“In recent years, legislatures across the world have turned their attention to the escalating amount of electronic and electrical waste, and their accompanying environmental threats. Increasing consumption of electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) and the indiscriminate disposal of used products contribute to the problem furthered by designs that ignore durability and support the limitless use of toxic substances. One proposed method of changing this trend is to stimulate producers to design for the environment (DFE). In many ways DFE breaks the traditional physical barriers for design and requires a vision of the product for its entire life cycle.” (Deathe, MacDonald and Amos 2008)
Nowadays, electronics is the biggest part of materials that is sent to landfills all over the world. At the same time, it is one of the best sold products, e.g. computers, mobile phones, fax machines, radios, personal digital assistants, gadgets and other electronic equipment. These became one of the most irreplaceable parts of our life in a considerably very short time. Each kind of electronic equipment consists of harmful materials which enter the ground and air after it appears in a landfill. As industry makes products more efficient, with time everyone buys more, uses more, and then of course throws out more electronic appliances, and finally that causes problem to become more significant.
Generally, e-waste problem has not been as important as energy efficiency, economic focus, global warming or other problems till today. Electronic waste problem has became one of the most serious problems in very little period, because day by day industry has been upgrading as much as possible products, what finally had affected the amount of e-waste. As the...
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...p, but only a few of them knows how to. So, it would be much easier to decrease an amount of e-waste if everyone is informed about this problem.
Works Cited
Deathe, A. L. B., E. MacDonald, and W. Amos. 2008. E-waste Management Programmes and the Promotion of Design for the Environment: Assessing Canada's Contributions. Review of European Community & International Environmental Law 17(3): 321-336
DiRamio, D. 2008. E-waste: “Whose problem is it?”. Communications News 45(6): 36-36
Yang, W. 2008. Regulating Electrical and Electronic Wastes in China. Review of European Community & International
Environmental Law 17(3): 337-346
Nicholls, M. M. 2007. Introduction to E-Waste. Pollution Engineering, 39(5): 28-30
Renckens S. 2008. Yes, We Will! Voluntarism in US E-Waste Governance. Review of European Community & International Environmental Law 17 (3): 286-299
In conclusion to this investigation one thing is clear and that is that recycling reeks benefits to the environment, Recycling material when compared to making material from raw material is a more efficient energy saving and more environmentally friendly way to reuse material that is usually consider as trash such as empty glass, and plastic bottles, or old newspapers. Recycling helps reduce the possible carbon emissions greatly and does reduce the human carbon footprint. But Recycling doesn’t resolve the pollution that is around the world today. Leading to new questions, questions like what about the landfills are they sustainable, and if so for how long. How long until the air becomes unbreathable? How long until Earth becomes its own furnace?
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
Currently in Canada, the amount of waste generated by households is increasing. As Canadians continue to consume more, the amount of waste created as a result increases as well and between 2000 and 2004, household waste increased by 19% (Statistics Canada, 2008, para. 8). While this is appears to be a frightening statistic for landfills across Canada, recycling is actually increasing as well, and at a faster rate. Over the same time period (2000-2004), household recycling increased by 65% in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2008, para. 9). This is a positive sign as it is clear that Canada’s increase in trash is being offset by a much stronger effort with regards to recycling.
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.
In 1986, a waste treaty between Canada and the U.S. was signed by American lawmakers concerning the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste. Under the terms of this treaty, the EPA is to receive notification of these shipments, and then would have 30 days to consent or object to the shipment. Since 1986 Canada has shipped its garbage to Michigan to be dumped into landfills and the provisions of this treaty have never been enforced. But now is the time for them to be enforced and stop the importing of Canada's garbage.
In “Curbing Overconsumption: Challenge for Ethically Responsible Engineering,” professor E.J. Woodhouse discusses modern overconsumption, and claims that engineers should be responsible for aiding the environment. At one point, he asks, “if it is technically feasible to arrange consumption far more efficiently, […] does that imply that the engineers who help arrange the wasteful approaches are violating certain ethical standards?” (24). Woodhouse claims that it is the ethical role of engineers to use their positions and resources to decrease the waste production of American overconsumption. Meanwhile, in “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” professor Michael Maniates discusses modern environmentalism, and in particular
Today’s unprecedented technological advancement has accelerated the pace at which everyone is living. Time becomes a limited resource that every person tries to make the most use of. Therefore, convenience is the major quality highly valued in today’s world. Plastics strongly demonstrate such quality; plastics are light-weighted and disposable. Consequently, the use of plastics is prevalent, from simple objects, such as bags and bottles, to more complex components, such as computer boards. The benefits of plastics are countless; for instance, plastics are disposable and waterproof. However, many critics have raised questions regarding the threats posed by phenomenal plastics. What are the downsides of plastics? How should we cope with the plastic pollution around the globe? Susan Beraza has the answers to
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
... converting plastic waste into useful products are being affected by pollution; this contamination is found within containers where plastics are collected. But the same risk of pollution carries downside consequences in which workers and people responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the plastic materials are not doing the best to eliminate plastic waste, and to disinfect the infected bacteria and microorganisms from the atmosphere and environment. Organizations from China and India are the largest in the world, they collect and purchase used plastic from United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America (Minguez 2013). These companies do not bother to sanitize the products before the recycling process; for this reason the planet earth is getting a worse environmental condition, and it is destroying lives of living beings, and natural resources as well (Uddin 2014).
“What Would Happen If People Didn’t Recycle?” The Online Gargoyle. Friday 1 July 2011. University of Illinois Board of Trustees. March 21,2014. http://uni.illinois.edu/og/opinions/2011/07/what-would-happen-if-people-didn-
The future for these products is also quite often over looked. The components are not made to be detachable, so the different materials cannot be recycled correctly or recycled at all, which leads to landfills and pollution. Every material, from wood to steel to carbon fibre has an environmental story behind it and these can all be reused, however there is quite often not enough thought into this design aspect. These components are not labelled correctly for recycling and the result is a scarred landscape. However recycling these days has now turned into a way of life for us. Bins are now everywhere marked with the unmistakeable ‘three-green-arrow’ (another remarkable graphic design – now playing a huge role in the way we live), which lets members of the public kn...
Annie Leonard, in her book The Story of Stuff, says that companies can significantly reduce their toll on the environment by changing their design. The design determines “the amount of energy used in making and using the product,” “the length of the product’s life span” and “its ability to be recycled” (Leonard). All these things determine the amount of resources a company must use, so simply changing a product’s design is one way a company can have a large impact on the sustainability of the environment in which it operates. One example of this is that “Wal-Mart attributed more than $100 million of its 2009 revenue to a decision to switch to a recyclable variety of cardboard in shipments” which it sells to a recycler instead of paying to send it to a landfill (Bhanoo).
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.
The average resident produces seven and a half pounds of garbage every day that is buried down in landfills and litter lands, costing a great amount of money. Nowadays, people face no more critical problem than the need to save the weakening environment, mainly in urban areas, where solid wastes are uselessly dumped. It has been observed that cities have no controlled structure for garbage disposal. Each year, millions of dollars are spent picking up litter and more is thrown away in valuable materials that could be recycled. As humanity develops new technology and equipment, the level of waste increases every day.