Category: Electronics Recycling

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A satirical and very true view of the e-waste problem

Note: This post was written by SEI staff, Aida Sefic Williams.

The Onion is a very popular, purely fictional and extremely satirical website. The Onion usually consists of stories whose point is only to amuse, with stories such as “Most College Males Admit to Regularly Getting Stoked”. As topics become more interesting to media outlets, The Onion is usually there to make fun of those same topics with their dead-pan sarcasm. While amusing, most of their articles have never struck a particular chord with me until their article titled “New Device Desirable, Old Device Undesirable”. Continue reading “A satirical and very true view of the e-waste problem”

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E-waste International

ewaste-computer-recycling-image[1]Note: This post was written by SEI staff member, Amy Cade.

As Aida mentioned in an earlier post, a lack of a global standard for e-waste is one of the biggest problems we, in the e-waste industry, have to deal with.  Inconsistencies between states, countries, and continents not only make it hard on the manufacturers but also on the well-intentioned collectors.

Sunil Herat, a senior lecturer in waste management at Griffith University in Australia, addressed this problem in a recent paper titled International regulations and treaties on electronic waste (e-waste).  Herat has given an overview of the different policies in different regions.  This post will be a summary and commentary of that document. Continue reading “E-waste International”

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eBook opinions: Part 1

ebooksNote: This post was written by SEI staff, Aida Sefic Williams.

As the world has become more technologically advanced, the tech gurus around the world have been creating gadgets that will capture the hearts of many consumers. In a world today where it seems that the majority of people have laptops and smart phones (iPhones, Blackberries, etc.), the logical progression was to create a newer, cooler, hipper gadget – the eBook. The eBook is a convenient way to read books through an electronic device. This new technological wonder is marketed for giving you the multitude of resources you would encounter in a library, but all the resources will be available at your fingertips through a very portable device.

Continue reading “eBook opinions: Part 1”

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Life Cycle Analysis: Part 2

Note: This post was written by SEI staff, Aida Sefic Williams.

Last week, I described what life cycle analyses are and briefly touched on how they can be used by companies in Life Cycle Analysis: Part 1. This post (along a few more that will follow) will be a part of a blog mini-series about life cycle analyses. I want to educate our readers about the general concepts of LCAs. Without further ado, here comes part 2: Continue reading “Life Cycle Analysis: Part 2”

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Diigo Digest: Finding Electronic Recyclers, Part 2

NCERNote: This post was written by SEI staff member, Amy Cade.

Last July I posted an article called “All You Need to Know About Finding an Electronic Recycler.” For this article I researched recyclers, databases, magazines, and manufacturers to find the most comprehensive and responsible electronic collection agencies. I then whittled those down and only suggested a few that I thought gave an overall sense of the type of resources available. It wasn’t until last week that I found an article that did exactly this… only better!  The article is by NCER (National Center for Electronics Recycling.) It was intended for the State of West Virginia, so some of the suggestions are rather specific for West Virginia but others, like the manufacturing programs, are nationally run.  Here is what NCER says about specific manufacturer collection programs: Continue reading “Diigo Digest: Finding Electronic Recyclers, Part 2”

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SEI Provides “Ask an Expert” Service

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), is pleased to announce the availability of its online “Ask an Expert” service for the submission of questions related to electronics and their environmental impacts.

Questions related to electronic waste, or “e-waste” issues, sustainable electronics design, improving electronics manufacturing processes and related topics can be submitted via an online form available at http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/services/askexpert.cfm. SEI staff members will provide one hour of free Internet and/or literature searching related to your sustainable electronics question. Also provided is input from ISTC staff scientists and/or referrals to external contacts for further information on technical questions. Responses can be expected within a week (usually within 1-2 business days). Citizens, organizations, government agencies, businesses, non-profit groups, and academic institutions are all invited to use this free service.

The responses obtained from the Ask an Expert service are meant for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as endorsements by SEI, ISTC or any affiliated organization. Responses are also meant to be starting points for inquirers rather than definitive answers, advice or prescriptions for action. Inquirers must draw their own conclusions based upon the information provided.

In the near future, questions and answers received via this service will be archived and searchable on the SEI web site, www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu. An extensive collection of resources is also under development for the web site, and archived Ask an Expert questions and answers will be integrated into relevant resource collections.

According to the U.S. EPA, Americans own nearly three billion electronic products and continually purchase new ones to replace those deemed “obsolete,” even though about two-thirds of the devices are still in working order. As designers, manufacturers and the general public are becoming more aware and concerned about this issue, SEI’s Ask an Expert service will be one way to address concerns and assist in more sustainable practices.

SEI is a consortium dedicated to the development and implementation of a more sustainable system for designing, producing, remanufacturing, and recycling electronic devices. Members of the consortium include academia, non-profit organizations, government agencies, manufacturers, designers, refurbishers, and recyclers. Specific elements of the SEI include programs for research, education, data management, and technical assistance. SEI conducts collaborative research; facilitates networking and information exchange among participants; promotes technology diffusion via demonstration projects; and provides forums for the discussion of policy and legislation.

For more information on SEI, visit www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu or contact Dr. Tim Lindsey, Associate Director of ISTC, at 217-333-8955 . For more information on the Ask an Expert service contact Laura Barnes, ISTC librarian at 217-333-8957.

ISTC is a unit of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Call For Papers–Electronics & Sustainability: Design for Energy & the Environment

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), a unit of the Institute of Natural Resources Sustainability on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a consortium dedicated to the development and implementation of a more sustainable system for designing, producing, remanufacturing, and recycling electronic devices. Members of the consortium include academia, non-profit organizations, government agencies, manufacturers, designers, refurbishers, and recyclers. Specific elements of the SEI include programs for research, education, data management, and technical assistance. SEI conducts collaborative research; facilitates networking and information exchange among participants; promotes technology diffusion via demonstration projects; and provides forums for the discussion of policy and legislation.

Americans own nearly three billion electronic products and continually purchase new ones to replace those deemed “obsolete,” even though about two-thirds of the devices are still in working order. To address this burgeoning e-waste problem, SEI will hold the Electronics & Sustainability: Design for Energy & the Environment symposium on February 23 – 24, 2010 at the I Hotel on the University of Illinois campus. Topics to be addressed will include environmental toxicology, life cycle analysis, product design, existing and proposed policy (local, state, national, and international), and more. Designers; electrical engineers; chemists; materials scientists; electronics manufacturers, recyclers, refurbishers, and remanufacturers; government representatives and policy makers; pollution prevention technical assistance providers; relevant non-profit organizations; and others are invited to take part in this symposium.

SEI invites industry and academic practitioners to submit abstracts of their recent research, projects, and design thinking for presentation, publications, or both. Proposals can be made for symposium participation in one or more of the following categories: a paper, presentation, panel discussion, or poster display.

For more information about the symposium and/or to access the call for papers, visit: www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu or contact Wayne Duke, Conference Coordinator, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, One Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, Illinois 61820-7465, 217-333-5793, fax: 217-333-8944.

For more information about the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), contact Dr. Tim Lindsey, Associate Director, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, One Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, Illinois 61820-7465, 217-333-8955, fax: 217-333-8944.

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Teaching a Better Way to Design: An Interview with William Bullock

bullockNote: This post was written by SEI staff member, Amy Cade.

William Bullock is the Director of the Design for Energy and Environment Laboratory (DEE Lab,) an Affiliated Faculty Member for the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC,) and he has been my professor of industrial design at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for the past two years. I sat down with him recently to get an experienced designer’s perspective on e-waste.  After all, designers are a vital part of the creation of e-waste; they can have a lot to do with the perpetuation or prevention of waste just by the decisions they make early on in the manufacturing stage.

Recently, I have noticed that most designers came to an unspoken consensus about design, it can not be about simply making more things; resources are limited, waste is ever increasing and our environment is suffering.  Sustainability is no longer just a good idea, it is a necessity.  This change came in the middle of William’s career and instead of reluctantly complying like some of his colleagues did, he embraced the idea of socially conscious design wholeheartedly.

William acknowledges that industrial design can be part of the problem.  Industrial designers create attractive newer looking products in an effort to stimulate sales.  This can encourage consumers to unnecessarily throw away products in favor of buying newer looking, often more “aesthetically pleasing” ones.  William also believes that we have the capability, as designers, to change that. William said, “We need to not only to deal with waste but also figure out how to reuse, recycle, design things so that they can be easily upgraded instead of thrown away all together.” He wondered if it is possible to find a universal aesthetic so that objects do not get dated as easily.

The positive side to designing superfluous products is that it sustains our economy. I asked William if he thinks it has to be one or the other; environmental concerns over economical ones.   He admitted that  is a challenge. “We are gluttonous” William explained, “so we might not only have the problem of having people buy new, but how do we make it so that when the old things are thrown out they do not harm the environment?”

William McDonough, a designer that recently spoke at the University of Illinois, has a lot of ideas that address this problem. For instance, he proposed a pen that you can stomp into the ground when you are finished with it and it would have the right nutrients and seed impeded in the pen to make it grow into a flower.  Ideas like these that do not discourage consumption but are also great for the environment is a trend that needs to be further exploited.

Another solution that William Bullock is focused on is providing information to the public because he believes that people are more apt to the right thing once they have the right information.  That is why he is working hard to set up initiatives that teach all there is to know about sustainability in product design.

For more information on William’s educational efforts, see the description of the sustainability and e-waste issues course he taught on the SEI Current Projects page.  The course had a Sustainable E-Waste Design Competition associated with it.  I spoke about both in an earlier post.