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://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
As you point out, some big companies are starting to show their concern on how important is this issue, but I feel it has been always a huge issue in their minds.
Their entire business is based on selling those high-tech gadgets made by non-recyclable materials. I am sure they were aware of how non environmentally friendly their products are, but the technological bubble has developed so fast that they simply can not stop and think of improved ways to produce these gadgets. That is why it is so difficult to find information and solutions on the issue: companies want to keep it as silent and quiet as possible.
I’m happy to see someone blogging about this issue and it makes me happy to hear that companies as big as Google are starting to express some concern about this, and adapting their current systems to help mitigate such waste. I can only hope that these companies and consumers push companies like Apple, who design their products with a short life span in mind, to follow their example. I would ideally like to see not just a fundamental improvement in the quality and life span of Apple’s products but also a convenient repair for chargers similar to the system they currently have to repair their laptops and phones. In order to maintain competitive advantage I think it’s important to for Apple to recognize the importance of brand loyalty. An increase in the quality, life span and repair of their products would be an important step towards sustaining such brand loyalty, and therefore in the long run would be more beneficial for the company than frequent purchases out of necessity.