Monthly Archives: January 2016

I really don’t think a caption is necessary for anyone that has been on campus at UBC. Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachereducation/2012/08/23/how-do-i-get-to-scarfe-construction-update/

Every morning, it’s guaranteed that I’ll wake up to one of two kinds of noise– 1) the cheering of excited parents and kids for soccer matches on the field adjacent from the apartment I rent, or 2) the clanging and banging of construction for the in-progress elementary school and condo on the other side of the block.

On my walk to school, I pass by at least three different construction projects on campus. Over the years, I can’t help but to wonder what becomes of the buildings that I’ve watched being torn down to be replaced by shinier, more modern counterparts.

Construction and demolition waste is one of the most voluminous waste streams in the developed world, creating 160 million tons of waste each year, 44% of which comes from renovations alone. While many of the disposed materials (timber, glass, metals, soils, etc) can be reused, only one third of them are recovered or recycled.

So what of the materials from our beautiful campus, UBC, one of the world’s top universities and leaders in sustainability? Doing the Google search led me down a rabbithole of articles, papers, and documents that detail UBC’s efforts to address these concerns.

Setting it into perspective, UBC currently diverts about two thirds of their operational, construction and demolition waste from the landfill, with goals to set this rate to 80% by 2020. For construction efforts specifically, it is mandatory for 75% of waste from construction on campus to be diverted , with real diversion rates exceeding this expectation by 6% in 2011. Additionally, wood, carpet tiles, metal, and components such as drywall and separated and sorted for reuse or recycle.

It’s not every day that I’m singing praise about UBC construction, but I’ll have to admit, this is one place where the institution seems to be doing a good job at practicing what they preach. Next time you make a block long detour around blue fences in the rain, rest assured that at the very least, UBC is taking some serious precaution for renovating our campus with the environment in mind.

An Indian boy sorts through a pile of discarded motherboards in an e-waste landfill. (Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/indias-mounting-e-waste-woes/)

Innovation is happening at a faster rate than it ever has been before, with new ideas emerging seemingly every passing second. An increasingly connected world means consumers are adopting new technologies more readily than ever before as well. The invention of the telephone took decades for people to adopt, while today the cellphone (and smartphone!) are nearly ubiquitous after only about five years of being introduced. Increase in global wealth also means the global consumption rate is higher than it’s ever been, and for increasingly complex goods, such as electronics, appliances, and automobiles.

But as suppliers and producers in the world are scaling up to accommodate for this growing demand, how are we addressing the problem of e-waste? Most electronics are not designed with ease of recycling in mind and thus are nearly impossible for the common consumer to discard of responsibly. With every discarded cellphone or earbud set, these goods are left to sit in landfills, leeching arsenic, lead and poly-brominated flame retardants into the earth or sent overseas to developing countries to be scavenged for parts in hazardous conditions.

While few companies are beginning to address these issues, such as Finnish startup Circular Devices with PuzzlePhone, a modular cellphone that features parts which are built to last, but more importantly, to be swapped out instead of discarding the entire device. Tech giants are also listening, including Google, which has their own Project Ara, whose prototypes are set for 2016.

Finding a sustainable balance between the production of these devices to accommodate for people’s changing needs, as well as the safe disposal and recycling of the components is an issue that governments, companies, and society needs to address. In the meantime, we need to do what we can as informed consumers to learn ways of reducing our impact with our use of electronics.

A few points to consider when getting started:

• Research durability and maintenance details. Are parts replaceable? Was the product built to last?
• Learn about local safe disposal locations (such as FreeGeek in Vancouver)
• Research sources which are more sustainable, such as Energy-wise certification or those certified by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT).

Other sources:

http://curbed.com/archives/2016/01/19/sustainable-electronics-modular-phones-puzzlephone-fair-phone-phonebloks.php

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/search-smartphone-soaked-blood

http://www.green.harvard.edu/tools-resources/how/6-ways-minimize-your-e-waste