The damaging effect of electronics on the environment

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Description

Mobile phones and accessories contain concentrations of toxic heavy metals or other metals including cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper.

If any of these metals are allowed to leak into the environment, e.g. in a landfill when NiCd battery cases rupture or corrode, in significant quantities, they may leach into the water courses or contaminate the soil. Metals build up in the soil and they can then enter the food chain and in sufficient concentrations may cause health problems.

Chemicals such as these are associated with a range of adverse human health effects, including damage to the nervous system, reproductive and developmental problems, cancer and genetic impacts.

The number of unused or retired phones will keep growing year after year, posing an ever increasing problem for the environment. Most mobile phones have components that require specialist treatment to minimize their impact on the environment. The content of mobile phones varies from model to model, and as the technology advances so we will see changes in the composition.

In the US alone there are more than 500 million used mobile phones sitting on shelves or in landfills, and another 125 million will be added to the shelves or landfills this year alone. The problem is growing at a rate of more than 2 million phones per week, putting tons of toxic waste into the landfills daily.


Enablers

  • Consumers

Consumer demand for “socially responsible” products is not yet evident. Today’s market-based economy does afford consumers with a wide range of choices. Faced with the option of purchasing a “socially responsible” or “sustainable” product at a premium, most consumers will still choose the cheaper alternative. Sustainable products are not yet sufficiently viewed as “superior goods”

  • Development countries

China’s as the worlds powerhouse manufacturer (for various/numerous parts of a mobile device) has had rapid economic growth at some very costly unintended consequences. China’s problem is much larger than the other BRIC countries, but they are facing similar issues. China leads the global pack in sulfur-dioxide emissions, has a massive acid rain problem, and contains more than a dozen of the most polluted cities on earth. This is also due to the fact that China’s legislation concerning the environment is not as good as some other western countries, who impose restrictions on manufacturers on which chemicals/resources to use. One World Bank study estimated that environmental damage costs China some $170 billion a year in lost productivity and associated health care. Unfortunately, such costs don't seem relevant when China is clocking near double-digit growth year in and year out.


Inhibitors

  • Government

Spurred by activists and threats of government action, high-tech companies have begun to deal with the pollution and waste that arise from manufacturing and disposal. In Europe, the idea of making producers responsible for their products at both the cradle and the grave is becoming more accepted. If producers are to take computers and cell phones back cost-effectively, the products' design will have to change to make them easier to recycle. Proponents argue that this will actually save companies money because it favors simple designs with fewer parts.

Since 1995, the European Union has been discussing a draft directive on take-backs for electronics. It prohibits the use of certain toxins--mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and brominated flame retardants--in electrical goods by 2004. It requires producers to pay for collection systems and distributors to take back an electronic device when supplying a new one. Between 70 and 90% of all material recovered by weight must be reused or recycled.

  • Environmental organizations

There are many international organisations that deal with the environment. These organisations have many initiatives to bring the attention of the public to corporations that harm the environment. One the most well know organisations is Greenpeace. One of their initiatives is the “Green Electronics Guide”. The Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies regarding both their use of toxic chemicals, and the degree to which they take responsibility for dealing with the electronic waste (e-waste) generated by their products. They publish and update this guide every quarter in order to try to get corporations to think and adjust their ways of doing. In doing so Greenpeace hopes to reduce toxic chemicals in products and pollution from old products.

  • Recycling

Processing of waste (such as paper, glass, and some metals and plastics) so that the materials can be reused. This saves expenditure on scarce raw materials, slows down the depletion of non-renewable resources, and helps to reduce pollution. E.g. metals are virtually unique among materials because they can be recycled indefinitely without losing their inherent properties. These special properties allow metals to be melted down and re-pressed without loss of quality.

In 1998, over 112 million pounds of materials were recovered from electronics, including steel, glass, and plastic, as well as precious metals. Reusing and recycling the raw materials from end-of-life electronics conserves natural resources and avoids the air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, that are caused by manufacturing new products.


Paradigms

  • Pollution

Pollution is environmental change that adversely affects the lives and health of living things. Pollutants are created artificially by various industrial processes, accidents, and from some in-house activities and materials. Pollution is a term for any substance introduced into an ecology that causes instability and breakdown of the life or reproductive forces of said system.

Manufacturing on a large scale requires tremendous energy. Our foremost method of producing energy is the burning of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes (= 21.3 gigatons) of carbon dioxide per year, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year (one tonne of atmospheric carbon is equivalent to 44/12 or 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide). Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that enhances radiative forcing and contributes to global warming, causing the average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response, which climate scientists agree will cause major adverse effects, including reduced biodiversity and, over time, cause sea level rise.

  • Recycling

Resource conservation, reuse and recycling are important parts toward sustainability. Recycling requires far less energy, uses fewer natural resources, causes less pollution and keeps waste from piling up in landfills.

MaterialEnergy SavingsAir Pollution Savings
Aluminium95%95%
Plastics70%-
Steel60%-



Timing

  • 1973, the first practical mobile phone.
  • 1979, the first commercial citywide cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT
  • 1984, Bell Labs developed modern commercial cellular technology.
  • 1990, miniaturization of digital components and the development of more sophisticated batteries -> which enabled the mobile phone to become smaller, cheaper and lighter/portable.
  • 1990, some European countries banned the disposal of electronic waste in landfills;
  • 2003, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) became European Law;


Breakthrough Approaches


Web Resources


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