E-Waste to No Waste

By Hillary Hoppock
March/April 2016

Priv Bradoo’s urban mining refinery converts e-waste into a sustainable source of critical metals and rare earths.

The United States throws away enough cell phones to blanket 50 football fields and enough TVs to fill more than 600 trucks, every day. But Priv Bradoo, founder and chief executive officer of the California-based electronics recycling firm BlueOak, sees value in the mounds of this fast-growing waste stream. E-waste contains copper and neodymium, which are used in hybrid car batteries and wind turbines, as well as other rare earth metals. According to Bradoo, these are becoming harder to extract from the earth and are diminishing in supply.

“We are seeing the loss of millions of tons of valuable resources being thrown out with cellphones and TVs,” she says. Harvesting these metals presents a huge business opportunity.

From linear to circular economy
BlueOak’s first urban mining refinery in Arkansas, which received $40 million in funding from U.S. and international investors, sources metals sustainably from end-of-life smartphones and TVs. It capitalizes on the fact the amount of gold and silver found in one ton of discarded cell phones is 70 times the amount found in virgin ores.

“Sustainable businesses must go beyond environmental concerns; they need to be financially viable to survive,” says Bradoo. She predicts a shift from the “linear” approach of mining and extracting raw materials to create products that are eventually released back into the earth. In the “circular” economy of the next era, she believes that e-waste will be efficiently converted into a sustainable source of critical and rare metals by “utilizing concentrated resources above ground” rather than earth-bound sources.

Global opportunity for urban mining
Bradoo, who was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012, began her quest for sustainable sourcing of critical metals in the United States, but sees this as “a global opportunity for the technology of tomorrow.” The United States offers “a well-developed infrastructure for commercialization, high standards for safety, laws favoring recycling and good collection systems,” says Bradoo. She aims to make BlueOak the world leader in urban mining.

According to Bradoo, who is an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar, efficient asset utilization is paramount for the future. She cites Carsharing Association and Airbnb as examples of shared assets and improved resource utility in the circular economy.

Bradoo’s career is filled with cleantech start-ups she helped develop in the United States and New Zealand. One such start-up is LanzaTech, where carbon-rich waste and residues produced by industries as well as gases generated by forestry and agricultural residues are converted into fuel and chemical products. Born in India and raised in Oman, Bradoo traces her environmental stance to living in New Zealand, where the focus is on sustainable resources. She was the founding chief executive officer of Spark, a not-for-profit initiative focused on promoting entrepreneurship in New Zealand.

Bradoo defines herself as a product of life experiences. She believes empowered people can do tremendous things and “just plain human empathy is about being better in caring for the Earth and its people.”

Hillary Hoppock is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Orinda, California.