Introduction Statement

Ben Pauley and Kyle Hoffmeister

ILS 252 Contemporary Life Sciences

November 20, 2011

Introduction To Project E-Cycle

            The focus of our project is on awareness of E-Cycling in the Madison community, and specifically on the UW-Madison campus. The E-Cycling movement has been growing over the past two decades due to the increasing pace of electronic innovation, which leads to greater turnover in technology, and therefore more electronic waste. As we have moved into a society where electronics are a vital part of our day-to-day lives, especially in America and on University Campuses, the necessity of a responsible way to throw out old electronics has grown and thus the E-Cycling movement has grown. While this movement has been blossoming E-cycling is still not nearly as common as other types of waste disposal, and not nearly as accessible. Our main goal for this project is to find out whether or not the Madison community, and specifically the UW-Madison student community, is aware of the E-Cycling resources available to them and the benefits of E-Cycling.

This topic specifically relates to the idea of Sustainability in a number of ways. First and foremost the non-recycling of electronics is unsustainable in that it can be very harmful to the environment as well as human health because of the toxic chemicals contained in a lot of electronics and the fact that they do not decompose easily. So when an electronic device is dumped into a landfill, instead of being recycled, toxic material is dispersed into the environment and can often leak into important water sources. We also must consider the extraction of resources used for these devices and the energy it takes to do this. Both valuable and non-renewable material is used to construct the electronics we use. On top of reducing valuable, finite resources we must consider the energy and time it takes to extract the material. By recycling and reusing the material from old devices, we can reduce the rate at which we are extracting resources, drastically saving energy and effectively sustaining both resources and the environment that we live in.

Before going further the term E-Cycling simply refers to the recycling of electronics, such as Computers, DVD players, etc. When thinking about what were the best ways to approach this topic and project we came up with a couple ideas such as; writing a research paper, conducting a survey, or trying to increase the number of depository’s on campus. We dismissed the third option because numerous students informed us that a number of depositories exist around campus and the greater Madison area. So we have decided to focus on awareness of the student body by conducting a survey in which we ask around 8 questions about whether or not individuals know of existing sites on campus, as well as where the most beneficial spots are. We also ask for suggestions about more convenient spots, or areas on campus that do not have E-Cycling bins but should. The last topic of the survey has to do with the participant’s general knowledge about E-Cycling and what the perceived benefits of E-Cycling are. This survey represents the first stage of our project.

The second stage of our project has to do with the results of the survey and the insights they allow us to make about the prevalence of E-Cycling awareness on our campus. In this stage of our project we plan on e-mailing or contacting a couple organizations around campus with the results from our survey and seeing if they can find better ways to promote awareness in the campus community. We will specifically be contacting Do-It Tech and have not yet decided on whom else to contact. In Hai-Yong Kang and Julie M. Schoenung’s article: Electronic Waste Recycling; A Review of U.S Infrastructure and Technology Options they state that the most effective way to raise awareness in a University community is to send mass e-mails, because of the fact that most people, in our technologically driven time, are plugged into the University and have to check their e-mails frequently.

Along with sending out mass e-mails we plan to print off some small flyers which we will then post around campus in areas that are suggested on the survey as highly active parts of campus. This is also suggested in the article mentioned above as a good way to promote awareness in a campus community. Through this we hope to increase awareness of E-cycling, both knowledge of its benefits and locations of receptors, around campus. Following this we also plan on completing a small research paper, or write-up, that deals with the results of our survey, the success or failure of other aspects of our project, and E-Cycling in general.

 

Potential Problems

Some potential problems with our research project have to do with both the dispersal of our survey and the results of our survey. First of all the number of people we survey will probably be less then necessary and might not represent the UW-Madison population correctly. We have dispersed the survey to everybody in class, over e-mail, and also people in our other classes as well as friends around campus. So far we have received around 30 responses. Consequently this survey is in a way limited by the number of people we have given the survey as well as limiting the population to only people in our classes and our friends, who may have similar interests and ideas, this may bias the results.

Also the second stage of our project hinges on the assumption that the majority of students are not aware of E-Cycling receptacles around campus. So far this is the general trend but, at this point, we cannot be sure this will be the final trend. This problem is more trivial then the first one though because it can safely be assumed that not everybody on campus knows about E-Cycling, so even if the majority of students do know, it is still beneficial to create further awareness.

Other possible problems with our project have to do with the receptivity of the organizations we contact and the attitudes of the students. The fact that we are just undergraduates may make us less credible then other people doing research and may lead to us being disregarded by the organizations we contact. Also many of these organizations may be very busy and not have time to deal with our information or research. Also while students may be aware of E-Cycling practices and where they can E-Cycle, they may not care about the issue enough to actually do it, this is a problem with a lot of issues connected to sustainability. Some people just do not care, and that is a fact of life.

 

Conclusion

Our project focuses on student awareness of E-Cycling on campus and how, if possible, we can increase that awareness. This awareness is important to us, and the community, because this awareness will, hopefully, increase the amount of electronics that are recycled. This increase in E-Cycling helps us sustain our community through protecting our environment from negative chemicals as well as protecting from resource depletion by reusing those chemicals. Thus through awareness of E-Cycling we can help sustain our community, and our world through these things.

Sources

 

http://www.greenergadgets.org/recycling-responsibly.html   Green Gadgets, recycling responsibility

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/live.htm  EPA websight—main source of info

http://simplemom.net/10-ways-to-recycle-your-technology-and-manage-e-waste/  10 ways to recycle your technology and recycle e-waste

http://www.ecyclestlouis.org/why.php E-cycle St. Louis    Why recycle electronics?

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344905000777 google scholar article, Hai-Yong Kang and Julie M. Schoenung, “Electronic waste recycling: A review of U.S. infrastructure and technology options”