Il riciclo meccanico dei rifiuti di apparecchiature elettriche ed elettroniche. Una sfida tecnologica

Due to the technological progress, electronics became more and more part of our lifestyle. Alongside the continuous progress, the volume of electric and electronic waste (WEEE) steady arising. The WEEE, because of a large number of hazardous substances in various equipment, such as lead in printed circuit boards and cadmium in semiconductor chips, could cause serious environmental problems if not properly handled at the end of their life cycle (i.e. recycling and/or disposed-off). However, a significant amount of valuable materials is contained in WEEE, such as metals, high-quality plastic and other materials/elements that can be profitably recovered. WEEE recycling is considered a real opportunity for contrasting an inbound threat for the Industry and for the Environment. For these reasons it is thus essential to improve the WEEE recycling process, both from an economic and an environmental point of view. These two goals can be reached adopting new, and up-to-date, processing/recycling strategies based on innovative technologies allowing to implement more environmentally friendly and economically sustainable processing.