The definitions on the web are getting crazy. People writing that "up to X% of e-waste is not repairable". Or, "up to X% of the e-waste is discarded".
Well, it HAS to be discarded or it is not "waste", by definition, and by law. We refer to "e-waste" as the material which didn't have a useful purpose, residue, toxics along for the ride. But the portion which is "recycled" is E-Scrap, not waste at all.
The portion which is reused and repaired is neither e-waste nor e-scrap. We refer to the electronics intended for their original use as "commodities".
CRT glass in a landfill or thrown in a garbage heap is "e-waste".
CRT glass which is crushed up for recycling (in place of virgin lead silica) is "e-scrap" (itself a commodity).
CRTs reused, refurbished, fixed, resold, etc. are a pure commodity.
The same "noise" occured in past decades over used auto batteries. When it no longer works for me as an auto battery, I can discard it (in the woods or in a landfill, etc.) and it is waste.
When they are drained of acid (toxic along for the ride) they are practically pure lead. Lead is toxic, but it is lead, like lead from lead ore crushed up and processed at a lead-zinc smelter. We want that lead to be recycled, and we want whatever lead we buy (new batteries, bullets, hospital aprons, poison paint on toys) to be as much recycled content as possible. It is a logical fallacy to suggest that lead paint or lead gasoline is worse if it is recycled lead; the more lead must be mined, the more total lead is present in the environment. The fact that we don't want lead somewhere at all does not mean that we should not have recycled the lead.
If I am shot and killed, I hope it is with a bullet with the highest possible post-consumer recycled lead content.
There are groups which say that exporting the drained lead batteries back to the factories in SE Asia that make auto batteries is an environmental crime.
I would suggest that all people interviewed by the press on the subject be asked whether lead should be allowed to be exported to car battery manufacturers in Thailand. Any who say "no" may still be interviewed but listed as follows: "According to XX XX, a known idiot, ...."
Mining metals out of ocean reefs is sick and worse than any type of recycling, the worse, imaginable, if it is actually recycling. If the lead is thrown on the ground as waste, it's a double crime, because the recycled lead is not reused or recycled but wasted, and more lead must be mined to replace it.
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