Toxic Triangle E-Waste

Sally had taken two vacation days off in anticipation for it. She had woken up early in the morning, and had her supplies packed and ready to go for the big wait. She was anxiously waiting the moment the store would open it’s doors. When ABC 7 News asked her why she was waiting out in the cold outside of the Apple store for two days she had this to say, “I can’t wait for the iphone 6, its going to be so much better than the iphone 5, I heard its going to have a larger screen and have a laser beam that is attached to it. My iphone 5 is just so slow and outdated.” While most are not as zealous as Sally, most of us will eventually upgrade our cellphone, for a smartphone, a “heavy” laptop, for a lightweight tablet, a big tube tv for a flat plasma, a VCR for a DVD player, etc, etc. With people upgrading their personal electronic devices there is an increase in the amount of electronic waste we are producing. The people upgrading may think about the higher price of a smartphone, but they probably won’t think about what is going to happen to the phone after they discard it! That phone that will be thrown out or recycled could eventually be in India being dismantled by a child. Everyone from the manufacturing company, the U.S policy makers, to the consumer all play a role in this toxic cycle.

The companies that produce and benefit from the production of the electronics, are getting off quite easily in the U.S. The article I read wanted the manufactures to create a solution to deal with “obsolete” electronics. Since the cost of exporting the waste is so minuscule there is little incentive for the manufactures to research and produce cleaner, “less toxic” products. This is called “upstream design”, making the product better, right at the point of design and manufacture. This would be the best solution because if the products begin produced were cleaner the waste would not be as bad! As I have heard countless times in my Environmental Biology class its better to not produce the thing in the first place then have to worry about clean up later. In a sense the producers of these products are playing hide and go seek, they are seeking massive profits from these products but are hiding from taking care of the “after-life” of the products that they produce. The companies are also getting off quite easily here in America in regards to take back programs. Once a device becomes obsolete companies in Japan are required to take back the discarded item. The manufacturer also has to use upstream design criteria for all of the products. Just as Japan is farther along than us, so is Europe the members of the European Union have readied legislation to make manufacturers responsible for all “life cycles of computers, phase out specific toxic chemicals, and take back products.” Greenpeace which is an international organization that tries and protects the environment, has created a Guide to Greener Electronics. This guide ranks Asian electronic manufacturers based on their use of toxic chemicals, as well as their policies on recollecting discarded e-waste. Two of the top companies were Samsung and Toshiba, they both scored a 7.7 out of 10. They both had stopped producing products with vinyl plastics, and they both were committed to responsibly recycling the products once they were discarded.

While speaking about IGO’S (EU for example) and other government policy I would like to bring up one of the most obvious failure of U.S policy. During the 1980’s a watchdog group called The Basel Action Network that focuses on trade of toxins, conducted a field investigation, thats results should be a wake up call for all of us. It was an investigation of the effects of the “free trade” of toxins, between rich and poor nations. In 1994 the Convention agreed to ban the export of all hazardous materials even in the name of recycling. Every developed nation has ratified the Basel Convention except for the United States. According to the article the EPA admitted that the exporting of e-waste was a strategy and the only concern they had was how to ensure minimal environmental standards abroad.

The consumer also plays a role in the accumulation of all the e-waste. Sometimes the actual computer or phone stop functioning properly but we don’t always need the newest gadget, or the biggest television set. It’s so easy to fall into the fallacious thinking that “bigger is better”, because these items we buy have long range consequences. The consumer can also choose to recycle their used up product instead of just throwing it out. Even though to recycle you will usually need to pay a fee, but at-least the object will be stripped of its usable components. The catch with recycling is that you need to make sure that the recycling corporation is going to be doing it here in America and not just shipping it to a poorer country (especially those in India, China, and Malaysia).