My new decadent digital existence & other updates

It's been a good while since I've focused my energies on e-waste issues. It's certainly not a topic that comes up over happy hour, and I've been quite busy lately starting a new job in consulting. Yet this same distraction is what got me back onto the subject. You see, I recently acquired a new laptop for work as well as a mandatory smartphone that keeps me tethered to my email and calendar for the new job. I now cart around two phones. It's a bit silly, I admit, but I like to think of the double-phone phenomenon as the physical manifestation of me keeping my work and personal lives separate.

More importantly, when you multiply my situation times the majority of employees who also carry two phones (not to mention ipods and the rest), it adds up to a lot of digital detritus.  The sheer quantity of technology used by my firm (and nearly every business today) leads me to wonder where all the old computers go when employees leave. I believe I received a brand-new laptop upon joining my firm. That means there are a ton of old laptops accumulating somewhere, left by employees usually swapping out one Big Four logo for another. The first thought that came to my dorky brain was, “wow. That's a lot of e-waste.”

Which brings me to today. A lot has happened since my last update, and I'm only just beginning to get caught up. In my lapse, there was an article in the Washington Post at the end of October about e-waste in the wake of the new iPhone 4S release. The generic, brush-over-the-issues style is good for spreading general awareness of an otherwise unknown topic, and the iphone connection might have led more people to read it.  However, like many pieces in major publications, it fails to provide readers with a deeper understanding of the complex issues and stakeholders involved.

Bigger news is that the Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship, created by Obama in 2010, released its National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship in July 2011 as well as a detailed list of benchmarks and goals for the coming years. The blog over at Electronics Takeback Coalition has a strong opinion on various portions of the report. I've not yet been able to dive into the 30+ page document at length to form my own opinion, but I'm looking forward to it. That said, it doesn't exactly read like a Dan Brown novel, so I will likely take my time reading, reflecting, and collecting my thoughts.

Mainstream media coverage of e-waste issues!

Glad to see the issue is being covered in some bigger media outlets here. Unfortunately, the article barely brushes the surface of the mountains of hard-drives piling up not only in Ghana but also Senegal, Nigeria, India, China, and many other countries. It would be nice to see a piece that analyzes not only the accumulation of e-waste but also the factors and forces driving the build-up as well as possible solutions to the issues. Here, I'm thinking of stronger legislation, like the bill currently in the House but that is likely to expire when Congress goes out of session in August, but also innovative ideas that will consider the ramifications of ending e-waste dumping. One reason the informal sector is so difficult to dismantle in places like China and India is the economic value it brings to towns where the majority of income is generated through well-organized informal waste processing. Part of a solution should account for the drop in income to informal waste collectors; can a waste recovery facility provide jobs to informal waste workers while processing materials in a safer manner? This is one issue I hope to really delve into soon.

Furthermore, as rates of e-waste generation rise in developing countries, it is paramount that management systems are put into place in developing countries themselves. It is nevertheless difficult to advocate expensive waste management facilities when public services like clean drinking water and general sewage systems are not always in place. How countries, companies, and development practitioners handle this issue has serious implications for the environment and public health of tomorrow.

Ghana's e-Waste Dump Seeps Poison - Newsweek

Quick thoughts & Updates on Federal e-waste Laws

With everything we're hearing about the debt ceiling, taxes (or lack thereof),  and the bad economy, it seems unlikely Congress will get around to discussing the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act before its session ends in August.  Granted, solving the issue of the debt ceiling in the short term and ultimately preventing American debt from continuing to grow unchecked in the long term is extremely important, no matter how we decide to go about it.  Even so, I suppose there's always hope that either house sets aside the biggest, time-sensitive issues to debate the e-Waste legislation much like they did for the incandescent light bulb last week.

Second, there's an interesting article about the impact of state e-waste recycling laws in Wisconsin and a short analysis of all stake holders' potential opinions on the 24 state laws versus a new Federal one like that which is in Congress now.  Two things are interesting to note here:

• A Janesville, WI recycling center has added 40 additional jobs since the state passed its e-waste recycling laws.  This is a compelling argument for federal laws, especially in these economic times.  If the law is promoted from a job-creating standpoint, it may have a better chance of getting passed.  That is, if Congress gets around to actually debating it before the end of session. 

• The article raises the point that a state-by-state patchwork of e-waste legislation raises sunk costs as electronics manufacturers comply with regulations 24 different ways across the country.  This adds to the so-called 'busy work' of e-waste recycling without increasing its efficiency.  In this light, a federal law may provide a streamlined method that reduces the costs of compliance.

New e-waste legislation in the House

There's a really interesting article in the LA Times about a bill introduced in the House last week that would ban the exportation of electronics containing toxic chemicals.

The bill, H.R. 2284, seems to have bipartisan support as well as the endorsement of major electronics companies like Dell, Apple, and Hewlett-Packard.  Similar legislation was introduced in the House last session, but it died when at the end of the Congressional session ended before the bill was considered in the House.

The US, one of the world's largest producers of e-waste, it currently not a signatory to the Basel Convention, which bans the overseas shipment of hazardous waste.  If the bill passes a vote in the House and Senate to become a law, it will  be an important step forward in the steps to mitigate the risks posed by informal e-waste disposal abroad.  

Defining e-waste

What is e-waste?

Well, you know that i-phone 4 you're going to throw out next September when the newest version comes out?  That could be e-waste, though hopefully you'll sell it online or at least donate it to an organization that puts 'obsolete' yet usable phones back into action.  Or, remember when you had to get a new TV that was compatible with digital cable last year?  The old one you threw away is now e-waste.

The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, Empa for short, defines e-waste as the following:

e-Waste for short - or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) - is the term used to describe old, end-of-life or discarded appliances using electricity. It includes computers, consumer electronics, fridges etc which have been disposed of by their original users.

Dictionary.com makes the definition even simpler:

any discarded electronic or electrical devices or their parts; also called electronic waste

As such, e-waste encompasses a broad category of the waste stream.  Some still debate whether microwaves, refrigerators, and other appliances ought to be included in the definition.  For my purposes, if it has electronic elements, it is e-waste.  Because of these components, microwaves and refrigerators are more difficult to dispose of in a safe and environmentally responsible manner than newspapers, coffee mugs, and other, non-electronic items.

Through this blog, I intend to explore and elucidate many aspects of e-waste.  Hopefully, through this process I will be able to answer the following questions:

• What is e-waste?
• How much e-waste is generated in the US?  What about around the world?
• What and how does legislation regulate e-waste disposal?
• How is e-waste processed in developing countries?
• How do processing methods vary around the world?
• Why should I, or anyone else, care about e-waste?

Of course, by the time I am able to answer all these questions, I hope to be ready to ask many more.  Though I am beginning this project alone, I hope it will develop into a collaborative effort as I learn more and meet other, similarly curious people along the way.