Electronic Recycling

Ben Pauley and Kyle Hoffmeister

 

We as humans tend to be blinded so much by our own existence that we forget our place in this world. Desires run wild, and focus is always centered around immediate gain. It is clear that we have taken for granted and dangerously exploited what has been offered to us, and that if we continue down this unsustainable path of existence, we will have a dark future. What if by the time that we become conscious of our vices and unsustainable behavior its too late? Awareness is one step. Taking an active role in mitigating the problem of sustainability is a whole different topic. If we don’t address this problem right now, we will inevitably run into some catastrophic constraints in the future, if we haven’t yet. Everything reaches a limit.

For this project on sustainability we focused on electronic recycling. This paper gives a background on what exactly electronic recycling is and the different impacts and consequences that result from its use or from neglecting to use it. The second part of the paper focuses on the applied part of our project, such as the survey, posters and interaction with the community to spread awareness on electronic recycling.

To clarify, electronic recycling, or electronic recycling, is simply the process of recycling electronics, such as cell phones, computers, DVD players, etc. This means that the devices are broken down and used for their valuable parts or material. Or if the device is still functioning (such as “old” cell phones) they are redistributed. Electronic recycling is a movement that has gained popularity in the last couple of decades due primarily to the exponentially increasing pace of technological innovation and consumption. It seems as if we are at a point where technology is becoming outdated faster than new technology can be dispersed. The moment you buy the newest I-pod, advertisements for the newer I-pod emerge, yet this is only one example. As the rate of technology increases and as the population of technology users increases with it, there is inversely an increase on the obsolescence of technology. What happens to the outdated or broken electronics? One must realize that there are serious implications to this phenomena; environmentally, ecologically, socially etc. Although awareness of electronic recycling has been increasing as of late, the level of awareness is still not high enough.

The most prominent impact of electronic recycling is in the environmental sector. Although this would seem like an area where people are more aware, it appears that the environmental impact has been largely taken for granted, and people are mostly indifferent. The materials used for electronics take massive amounts of time and energy to extract. Also, we must realize that the resources we are dealing with are finite and are becoming harder to locate. The efforts to extract resources used in electronic devices causes unimaginable degradation to the land and environment. The more devices or material from devices we can save from electronic recycling, the more we can cut down on the extraction of material. I wouldn’t make the mistake of saying that electronic recycling now has reduced the rate of extraction, for we must consider that that rate grows exponentially as demand for material increases. Yet it still makes a difference and can be looked at as the first step to decreasing mankind’s reliability and destruction of Earth’s finite resources. To look on a broader environmental scale, less extraction of resources means less energy used, therefore less greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere. The EPA claimed that 3,657 homes could be powered by recycling one million laptops.

Electronics often contain very harmful material, therefore are biologically and environmentally harmful when they are disposed of. When electronics are not properly recycled, they are, along with all other discarded waste, dumped into landfills. This isn’t as bad for biodegradable, non-toxic material—yet most electronics do not decompose and have many harmful material or chemicals. People may respond by saying that this should be of no concern since landfills are strategically placed away from humans, yet they don’t consider water reservoirs and nearby agriculture. Toxic material from the electronics in landfills has been reported to seep into and contaminate water supply, while also dangerously polluting soil that is used. If this happened on a large enough scale it could be catastrophic. Either by tricking into underground water reserves or by transport of rain runoff, harmful material can easily be dispersed to areas where it affects both the environment and biological populations. And as water scarcity is a problem we will have to deal with in the future, we don’t need toxic chemicals seeping into the supply we have left and depleting it even faster.

E-waste makes up for 70 percent of toxic wastes in landfills today. Lead is of large concern. As more liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma screens are produced and sold, the old cathode ray tubes (CRT) are being replaced and, therefore, being throw away at a large scale. CRT’s have large amounts of lead contained in them, about 20 percent of its content. Considering we are now in the era of plasma and LCD TV’s, there has been a surge in lead heading for the landfills, which is extremely harmful. Cell phones, particularly the covers, have substantial amounts of lead, and cell phones are disposed of faster than almost any electronic. The average use of a cell phone is about 18 months, therefore it is estimated that nearly 500 million can now be thrown away. The batteries in cell phones contain the elements nickel and cadmium, which have been proven to cause lung and liver cancer. Computers and laptops frequently contain the harmful material already mentioned plus other toxic substances such as mercury. Although all of the toxic substances mentioned may only make up a small fraction of the total landfills, it doesn’t take much of it to completely contaminate critical water sources and soil used by humans and other forms of life.  Scientists have linked leaks of these substances to brain damage, kidney and lung failure and many other health failures.

As briefly stated before, electronics contain many reusable precious metals and raw materials. Even if you aren’t concerned with the environmental implications, it is easy to see how much of a waste it is to so carelessly dispose of such valuable material. Electronics often contain substantial amounts of important metals that are reusable, such as aluminum, copper and even gold. People take for granted the time, energy and innovation needed to accumulate and process that material for electronic use. Also a major issue concerning these resources is their depletion, many substances used in electronics are reaching their peak extraction rates, and as technology improves and speeds up we will have a large problem on our hands, because technology is an integral part of our world, both economically and politically. Also even if certain parts of electronics cannot be reused for the same purpose, they can be systematically broken down into simpler forms and used in other ways. Metals are not the only things to consider. Plastics used for many electronics take considerable amount of resources and energy to create. The process can also be very meticulous and time costly. Most commercial plastics are made from petroleum, which is very much a finite, nonrenewable resource.

There are other benefits of electronic recycling that are rarely given proper recognition. Many of the devices donated that still function are distributed through charities to people who need them. Many jobs have been generated by the companies that professionally recycle electronics. Recovering valuable material helps out certain markets that use that material by reducing price and making them more available. As mentioned in lecture, in order to change something in this world, such as introducing electronic recycling, you need to provide people with an incentive to. You need to make the objective you intend to reach easier or more profitable than the status quo. Now, specific companies rely on people giving up their outdated or broken electronics, which makes it easier for us to transition into a system of electronic recycling. To any who may ask the question whether the cost of electronic recycling is worth the outcome, we can answer that it doesn’t have to cost anything to recycle and that it actually is a benefit to the economy in several ways; it reduces energy and continued costs of extraction, it disperses usable devises to those who need them, reduces cost of raw material and precious metals by increasing availability, and it generates jobs for those in the e-cycling sector.

The applied part of our project consisted of three main components that were aimed at testing and improving awareness in the UW-Madison community. For the first part of our project we conducted a survey, which asked a number of questions about students’ awareness of electronic recycling stations around campus, as well as questions dealing with whether or not they actually recycle their electronics. For the next part of our project we distributed flyers around campus that gave the location of the five most convenient places to recycle electronics around campus. Coupled with this part of our awareness campaign we decided to pursue a mass e-mail about electronic recycling to the student body. All three of our project components had varying degrees of success, which will now be discussed further.

In the survey we found that about ninety percent of participants do not recycle their electronics and eighty-two percent of students are not aware of available electronic recycling spots around campus. Also in the survey we asked about whether or not the students knew about electronic recycling in general, about sixty percent of participants said they were not aware of it but could infer what it was. The most common suggestions for electronic recycling places around campus consisted of State Street, Library Mall, the Libraries, as well as both of the Unions. Obviously these results are very troubling because it seems as if most students first, do not recycle their electronics, and second are not aware of places where they can recycle electronics. These results point out that awareness is definitely an issue on the UW-Madison campus which is in it-self troubling because this is the top university in Wisconsin, which compared to other states, is a very environmentally conscious state.

Although these results point to lack of awareness on the UW-Madison campus the survey is limited in a number of ways. First the survey is limited in the representativeness of the sample. We distributed the survey to fellow students in ILS 252 as well as people in our other classes, and friends. This sample is definitely not random and is limited to college students who are in our classes or our friends, which is severely biased. A second problem is the number of responses we actually got, about 50 surveys. This small sample size provides for a huge margin of error, one that almost renders the survey completely useless. While these are both serious faults, the fact that all of the people surveyed are students at a premier, or at least above average, public university in a state that is known for its environmental awareness points to a problem. So although the survey has faults, due to our lack of resources and time, it is still useful.

After concluding that the majority of students at UW-Madison are unaware of electronic recycling sites around campus we decided to distribute a number of flyers down State Street. On the flyers we provided information about the five most accessible locations for electronic recycling on campus. These locations are; all four Do-It Tech locations and the receptacle at College Library. We got this idea from a couple research papers we read about the best ways to distribute information and promote awareness. While we know most people don’t stop and look at the flyers on State Street, our main idea was to use these in tandem with a mass e-mail, and even if they only affect a small number of people, this is still a positive improvement.

The last part of our applied project has to do with our attempt to distribute a mass e-mail to the student community about places to recycle electronics around campus. This was described, in the majority of papers we read, as the most efficient method to increase awareness around campus, because most students use their e-mails extensively to talk to professors as well as family, and if it were to come from a UW address, it would not be spammed.

Currently we have e-mailed three organizations asking about the possibility of a mass e-mail. Do-It Tech e-mailed us back last week and said that they could not send one out without sponsorship from an environmental group on campus. While I think it is logical for us to get sponsorship from an environmental group, it is somewhat beside the point because the main problem is lack of publicity about their electronic recycling stations, so it only makes sense that they would send out the mass e-mail. After we got this e-mail back we contacted both WISPIRG and We Conserve, two environmental groups here on campus. Neither of them has contacted us yet, we sent the e-mail about two weeks ago. The lack of contact by these groups may have to do with our lack of credibility as mere undergraduate students, but if this is the reason I find it very troubling. Even if our survey is faulted in some ways, it still points to a serious problem that should be addressed by the university.

The first time I thought about electronic recycling was when a couple of my friends did a similar project at their school last year. They set-up a considerable number of electronic recycling spots around their college campus and their program has been widely successful in creating awareness. To reiterate, Electronic Recycling is a very serious topic today because if technology continues to progress as it is now, the turn over rate for electronics will be very short and many will be thrown away. By making it easier for individuals to recycle their electronics through accessible dumping places, which first we have to make people aware of, we encourage sustainability. By sustainability I mean we create a cyclical process in which we use electronics and recycle them so they can be used again for a variety of other things, so in a sense we “live within our means”. To me this saying is referring to the responsible use of resources. To use a resource sustainably we must realize the costs of throwing away electronics and continuing resource extraction that is dangerous and costly, there is a responsible amount of resource extraction, but we may have already past the threshold and reached a point where any continual resource extraction is unsustainable. Sustainability is having a symbiotic relationship with the land that we inhabit, yet it appears that we have shattered that balance.

In order for electronic recycling to considerably impact the current system we must provide economic incentives for doing it. We must also inform people and make it considerably easier for people to do. The majority of people, including myself before I learned of this topic, don’t take the time, or don’t even think of recycling their electronics when they need to “junk” their computers and dispose of their cell phones. Living in a world of progress where excess defines our way of life brings with it ramifications, and it appears that these problems are becoming dangerously clearer every day. While doing these things, or making changes in the current system may help, if we really want to live sustainably we must change the overall system considerably.

 

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”

E-waste: Harmful Materials, Earth 911.com http://earth911.com/recycling/electronics/e-waste-harmful-materials/ E-waste: Harmful Materials, Earth 911.com

www.electronicsrecycling.org

dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/recycle/newpages/computers.htm