Recycling electronic waste: Earth Day resolution?

 

Each year, Americans throw out 400 million units of high-tech trash – and they’re on track to toss another 50 billion over the next decade, according to a study released just before Earth Day.

Constant upgrades caused by improving technology and plunging prices are creating millions of pounds of e-waste according to a report from policy center Demos. The products are often potentially toxic, containing lead, mercury, chromium, zinc and other hazardous materials.

Of the throwaways, most are sent to dumps and incinerators. Less than 15% are recycled -– and then usually through voluntary “take back” programs or processed in developing countries using unsafe methods, according to the study.

To illustrate its point, Demos's study with co-released with the above video from activist Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff Project, Electronics TakeBack Coalition and Free Range Studios.

Other activists from the Basel Action Network and elsewhere say that many of the thousands of collection sites around the country refuse to divulge where they send products to be recycled.

But some collectors, such as Tustin-based All Green Electronics Recycling, make a point of processing all the waste -– more than 100 million pounds a month –- domestically.

Electronics Recyclers International in Fresno has a 900-horsepower tech-trash shredding system that can gobble up 20,000 pounds an hour. The company’s founder also launched 1800-recycling.com, which directs customers to local recycling centers.

In California, there are more than a dozen ecoATMs, automated self-serve machines that can identify and buy back used electronics directly from consumers.

And recently, the electronics industry has been eager to tout its recycling cred.

Dell said it diverted more than 150 million pounds of electronics –- nearly two-thirds from the Americas -– from landfills in fiscal year 2011. The program invites consumers to drop off old computers, monitors, printers, scanners and more at Goodwill donation sites.

Best Buy said that its in-store recycling kiosks gathered nearly 7 million pounds of e-waste in California -– about 52,000 pounds per store.

Nationwide, the Consumer Electronics Assn. said it hoped to recycle a billion pounds of e-waste a year by 2016 -– about three times more than the 2010 amount and enough to fill a 71,000-seat stadium.

RELATED:

Recycler launches ecollective to make recycling electronics easier

Put e-waste in its right place

-- Tiffany Hsu

Video: "The Story of Electronics." Credit: The Story of Stuff Project, Electronics TakeBack Coalition and Free Range Studios

Comments

[computer recycling]

Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find so many useful info here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing

[Amy]

This is a great post, illustrating the importance of responsible electronics recycling. A responsible recycler does not use prison labor, ship overseas, or dump anything in a landfill. (All Green Electronics Recycling is e-Steward certified and doesn't do any of these things.)

I don't understand why anyone--especially in California-- would throw their electronics in the trash. So many places will recycle them for free! And we all know that these things don't belong in the trash.

[Bill Duff]

Radioactive rainwater has been measured in Riverside, San Francisco, Boise Idaho, Boston and elsewhere. The radionuclide content is 30 to 130 times the EPA drinking water standard, due to the Fukushima explosions. Radioactive nuclides include iodine, cesium, uranium ... and the list goes on.

[Mike]

I think there is a danger of underestimating even larger, psychological and economical issues here. We are just scratching the surface of the idiotic "ooh, shiny!" consumer mentality. This involves the rampant "Oh wait, my neighbor just bought a bigger HDTV and the latest [get ready for paradox] eco-friendly car!" or the "Hey look, my co-worker got the new iPad 2--guess I'll have to upgrade or risk looking Cro-magnon at the next mixer," decision-making process.

Human vanity, greed, pride, and basic "survival" instincts, are stubborn programming. These traits are not going away without a fight and corporations don't need Moore's Law to react to that. Stop buying and creating the excess trash in the first place! Do you really believe your electronic waste was forced upon these poor countries without their consent? Do you have to make that choice between starvation and a toxic livelihood created by our trash? In lieu of joining Greenpeace or staging a sit-in at Apple, as consumers, let's educate ourselves and take responsibility for our own wasteful behavior.

[Z-man]

Banning e-waste exports is not the solution. If we're going to recycle discarded electronics, then the material needs to get over to where things are made, and they sure aren't made here in the U.S. It would be better to focus on creating safe and responsible recycling facilities overseas, especially in Asia. Seems like it would be a good business opportunity as well --particularly given the size of the domestic markets in Asia, which also need good recycling options.

[Allison at CLEAR]

It's great to hear that people are becoming more aware of these issues and trying to change their habits. Here at Clearwire we're beginning to use a new, more environmentally friendly type of cell site to lower our energy consumption. You can read all about it over on our blog: http://www.clear.com/blog/earth-day-is-every-day-at-clearwire/

[jon]

A smaller population would help, or at least zero population growth. All of our growth over the last 10 years has come from immigration.

[Ted Smith]

While it's good to see another article that focuses on the growing piles of e-waste, the article misses the rest of the story, which is also important. As the video Story of Electronics points out:

“You see, the companies work to keep these human and environmental costs out of sight and off their accounting books. It’s all about externalizing the true costs of production. Instead of companies paying to make their facilities safe, the workers pay with their health. Instead of them paying to redesign using less toxics villagers pay by losing their clean drinking water. Externalizing costs allows companies to keep designing for the dump – they get the profits and everyone else pays.

It’s time to get these brainiacs working on our side. With takeback laws and citizen action to demand greener products, we are starting a race to the top, where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products. So, let’s have a green Moore’s law. How about: the use of toxic chemicals will be cut in half every 18 months? The number of workers poisoned will decline at an even faster rate?

But the truth is: we are never going to just shop our way out of this problem because the choices available to us at the store are limited by choices of designers and policymakers outside of the store. That’s why we need to join with others to demand stronger laws on toxic chemicals and on banning e-waste exports.”