Peter Essick / Aurora Photos
Managing Hazardous Waste 415CASE STUDY
same time, smart phones, tablets, mp3 players, and other small,
short-lived personal electronic products continue to proliferate.
Several states have passed legislation requiring businesses and
residents to e-cycle consumer electronics—that is, recycle PCs,
monitors, cell phones, and televisions.
In 2009, about 25 percent of all electronics and about
38 percent of all computers in the United States were e-cycled.
Although some companies handle obsolete computers in
the United States (see photograph), many U.S. computers
are shipped overseas to be recycled in developing countries
such as India, Pakistan, and China. There the computers
are disassembled, often using methods that are potentially
dangerous to the workers taking them apart. For example, circuit
boards are often burned to obtain the small amount of gold in
them, and burning releases hazardous fumes into the air.
Some highly developed countries have been more
progressive than the United States in dealing with their
computer waste. The European Union implemented a Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment plan in 2005 to recover,
recycle, and dispose of electronic waste and remove some of
the most hazardous chemicals. Japan and other industrialized
nations have put in place similar policies.High-Tech Waste
In the United States and other highly developed countries, the
average computer is replaced every 18 to 24 months, not because
it is broken but because rapid technological developments and
new generations of software make it obsolete. Old computers
may still be in working order, but they have no resale value and
are even difficult to give away. As a result, they sit in warehouses,
garages, and basements—or are frequently thrown away with
the trash. According to the EPA, more than 300 million electronic
devices were discarded in 2006 (latest data available), and 80
percent of these were disposed of in sanitary landfills.
This disposal represents a huge waste of the high-quality
plastics and metals (aluminum, copper, tin, nickel, palladium,
silver, and gold) that make up computers. Computers also
contain the toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium, mercury, and
chromium, which could potentially leach from landfills into soil
and groundwater. Not long ago, many computers contained
as much as 3.5 kg (8 lb) of lead in their monitors and circuit
boards. The recent transition to liquid crystal display (LCD)
monitors, as well as more efficient circuitry, has reduced much
of the lead content (an example of dematerialization). At the
Obsolete computer
equipment
The computer monitors at this
Texas electronic recycler are
being disassembled. Functional
tubes will be exported to
Thailand, where they will
be used to manufacture
inexpensive televisions.
Broken tubes will be recycled
or disposed of in the United
States.✓✓THE PLANNER