Term Paper on "Management Solutions for Electronic Waste From Production to Trash"

Term Paper 16 pages (5441 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Management Solutions for Electronic Waste From Production to Trash

Looking for best management solution

Recycling modern practices

Economical model

Everyone would agree that a growing role of high technologies, modernization of existing technologies and introduction of new is the result of the dynamically changing society that lives in the age of technological progress. None could ever imagine in 1950 ies that in some five decades the role of electronics and high-tech would be so essential and vital for society in general that it will be the guarantee of future progress.

None would argue that electronics industry as every innovative industry comes with more complicated and powerful products quickly, changing obsolete equipment on new constantly, and leaving old electronics without any use. Here comes a question: what happens or what has to happen to all that old computers, TV and radio equipment, old batteries and other electronic related products after they run out of use? The question is direct -it becomes unused trash. Before exploring the qualities of this "intelligent" trash, let's refer to recent statistics about the amount of the electronic waste in industrialized world:

As the National Office of Pollution Prevention (Canada) reports: 140-000 tonnes of eWaste had exited on the Canadian market in 1999 alone.

In the United States, it had been estimated that:

more than 315 million computers have become obsolete between 1997 and 2004" (SVTC, n.d.).

If to speak about industrialized countries of Europe we would find the following data:

6.5 to 7.5 million tonnes of eWaste per year get discarded in the European Union (EU)" (Young, Garman & Tupper, 2000)

If to speak only about Californian statistics we would find the following data:

The consumer electronics waste stream is growing three times faster than the solid waste stream...An estimated 500 million computers will become obsolete in the U.S.A. By the year of 2007." (from the national recycling Coalition predictions).

More than 10.000 computers and TV sets become obsolete a day and are put aside in the garage only in the state of California" (from SVTC)

Computers that will become obsolete by the year of 2005 contain approximately 1.2 billion lbs of lead (from Californians against waste Study)

The biggest part of recent environmental researches highlight the problem of the electronic waste as one of the most progressing in the waste stream of urban and metropolitan areas worldwide (electronic waste stands for 3-5% of urban solid waste stream in industrialized world). This problem is not limited to the concept of "solid waste," as electronic waste includes a wide amount of different hazardous products, heavy metals and toxic combinations, which pollute water, air, etc. It's enough to name some of the heavy metals with high level of toxicity that are used in electronics industry: mercury, lead, cadmium, barium.

The problem of the electronic waste can be solved by recycling, as electronic waste represents valuable material for the recycling of precious and valuable metals (gold, silver, palladium, platinum, copper, lead). Still it's understood that the problem of e-waste can not be limited to partial recycling of waste, as there is a huge amount of trash that is left after recycling, and which has no practical potential value.

In order the problem to disappear; recycling practices have to correlate with reasonable electronic industry management that would include the article for regulating e-waste recycling. Moreover serious environmental legislation has to be established that would regulate the conditions of production and utilization of electronic products.

Discussion of the problem

According to the research made by Sodhi and Reimer (2001) typical material composition of electronic scrap looks in the following way: refractory oxides-30.2%, plastics-30.0%, copper-20.1%, iron-8.1%, tin-4.0%, nickel-2.0%, aluminium-2.0%, zinc-1.0%, silver-0.2%, gold-0.1%, palladium-0.09% (from Models for recycling electronics end-of-life products,2001)

The most toxic components of electronic waste are mercury and lead. Depending upon polluting concentration lead may be the reason of the set of serious disorders: from strokes to nervous system issues; mercury results serious brain disorders. E-waste lead stands for 40% of the total amount of waste lead, e-waste mercury stands for 22% of the whole amount of waste mercury. (according to SVTC).

The problem of electronic waste had become burning already in the past decade and demanded an increased study of the possible solutions. The results didn't make scientists to wait. Already in the second half of 1990 ies, groups of scientists all over the world had come with reasonable solutions of the e-waste; moreover the recycling by their calculations seemed to be more than profitable industry in some cases.

But the solution to the problem in general seems to be impossible if only some industrial corporations or small companies would specialize on recycling of electronic waste. The problem would not be solved at all, as the biggest part of e-waste would still remain to be not demanded. Moreover these companies would not be able to recycle all e-waste properly and would have narrow specialization. In this situation the optimal solution is the development of the state-regulated system of electronic waste management that would include proper and flexible legislation, distribution of roles in the recycling process between municipal environment agencies and companies-producers of electronic goods, besides the interests of the customer have to be protected as they have to get some kind of refund for recycling obsolete electronics. (Obsolete electronics, even if not used has a potential hazard for its keeper).

Looking for best management solution

According to the report "Best Management practices for E-waste" the hierarchy of electronic waste management practices can be divided into certain order, according to their environmental preference:

Reuse or electronic items, damaged components, etc.

A recycling of e-waste for material recovery management of e-waste for energy recovery disposal of e-waste via incineration or landfill (least preferable) (from Best Management practices for E-waste p.28)

In order to develop the whole system of management solution for the electronic waste problem, environmental authorities first have to refer to the local government, as this is a quite expensive program and it can not be solved by individual financing, especially because its outcomes not often become 100% profitable or even compensated.

That's why local governments of the areas with a growing problem of e-waste have to develop a set of legislative and official measures in order to regulate this growing problem.

Legislature has to refer to the regulation of utilization of electronic waste; terms of its storing and special legislative acts have to be taken in order to solve the problem of the most hazardous e-waste: CRT (cathode ray tubes of TV sets and computer monitors as they contain the biggest percentage of e-waste lead). These legislative regulations are quite a problem for a country in general as "only Florida and some more few states have banned CRT screen form landfills and incinerations" (from SVTC) Only Minnesota is providing take back subsidized recycling programs, but the practice of one state is not enough in the scale of the U.S.A. In general. According to some environmental scientists government subsidizing of the recycling industry can stand for the optimal solution of the problem.

In comparison to the local environmental programs of the U.S.A., such that are introduced in California or Florida, the countries of the European Union had stepped farer in this situation: "The EU countries are by far the leaders in WEEE management. They have recently adopted a set of directives that have for goal to mitigate the environmental impact of e-waste. Their directives are based around the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This means that the producer of electrical or electronic equipment will be responsible for the whole life cycle of their product: from the conception, to the disposal. Furthermore, all WEEE must be recycled or reused. Not only that, but dangerous chemicals and heavy metals will be phased out by 2004 and new products must be produced with some recycled plastic. These directives are pioneering the industry and surely likely to reduce and eventually eliminate the issues surrounding e-waste. The EU is taking leaps in the right direction." (Hedemann-Robinson, The EU Directives on waste electrical and electronic equipment and on the restriction of use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment: adoption achieved. (European Environmental Law Review, p.53-60 2003)

The problem of electronic waste had been revised already in 1999, and in the year of 2002 countries of European Union had come to the first definite regulations concerning e-waste practices:

BRUSSELS - A new law to make companies meet the cost of recycling their own electronic goods from refrigerators to hairdryers has won approval from EU parliamentarians and governments, officials said.

The consumer will be able to return equipment at the end of its life free of charge and send it for environmentally sound treatment, re-use and recycling," said Margot Wallstrom, European Commissioner for the environment. Wallstrom said making firms pay for recycling at the end of a product's life would be an important incentive to producers to take environmental concerns into account when designing goods.

The law says a financial guarantee must be added… READ MORE

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