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You cant get a job without experience, but you cant get experience without a job. The good news is, its not as impossible as it sounds.
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E-Commerce
When the computer or phone youre 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 belt keeps rolling, tiny specks of valuable, lesser-known materials such as gallium, indium, and tantalum will be left behind. Those tiny specks are critical materials. Theyre essential for building new technology, and theyre in short supply in the U.S. They could be reused, but theres a problem: Current recycling methods make recovering critical minerals from e-waste too costly or hazardous, so many recyclers simply skip them. Sadly, most of these hard-to-recycle materials end up buried in landfills or get mixed into products like cement. But it doesnt have to be this way. New technology is starting to make a difference. As demand for these critical materials keeps growing, discarded electronics can become valuable resources. My colleagues and I at West Virginia University are developing a new technology to change how we recycle. Instead of using toxic chemicals, our approach uses electricity, making it safer, cleaner, and more affordable to recover critical materials from electronics. How much e-waste are we talking about? Americans generated about 2.7 million tons of electronic waste in 2018, according to the latest federal data. Including uncounted electronics, the U.S. recycles only about 15% of its total e-waste, suggests a survey by the United Nations. Even worse, nearly half the electronics that people in Northern America sent to recycling centers end up shipped overseas. They often land in scrapyards, where workers may use dangerous methods like burning or leaching with harsh chemicals to pull out valuable metals. These practices can harm both the environment and workers health. Thats why the Environmental Protection Agency restricts these methods in the U.S. The tiny specks matter Critical minerals are in most of the technology around you. Every phone screen has a super-thin layer of a material called indium tin oxide. LEDs glow because of a metal called gallium. Tantalum stores energy in tiny electronic parts called capacitors. All of these materials are flagged as high risk on the U.S. Department of Energys critical materials list. That means the U.S. relies heavily on these materials for important technologies, but their supply could easily be disrupted by conflicts, trade disputes, or shortages. Right now, just a few countries, including China, control most of the mining, processing, and recovery of these materials, making the U.S. vulnerable if those countries decide to limit exports or raise prices. These materials arent cheap, either. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that gallium was priced between $220 to $500 per kilogram in 2024. Thats 50 times more expensive than common metals like copper, at $9.48 per kilogram in 2024. Revolutionizing recycling with microwaves At West Virginia Universitys Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering, I and materials scientist Edward Sabolsky asked a simple question: Could we find a way to heat only specific parts of electronic waste to recover these valuable materials? If we could focus the heat on just the tiny specks of critical minerals, we might be able to recycle them easily and efficiently. The solution we found: microwaves. This equipment isnt very different from the microwave ovens you use to heat food at home, just bigger and more powerful. The basic science is the same: Electromagnetic waves cause electrons to oscillate, creating heat. In our approach, though, were not heating water molecules like you do when cooking. Instead, we heat carbon, the black residue that collects around a candle flame or car tailpipe. Carbon heats up much faster in a microwave than water does. But dont try this at home; your kitchen microwave wasnt designed for such high temperatures. In our recycling method, we first shred the electronic waste, mix it with materials called fluxes that trap impurities, and then heat the mixture with microwaves. The microwaves rapidly heat the carbon that comes from the plastics and adhesives in the e-waste. This causes the carbon to react with the tiny specks of critical materials. The result: a tiny piece of pure, sponge-like metal about the size of a grain of rice. This metal can then be easily separated from leftover waste using filters. So far, in our laboratory tests, we have successfully recovered about 80% of the gallium, indium, and tantalum from e-waste, at purities between 95% and 97%. We have also demonstrated how it can be integrated with existing recycling processes. Why the Department of Defense is interested Our recycling technology got its start with help from a program funded by the Defense Departments Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Many important technologies, from radar systems to nuclear reactors, depend on these special materials. While the Department of Defense uses less of them than the commercial market, they are a national security concern. Were planning to launch larger pilot projects next to test the method on smartphone circuit boards, LED lighting parts, and server cards from data centers. These tests will help us fine-tune the design for a bigger system that can recycle tons of e-waste per hour instead of just a few pounds. That could mean producing up to 50 pounds of these critical minerals per hour from every ton of e-waste processed. If the technology works as expected, we believe this approachcould help meet the nations demand for critical materials. How to make e-waste recycling common One way e-waste recycling could become more common is if Congress held electronics companies responsible for recycling their products and recovering the critical materials inside. Closing loopholes that allow companies to ship e-waste overseas, instead of processing it safely in the U.S., could also help build a reserve of recovered critical minerals. But the biggest change may come from simple economics. Once technology becomes available to recover these tiny but valuable specks of critical materials quickly and affordably, the U.S. can transform domestic recycling and take a big step toward solving its shortage of critical materials. Terence Musho is an associate professor of engineering at West Virginia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Until last October, Argentinian musical duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were more or less a regional act. Known for their experimental blend of Latin trap, pop, and rap, the pair had a fanbase, but still werent cracking more than 3,000 daily streams across services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Within a week, they shot up 4,700%hitting 222,000 daily streamsaccording to exclusive data firm Luminate, which powers the Billboard charts. Suddenly Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were global pop stars. What changed? On Oct. 4, the pair were featured in a Tiny Desk Concert, part of NPRs 17-year-old video series featuring musicians performing stripped-down sets behind an office desk in the cramped Washington, D.C. headquarters of the public broadcaster. In the concert video, the artists play five songs from their debut album Bao Maria, which came out last April. Pacos raspy voice emerges from underneath a puffy blue trapper hat while Ca7riel sports an over-the-top pout and a vest made of stitched-together heart-shaped plush toys. The pair sing entirely in Spanish, backed by their Argentinian bandmates (sporting shirts screenprinted with their visas) and an American horn section. The duos performance quickly took off across the internet. Within five days, it had racked up more than 1.5 million views on YouTube, and hit 11 million in little more than a month. It also reverberated across social media: the NPR Music Instagram post garnering nearly 900,000 likes, and TikToks clips garnered hundreds of thousands of views. In a year that featured Tiny Desk performances from buzzy stars like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, as well as established acts like Chaka Khan and Nelly Furtado, Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos concert was the most-watched of 2024. It currently sits at 36 million views. That virality translated to an influx of bookings for the duo, including a performance at Coachella in April, and upcoming slots at Glastonbury in June, FujiRock Japan in July, and Lollapalooza and Outside Lands in August. Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos global tour includes sold-out dates at Mexico’s 20,000-capacity Palacio de los Deportes and Chile’s 14,000-seat Movistar Areanaand was previewed by an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April. Through Tiny Desk, we’ve noticed media approaching us, promoters being very interested in offering their spaces and festivals, and many media outlets opening doors to show us to the world, says Jonathan Izquierdo, the bands Spain-based tour manager who began working with the duo shortly after the Tiny Desk Concert debuted. Weve managed to sell out summer arena shows in record time and we’re constantly adding new concerts. Promoters are knocking on our doors to get the Tiny Desk effect. Bobby Carter [Photo: Fenn Paider/courtesy NPR] Tiny Desk, Big Influence The Tiny Desk effect is something Bobby Carter, NPR Tiny Desk host and series producer, has seen firsthand. Carter has been at NPR for 25 years, including the past 11 on the Tiny Desk team. He took the reins when Bob Boilen, the longtime All Songs Considered host who launched Tiny Desk in 2008, retired in 2023. The serieswhich now has more than 1,200 videosbegan as an internet-first way for Boilen to showcase performances from musicians that were more intimate than what happens in bigger concert venues. The first installment, featuring folk artist Laura Gibson, went up on YouTube. Today, the concerts are posted on the NPR site with a writeup and credits, as well as YouTube, where NPR Music has 11 million followers. NPR Music also clips installments on Instagram, where it has 3 million followers. In the early days, NPR staff reached out to touring bands to secure bookings. Acts coming through DC could often be cajoled into filming an installment before heading out to their venues for that nights sound check. Now, musicians come to DC just for the chance to record in NPRs offices. We dont have to worry about tours anymore, Carter says. Labels and artists are willing to come in solely for a Tiny Desk performance. They understand the impact that a really good Tiny Desk concert can have on an artists career. Early on, the stripped-down nature of the Tiny Deskartists cant use any audio processing or voice modulationlent itself to rock, folk, and indie acts. But a 2014 concert with T-Pain, in which the famously autotune-heavy singer unveiled an impressive set of pipes, showed how artists from a broader array of genres could shine behind the Tiny Desk. Everyone knows at this point that theyre going to have to do something different in our space, Carter says. Its a bigger ask for hip-hop acts and electronic acts, but most artists now understand how important it can be if they nail it. Carter highlights rapper Doechii as an artist who overhauled her sound for her Tiny Desk concert in December. Doechiis all-female backing band used trumpet, saxophone, guitar, and bass to transform songs from her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal for the live setting. If you listen to the recorded version of her music, its nothing like what you saw in that Tiny Desk, Carter says. Clips of Doechiis Tiny Desk virtuosity lit up social media, introducing the swamp princess to new fans. The concert even inspired a viral parody, with writer-director-comedian Gus Heagary pretending to be an NPR staffer watching the performance. Reimagining Old Favorites It isnt just emerging acts that totally revamp their sound for a Tiny Desk opportunity. Established artists like Usher, Justin Timberlake, and Cypress Hill have followed T-Pains lead and used NPRs offices to showcase reimagined versions of some of their most popular songs. When Juvenile recorded his installment in June 2023, he was backed by horns and saxophones, a violin and cello, and John Batiste on melodica. The New Orleans rapper played an acoustic version of Back That Azz Up twice at the audiences requestthe first encore in the series history. I love what has happened with hip hop [on Tiny Desk], Carter says. He explains that artists now approach the concert with the mindset: I have to really rethink what Ive been doing for however long Ive been doing it, and present it in a whole new way. Tiny Desk has also helped musicians like Juvenile, gospel artist Marvin Sapp, and percussionist Sheila E to reach new audiences while reminding listeners theyre still making music. Were helping artists to re-emerge, Carter says, tapping into legacy acts and evergreen artists [to help] breathe new life into their careers. In many ways, Tiny Desk now occupies a niche once filled by MTV Unpluggedbut for the generation that has replaced cable with YouTube and streaming. Maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, all of our favorite artists had this watershed moment in terms of a live performance, Carter says. Back in the day it was MTV Unplugged. SNL is still doing their thing. But when you think about the generation now that lives on YouTube, some of these Tiny Desk performances are going to be the milestone that people point to when it comes to live performances. Building a Diverse Audience When Carter talks about Tiny Desk concerts reaching a new generation of listeners, its not conjecture. He notes that the NPR Music YouTube channels 11 million subscribers are as young and diverse as it gets. Its almost half people of color [and] much younger than the audience that listens to NPR on air, which is an audience NPR has been trying to tap for a long time, he says. That diversity informs some of the special series that Tiny Desk produces. The Juvenile video was part of Carters second run of concerts recorded for Black Music Month, in June. Ca7riel & Paco Amorosos video was tied to El Tiny, a Latin-focused series that debuts during Latin Heritage Month (from mid September to mid October) and is programmed by Tiny Desk producer and Alt.Latino host AnaMaria Sayer. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s tour manager, Izquierdo, has worked with artists featured in the series before. He says Tiny Desk is crucial for Latin American artists trying to break through. I’ve realized that for U.S. radio, Latin music benefits from Tiny Desk, he says. The Tiny Desk audiences broad demographics are also increasingly reflected in its broader programming. Bad Bunnys April installment took his reggaeton-inspired songs from recent album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos to their acoustic roots, using an array of traditional Puerto Rican, Latin American, and Caribbean instruments, such as the cuatro puertorriqueo, tiple, güicharo, and bongos. [Our] audience informs a whole lot of what we do, Carter says. I get so many pointers from YouTube comments like Have you heard of this artist? Were watching all that stuff because it helps us stay sharp. Tiny Desk heard round the world With a strong global audience, Tiny Desk has been expanding into Asia. In 2023, NPR struck a licensing deal with South Korean Telecom LG U+ and production company Something Special to produce Tiny Desk Korea for television. Last year, NPR inked a deal with the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) to launch Tiny Desk Concerts Japan. Were really expanding in terms of global reach, Carter says. Here in the States, Carter and Sayer recently launched Tiny Desk Radio, a series that will revisit some of the series notable installments, sharing behind-the-scenes stories from their productions and playing the audio from the concerts Our engineers put a lot of time and effort into making sure that we sound great, Carter says. I hear it a lotpeople tell me they prefer an artists Tiny Desk over anything. That’s something Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso clearly have on their mind as they navigate the Tiny Desk effect and a new level of recognition (their daily streams haven’t dipped below 50,000 a day since the beginning of the year). The duo released an EP in February, Papota, which features four new songs, plus the recorded versions of their pared-down Tiny Desk performances. They also released a short film that recreates their Tiny Desk performancethis time in a Buenos Aires diner. One of the themes of the EP is the pair wrestling with the implications of their viral success. On the song Impostor, Ca7riel asks Y ahora que vamos hacer?/El tiny desk me jodio” (What do we do now? Tiny Desk fucked me up.) It’s an overstatement, but an acknowledgment that the path theyre now on ran directly through the NPR offices.
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