Discarded E-Waste Could Be Put to Work in Medicine

Published July 14, 2009

An announcement from the University of York's Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence offers a highly innovative potential use for e-waste, one that also brings a cradle-to-cradle mindset to disposing of technology.

Researchers at the university's Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence have found a way to recover a chemical that's widely used in LCD displays and put it to use in medicine.

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), when recovered from displays that would otherwise be landfilled or incinerated, can be transformed into a substance that doctors use to make "tissue scaffolds" that help parts of the body regenerate. Researchers also say the chemical could be used in pills and dressings to deliver drugs to specific parts of the body.

Because PVA doesn't provoke a response from the human immune system, it is a suitable chemical for these types of internal medicine uses. And with untold millions of tons of electronic waste disposed of every year, there is no shortage of supply of the chemical.

"With 2.5 billion liquid crystal displays already reaching the end of their life, and LCD televisions proving hugely popular with consumers, that is a huge amount of potential waste to manage," Professor James Clark, director of the York Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and one of the authors of the research, said in a statement. "It is important that we find ways of recycling as many elements of LCDs as possible so we don't simply have to resort to burying and burning them."

For more on how companies are dealing with e-waste, read "E-Waste: When Landfills Are Not an Option" by Sarah Fister Gale, and "Responsible Electronics Recycling: Turning Policy into Practice," by Robert Houghton, CEO of Redemtech, a leading responsible e-waste recycler.

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Discarded E-Waste Could Be Put to Work in Medicine