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 It seems as if we are at a point where technology is becoming outdated faster than new technology can be dispersed.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 What happens to the outdated or broken electronics?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

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”

Sustainability Project

Me and Kyle will be exploring the current state of electronic recycling on campus. During my time around campus I haven’t seen very many places where electronics can be recycled so we are going to try and see if student government can do anything about this. Also we are going to investigate this subject on a broader level, or what are some of the adverse effects of not recycling electronic devices and just leaving them on the ground, or simply throwing them away. This topic is important because recycling electronics is a big part of being sustainable and keeping the earth clean, because most of these devices have harmful toxins. Recycling them is the perfect way to clean up the earth, as well as live more sustainably, in the sense of reusing things, especially in an age where we all have a number of electronic devices.