. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is one of BlueOak’s major investors.

藍橡樹公司準備建設的新冶煉廠獲得了來自阿肯色州教師退休基金(Arkansas Teachers’ Retirement Fund)，一個由歐洲和美國國內投資者組成的財團，以及阿肯色開發金融管理局(Arkansas Development Finance Authority)的支持。這座工廠計劃在起初階段每年處理1,500萬磅電子廢料，隨後將迅速擴大。這家冶煉廠將於2015年末正式投產，預計將爲當地帶來50個技術工作崗位。凱鵬華盈風投公司(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)是藍橡樹的主要投資者之一。

‘For every ounce, 30 tons of waste’

“開採一盎司黃金會生產30噸垃圾”

“Developing a 21st-century, high-quality recovery process for the valuable materials in electronic waste is very important,” said Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Urban Program.

“開發一種面向21世紀，針對電子垃圾蘊含的貴重材料的高品質回收流程，具有非常重要的意義，”供職於美國自然資源保護委員會(Natural Resources Defense Council)都市的資深科學家艾倫o赫什科維茨說。

E-waste is the fastest-growing component of the municipal solid waste stream, and given all the precious metals, valuable plastics and recyclable glass electronics contain, “the fact that these are being routinely discarded makes no sense,” Hershkowitz said.

電子垃圾是城市固體廢棄物中增長最快的組成部分，鑑於電子產品包含了大量貴金屬、貴重塑料和可回收玻璃，赫什科維茨說，“它們遭到習慣性地丟棄這個事實簡直不合情理。”

Indeed, roughly 10 ounces of gold can be extracted from every ton of printed circuit boards, Bradoo said; you’d need to process 100 tons of gold ore or more to get the same amount.

布拉多說，事實上，從每噸印刷電路板中可提取大約10盎司黃金。而要獲得相同數量的黃金，人們至少需要處理100噸金礦石。

More to the point, “for every ounce of gold that has to be mined in the field, we produce 30 tons of waste” including mercury and cyanide, Hershkowitz said. “Compare that with recovering an ounce of gold from electronic waste—you’d eliminate that gigantic ecological burden.”

更重要的是，“在礦山開採一盎司黃金會生產30噸廢物，”其中包括汞和氰化物，赫什科維茨說。“相比之下，從電子垃圾中回收黃金，可以消除如此巨大的生態負擔。”

There are, of course, U.S. companies already out there that specialize in refurbishing and recycling used electronics—Sims Recycling and ECS Refining are two larger examples. Typically, though, such companies dismantle unrefurbishable devices either manually or with automated shredders to recover their aluminum, steel and plastic but ship the circuit boards to smelters overseas, Bradoo said.

當然，已經有美國公司在專門從事翻修和回收二手電子產品業務，Sims Recycling和ECS Refining是其中兩個規模較大的例子。布拉多說，這類公司通常採用手動方式或自動粉碎機來拆除不可翻新的設備，以便回收它們的鋁、鋼和塑料，但電路板則被運送至海外的冶煉廠。

It’s those circuit boards where most of the high-value metals reside, she added. In order to reclaim them in a sustainable way, BlueOak’s facility will take the boards, pulverize them further and put them through a high-temperature plasma-arc furnace.

她補充說，大多數貴重金屬恰恰蘊含在這些電路板之中。爲了以可持續的方式回收貴重金屬，藍橡樹公司的新工廠將接收這些電路板，進一步粉碎加工，然後把它們放入等離子電弧爐進行熔化。

‘Value recovery from every part of that chain’

“從價值鏈的每個部分中回收價值”

Europe has long been ahead of the United States in its e-waste solutions, thanks not just to government mandates and an emphasis on recycling but also to infrastructure already in place there.

長久以來，歐洲的電子垃圾解決方案一直領先於美國，不僅僅是因爲政府頒佈了相關指令，企業重視回收問題，還應該歸功於已經到位的基礎設施。

“They had domestic secondary smelters that had the capital and the capability to redirect some of their capacity toward e-waste,” Bradoo said.

布拉多說：“歐洲一些國家的二級冶煉廠擁有充足的資本和技術能力，它們能夠重新利用一些產能來處理電子垃圾。”

Even there, though, “there are no facilities we’re aware of that are dedicated to recovering precious metals from electronic scrap,” she said.

不過，即使在歐洲，“目前也沒有專門從電子廢料中回收貴金屬的工廠，”她說。

Yet while BlueOak’s urban mining refinery may be “exactly the kind of facility that we need from an ecological perspective,” some key economic realities will have to be overcome, NRDC’s Hershkowitz said.

然而，儘管藍橡樹公司的城市採礦廠“從生態的角度看，或許是我們需要的那種設施，”但這家工廠還需要克服一些關鍵的經濟現實，美國自然資源保護委員會的赫什科維茨說。

“The challenge here is going to be getting the electronic waste to the facility, because right now only a fraction of electronic waste is effectively recovered for recycling,” he added. “From an economic perspective, we need government requirements, as they have in Europe, that obligate the consumer products companies to participate in funding the infrastructure to recover these materials for recycling or refurbishment.”

“亟需應對的挑戰是，如何把電子垃圾送往這家工廠，因爲目前只有一小部分電子垃圾被有效地回收再利用，”他補充說。“從經濟角度來看，我們需要政府效仿歐洲的做法，強制要求電子消費類公司出資建造用來回收利用或翻新這些材料的基礎設施。”

Initially, BlueOak will rely on suppliers that are already collecting and dismantling e-waste, but “our hope is that by creating more value in that value chain, that will promote the front-end recycling,” Bradoo said.

在起初階段，藍橡樹公司將依靠已經開始收集和拆解電子垃圾的供應商，但布拉多說，“我們希望在這個價值鏈中創造更多價值，以推動前端的回收利用。”

The automotive industry is an inspiring model, she noted, with a recycling rate of about 95%. “That’s because you have value recovery from every part of that value chain,” she said. “An entire industry has focused on ensuring that there’s recycling.”

她指出，作爲一個鼓舞人心的典範，汽車行業的再循環比率目前已達到95%左右。“這是因爲價值鏈的每個部分都有回收價值，”她說。“整個行業都在專心致志地確保資源能夠回收利用。”

Alternatively, much the way deposit-refund systems have been used successfully to encourage container recycling, it’s possible a similar scheme could be applied to electronics, she said.

作爲另一種選擇，就像押金退款制度已經被成功地用於鼓勵容器回收一樣，她說，電子產品或許也可以應用類似方案。

Either way, “we want the entire value chain to grow and to create an ecosystem that supports the overall recycling and recovery of as much value as possible from electronics so we don’t think of it as a waste stream,” Bradoo explained.

無論採取哪種方式，布拉多解釋說，“我們都希望整個價值鏈迅速增長，希望創建一個生態系統，以支持從電子產品中回收利用盡可能多的價值。這樣一來，我們就不再把它看成一個廢物流。”

‘We need to see real leadership’

“我們需要看到真正的領導力”

Approaches like BlueOak’s urban mining refinery “have the potential to be an important part of the solution, to recycle the materials embedded in these devices, reducing the demand for virgin materials and the energy needed to produce them,” said Gary Cook, a senior IT analyst with Greenpeace.

像藍橡樹公司城市採礦廠這類方式“有望成爲電子垃圾解決方案的重要組成部分，它們能夠回收嵌入電子設備的材料，從而減少對原生材料和生產這些材料所需能源的需求，”綠色和平組織(Greenpeace)資深IT分析師加里o庫克說。

Greenpeace also wants to see more robust efforts from the electronics sector, Cook said, such as stronger take-back programs and a commitment to using recycled materials in electronics products.

庫克表示，綠色和平組織還希望看到電子行業採取更有力的措施，比如更完善的回收計劃，承諾使用再生材料生產電子產品。

But it starts at the top. “What we also need to see is real leadership from electronics manufacturers in creating products that are designed to have a longer life,” Cook said, citing the example of modular mobile phones such as Phonebloks and Project Ara, “and not designed for the dump in two to three years.”

但這些努力必須由最高層率先推動。庫克說，“我們還需要看到電子產品製造商展現出真正的領導力，需要它們設計、製造擁有更長生命週期的產品。” 他還援引了模塊化手機制造商 Phonebloks和 Project Ara的例子。“它們不能繼續設計一些使用兩三年就不得不廢棄的產品。”