{"id":215924,"date":"2025-06-14T14:09:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T19:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/critical-minerals-dont-belong-in-landfills-microwave-tech-offers-a-cleaner-way-to-reclaim-them-from-e-waste"},"modified":"2025-06-14T14:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T19:09:27","slug":"critical-minerals-dont-belong-in-landfills-microwave-tech-offers-a-cleaner-way-to-reclaim-them-from-e-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/critical-minerals-dont-belong-in-landfills-microwave-tech-offers-a-cleaner-way-to-reclaim-them-from-e-waste","title":{"rendered":"Critical minerals don\u2019t belong in landfills. Microwave tech offers a cleaner way to reclaim them from e-waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/critical-minerals-dont-belong-in-landfills-microwave-tech-offers-a-cleaner-way-to-reclaim-them-from-e-waste.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When the computer or phone you\u2019re using right now blinks its last blink and you drop it off for recycling, do you know what happens?<\/p>\n<p>At the recycling center, powerful magnets will pull out steel. Spinning drums will toss aluminum into bins. Copper wires will get neatly bundled up for resale. But as the conveyor belt keeps rolling, tiny specks of valuable, lesser-known materials such as gallium, indium and tantalum will be left behind.<\/p>\n<p>Those tiny specks are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/cmm\/what-are-critical-materials-and-critical-minerals\" target=\"_blank\">critical materials<\/a>. They\u2019re essential for building new technology, and they\u2019re in short supply in the U.S. They could be reused, but there\u2019s a problem: Current recycling methods make recovering <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/critical+minerals\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">critical minerals<\/a> from e-waste too costly or hazardous, so many recyclers simply skip them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the computer or phone you\u2019re using right now blinks its last blink and you drop it off for recycling, do you know what happens? At the recycling center, powerful magnets will pull out steel. Spinning drums will toss aluminum into bins. Copper wires will get neatly bundled up for resale. But as the conveyor [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1512,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-mobile-phones","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}