INTRODUCTION
Health is always considered the most important factor for human’s lives. Without health, we cannot do anything. There are many factors in daily activities that can affect your health such as food, drinks, soil, water, air, or we can say the environment around us. Because the environment plays a vital role to human’s’ health, we are trying to do everything to conserve the environment. However, there are still some activities that we might think they are safe for us and the environment; it they actually kills us in far the future. One of them is recycling electronics equipment. Nowadays, electronic waste (e-waste) is increasing rapidly in the US and many people know that they should not just throw e-waste in the garbage can because it can be delivered to the landfill, burned and leave over chemical substances into water underground . That is very dangerous because it might kill all the trees that groundwater feeds and it could get into our drinking water of us. Therefore, they just end up giving those broken electronics stuffs to an e-waste recycler without knowing where their e-waste will go. However, it was still not safe when you give those broken electronic equipment to e-waste recycler in the past due to not qualified process of recycling and labor safety. Now, E-Stewards Certification, a new recycling program, which is highly qualified for environment and worker safety, has come out. I’m going to discuss why it is dangerous to us before the E-Stewards Certification came out, the definition and the reliability of E-Stewards Certification.
WHY IS RECYLING E-WASTE WITHOUT E-STEWARDS CERTIFICATION REALLY DANGEROUS TO US?
There are about 40 million computers and televisions are discarded every year i...
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...es in the world have an e-Stewards label on their products, where is visible to consumers as well as locations where people can recycle their e-waste. One possible way is that I think in the future, scientist should come up with a new way to make electronics equipments that contains less chemical substances.
Works Cited
[1] Lyman, Francesca. (2010, May 6). The ever-changing Landscape of E-waste Recycling [Online]. Available: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/changing-e-waste-recycling-landscape
[2] Reed, Amanda. (2010, May 13). The Latest in E-Waste Recycling: e-Steward Certification [Online]. Available: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011163.html
[3] Lelanew. (2010, January 20). Electronics Recycling to Save the Environment [Online]. Available: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Recycle-Your-Electronic-Equipment-and-Make-Money
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
The article, “Our E-Waste Problem is Ridiculous, and Gadget Makers Aren’t Helping,” by Christina Bonnington, focused the process of electronic devices to be recycled, the challenges of recycling electronic waste, and making devices more recyclable. First, Bonnington described the recycling process. Depending on the condition on the product will determine if it will be reused or stripped down to be destroyed. According to the author, having a simpler design makes the reprocessing easier to bare the electronics for turning into materials. Next, the author mentioned the challenges of recycling. One challenge is how electronics are becoming more compact and tougher to strip apart to separate the materials. Conferring to Bonnington, batteries are
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?
Reduce, recycle and recycle could be a construct that individuals area unit beginning to perceive and to use to each life round the world (GOV.UK, 2013). This knowledge base essay can explore info concerning use by totally different resources that are provided to use such as the web, books, journals and alternative resources that needs to offer American state info on use. This essay can discover use as business, environmental and policy perspective. Use is that the methodology by that we tend to recover valuable resources to be re-used once more and once more. However just one a part of healing the atmosphere, it's a sensible action that people altogether businesses participate in daily routines on recycling (Reclaim, 2013). While recycling is only one part to healing the environment it is a practical action that individuals in all businesses and people take part in every day.
We believe It manufacturers, the Waste Management Industry and Governments are constantly seeking new and also innovative methods for you to reduce your environmental impact regarding the operations.
“I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?”
... Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "E-waste: The Global Impact." Processor (30 Jan. 2009). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 6 May 2014.
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.
The current major stakeholders that are investing within the industry are environmentalist and e-waste companies in which there purpose is the dumping of a total of 47.4-million computers, 27.2 million televisions, and 141 million mobile devices annually into landfills. Programs such like these are collaboration with the big companies such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Dell. Their purpose is to start up a computer-recycling program that will help recycle their products for a fee of $10 per item.
There are many solutions proposed by various peoples, groups, and organizations. One solution is to turn to what is called a circular economy. Also might be know for the principles "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle"(Qiao p.253). A circular economy is an economy focused on more ethical and sustainable production and development. According to Qiao(2013), “The circular economy concept was first introduced in the 1960s by American economist K. Boulding”(p.254). A circular economy focuses on recycling and reusing resources. It also aims to reduce the amount of energy and resources used. As Qiao states, “the circular economy is an economic development model that pays all its attention to the quality of development, use of science and technology, resource savings and clean production”(p.256). That mean s it focuses on being as environmentally friendly as possible. This goes hand and hand with another solution.
The amount of waste is gradually increasing with economic development in Japan. The government attempts to reduce such wastes by promoting recycling low. In addition, recycling has recently become the focus of public attention, because it is a big problem that the amount of CO2 emission is increasing in the country, and people expect that the recycling will be a good solution for increasing amount of CO2 emission. There are however, some problems to encourage recycling, especially in terms of that recycling is not efficient way to reduce CO2 emission, recycling takes high cost and people don’t have knowledge about recycling very much.
up and can become an environmental problem. In 2014, 41.8 metric tonnes of e-waste was created
Recycling is important in the effort to preserve our environment for future generations. We are running out of locations to put landfills. Recycling is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of waste stored in landfills, yet many people do not know how easy it can be. For example, whenever I go to Shoprite® and I b...
Environmental pollution has been a major concern to many stakeholders due to the related adversities that are associated with the practice. Human beings in general are well known to like having comfort and convenience at the minimum costs possible. The results of this has been the focus on the short term gains with little or no thought spared for the long term consequences of our behavior. Environmental problems are usually long term and the solution to these problems will only be realized at a higher cost if the remedy is not initiated early enough. Management of solid waste has come with a lot of challenges especially when recycling issues come to board. Solid waste management through recycling is something that has to do with behavior change among the population. According to environmental psychologists, recycling has been referred to as a ‘commons dilemma’. This means that natural resources are being overused due to the existing conflict between individual and group interests. Nevertheless, the government has taken center stage in conservation of the environment through the initiation of the recycling programs.
Preserving the environment is very important. One way that would be possible is by recycling. Recycling is the recovery and reprocessing of waste materials for use in new products. There are important environmental and economic benefits connected with recycling. Common materials that are recycled consist of aluminum cans, glass, paper, wood, and plastic (“Recycling”). Cleveland, Ohio joined the ranks of requiring recycling and also fines the homeowners for not disposing of waste correctly or leaving cans out too early or too long (McElroy 1). Michele McCay says that recycling is one of the easiest, most tangible ways of taking action for the planet (par. 1). If that is the case, why is it not required in all states? Recycling should be mandatory because it saves natural resources, it conserves energy, and it reduces pollution.