Overview of E-Waste Mining from Urban Waste in the Developed East Asian Region and Major Achievements in Taiwan

To reduce the generation of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), or electronic waste (hereafter referred to as E-waste), within urban waste streams, extended producer responsibility (EPR) has evolved into an important framework for E-waste management and circular economy policies worldwide over the past thirty years. This policy has received increasing attention because of concerns regarding environmental pollution and resource depletion, as E-waste may contain heavy metals, such as mercury, cadmium, and lead, as well as valuable metals, including gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper, and aluminum. In the developed East Asia region, Japan, South Korea (hereafter abbreviated as Korea), and Taiwan are renowned for their electronics industries and share similar socioeconomic and environmental characteristics, such as high population density, dependence on imported resources, and comparable levels of per capita national income. This review paper first provides the brief information on precious and valuable base metals derived from E-waste in urban waste. Furthermore, it presents a brief overview of the legal systems for urban waste management and compares urban mining from E-waste in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In this regard, the policies, regulations, and achievements related to urban waste management and E-waste recycling in East Asia, especially in Taiwan, are summarized and linked to increasing recycling rates for urban waste, including E-waste. Finally, the paper also examines two leading case studies in Taiwan, which focus on the recovery of precious metals from information and communication technology (ICT) products and valuable base metals from home electronic appliances, respectively.