Introduction:
One of the fastest growing solid waste in USA and the world is used electronic equipment. With everyday growth in electronic technology and its wide use in the industry, our everyday life gets easier. This day to day use of technological equipment like cell phones, GPS, CRT or even batteries has made our lives very dependent on the need for fast growth of technology and new designs. These new designs and the fast growth is the cause of early obsolescence for electronic devices. Usually Excess of electronic devices is shuffled together, and is called E-waste by the EPA and some public environmental agencies.
Electronic waste has become a major problem in many developed countries and has a huge environmental impact now and in the future. CRTs (cathode ray tube) are amongst the toughest kinds of E-waste to recycle. Regulation and laws in regard of solid and hazardous wastes are applied under the supervision of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (1).
(Photo from Google Image)
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declares that almost two percent of solid waste stream in US is E-waste (3). This may be a small percentage of the total solid waste stream for now, but the fast growth of electronic industry and a drop in the price of consumer electronics with new technologies has to be counted for the future. This E-waste represents a major percentage of the nation's hazardous waste. Electronic devices contain many different hazardous materials like: Lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame-retardants. Inappropriate methods for handling the discarded electronics can release hazardous chemicals which can affect human health and the environment. For controlling the E-waste problem we should k...
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3- ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, SOLID AND HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT, DIVISION OF COUNTY ENVIRONMENTAL AND WASTE ENFORCEMENT, Electronic Waste Management Rules
Proposed Amendments: N.J.A.C. 7:26-2.8(s), N.J.A.C. 7:26A-1.1, and 1.3
Proposed New Rules: N.J.A.C. 7:26A-13
Authorized By: Bob Martin, Commissioner
Department of Environmental Protection
4- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_waste
5- http://www.prlog.org/11708649-5-stages-of-the-plastic-recycling-process.html
6- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling
7- http://www.all-recycling-facts.com/glass-recycle.html
8- http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/RecyclingMetal.php
9-http://www.iowadnr.gov/Environment/LandStewardship/WasteManagement/Recycling/Ewaste/HazardsofEwaste.aspx
Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. " Yosemite: Management Problems and Issues." Yosemite National Park.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Waste Management Division, 9 July 2009. Web. 2 Feb. 2010. .
City of Los Angeles Environmental Affairs Department. “L.A. Made a Difference!” Los Angeles, CA: US. 1998. www.cityofla.org/EAD/article3.htm
Even though electronic waste contributes one percent of waste as discussed earlier, it poses a significant threat to the environment. “RCRA does not, however, cover electronic waste except CRTs, nor does it regulate electronic devices donated for educational or charitable reuse.” The RCRA should implement rules to govern e-waste because e-waste not only affects lives in the United States, It affects everyone globally. E-waste typically finds its ways out of the United States and ends up in developing countries like
that help advancement throughout the complete hardware store network can lessen electronic waste contamination. Besides transfer or reusing of hardware can have noteworthy human well-being and environment sways. Gadgets can hold lead, brominated fire retardants, cadmium, mercury, arsenic and an extensive variety of different metals and concoction mixes. In...
Electronic waste, or any waste for that matter is an inevitable part of an economic system where the destruction of an ecosystem is the primarily source of resources that are used to create the product. The waste that occurs from this process has to be disposed of in some way and more often than not, it is disposed of carelessly with out consideration to the affect it would have on the environment or the very people that create and let capitalism live on, “The political economy approach also defers progress on environmental issues to a pint after economic ones are solved” (Robbins et al. 2010, 114). And if this continues there may be no place left for the excess waste created by capitalism.
...ion even more. We tend to shop for more products that we want because we are never contented on what we have. This results into an increase amount of electronic waste products that often end up in our landfills, or are being burned in incinerators, all to which are the cause of air, land, and water pollution.
The Criminal Process in Environmental Regulation. (n.d.). UH Law. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/thester/courses/Environmental-Practicum-2014/syllabus/chap6.pdf
“Waste Management Overview.” World Nuclear Association. World Nuclear Association. Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. >.
Senate. Also appointed by the president and approved by the Senate are a deputy administrator, nine assistant administrators, an inspector general, and a general counsel( REF FOR BUS).” The administrator is the highest position within the EPA and they are the person who enforces all of the acts within the jurisdiction of the EPA.
The average cell phone is used less than 18 months and 140 million of them end up in a landfill each year.(Statistics) The landfills are slowly filling up with our obsolete cell phones. The phone’s circuits are coated with lead, and the lithium ion batteries often explode in landfills creating craters of heavy metal toxic waste for future generations to have to deal with. Even though there is an effort to recycle this waste, the problem is going to get worse before it gets better as more and more of the world’s citizens embrace cellular
In addition, individuals dispose off their electronic waste wrongly, and it ends up in the incinerators, where toxic gases are produced.
The environmental performance of numerous tech companies has been evaluated and since Apple has grown over time, it has received more attention. There has been a frequent campaign against Apple by different environmental organisations such as Greenpeace requesting for the elimination of hardware components that are non-recyclable hardware components, a comprehensive plan that would make the products of Apple not end up in the waste and the removal of toxins from iPhone hardware (Apple Inc. 2016). As much as such campaigns affect the operations of Apple Inc., they are good since they help in the conservation of the environment thus having a good impact on the
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.
As humanity develops new technology, the magnitude and severity of waste increases. When computers were developed, it widely was believed that the need for paper would be eliminated. On the contrary this was widely proven false and we are now utilizing more paper than ever. Canada is not an exception as the typical Canadian generates an average of three pounds of solid waste each day1. This alone shows what a careless species we have become- using and disposing materials without even considering the damage we are causing. With half a trillion tones of waste around the world, only 25% may be reused for a second or third time and less than 5% can be renewed limitlessly1. These facts are true only in developed countries. Since these traditional waste reduction methods have been proven inefficient, we must endorse new innovative technology to arrive at a solution.