Sustainable Electronics Initiative Blog

In one of my classes at the University of Illinois, each student was assigned to study a modern product in depth and then give a presentation on it a couple weeks later. The overall theme for the presentations was, “Newer is Better!” Whether it was a presentation about LED lights, Blue Ray lasers, Teflon, or electronics, the message was clear, this new technology far exceeds the old so it’s out with the old, in with the new.

I agree that most of these products exceed their earlier generation versions. They usually offer more features, perform better, and they even often use less energy. I am all for better designs, in fact, that is what my 4 years of undergrad in Industrial Design was all about.

I am, however, fearful that these designs encourage wastefulness.

We all like to hope that when we recycle our old shower radio for a bigger and better model the old version is broken down piece-by-piece and recycled appropriately or reused but in fact, that is rarely the case. The best that most electronic recyclers can do is to extract some precious metals by safely melting the hardware. This is not meant to discourage you from recycling your electronics, by all means, that is far better than the alternative – landfills. It is however meant to point out that we don’t have to stop at recycling.

There has been a lot of hype about Apple’s new iPad and even great claims to its sustainability but I have to question if, despite its attempts, it will just be more unnecessary e-waste 10 years from now. Is this something consumers will buy instead of iPods or laptops or is this just a luxury item? “Inhabitat” has a great article discussing just this.

If we slowed down the, “old is bad” mindset which is currently encouraged by advertising, we could not only have a chance to use our products to their full potential but it would also perhaps give designers a chance to consider allowing for updates built into the original design. This can already be seen in such products as carpet tiles. Desso, for instance, provides easily replaceable carpet tiles so that if a there is a spill, one can simply replace one small tile instead of the entire section of carpet.

Stanford business professors have a similar idea about a solution to slowing down the e-waste stream. They seem to suggest that nationwide legislation could be the answer we are looking for.

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), part of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), is hosting their first electronics and sustainability symposium. The event will be he held on February 23 and 24, 2010 at the I-Hotel and Conference Center.

The goal of this symposium is to create a forum for experts in academia, industry, policy, and others to join together and discuss the current ewaste problem and potential solutions. As the dependency and desire for newer electronics increases, the ewaste problem becomes increasingly apparent and severe. Therefore, the symposium will cover topics such as materials and design, life cycle analysis, design for electronics recovery, policy, electronics manufacturing and recovery. The symposium’s keynote speakers include Mike Tibbs,  Senior Director of Compliance at Walmart and Rajib Adhikary, Design Strategist for Dell Experience Design Group. In addition to presentation, the highlight of the symposium will be a panel discussion, held at the end of Feb. 23.

The panel discussion will offer an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of individual representatives, in order to open up the dialogue between various aspects of the ewaste problem. The panel will include Rajib Adhikary (Design Strategist for Dell Experience Design Group), William Olson (Director of International and Environmental Research and Development at Motorola), Willie Cade (Founder and CEO of PC Rebuilders and Recyclers), Chris Newman (Environmental Scientist with US EPA Region 5), Deborah Thurston (Industrial and Systems Engineering Professor at UIUC), John Abelson (Material Science and Engineering Professor at UIUC).

The symposium will serve as a way to open communication and collaboration between designers, manufacturers, recyclers and refurbishers, academic and policy professionals in an effort to work together to solve this expanding problem. A full schedule of speakers can be found here.

Register for the symposium.

For more information about the symposium, please contact Aida Sefic Williams or Wayne Duke.

By now, everyone has heard of the massive earthquake which struck Haiti last week. Undoubtedly, everyone has heard horrid stories of devastation. As I wondered what to write this week’s blog about, I found an article, which really speaks for itself, and I just wanted to make our blog followers aware of this cause, because it is a wonderful way to incorporate ewaste issues along with charity.

ReCellular is an organization which collects old phones from consumers like you and I and then donates them to charities. They have worked with charities such as the Red Cross, March of Dimes, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Now, they are teaming up with the Red Cross and all of their efforts in Haiti for a program called Phones for Haiti. This program only takes a few minutes to complete. All you need is an old cell phone. If you visit the program website, you can print a free shipping label to use for your phone and mail this package out. Once ReCellular receives your phone, they will estimate its value and give 100% of the proceeds to Red Cross.

Before sending out your cell phone, make sure to delete any personal information from it. ReCellular will send you a specific how-to guide once you provide information about your cell phone make and model. (http://www.recellular.com/recycling/data_eraser/default.asp)

By now, everyone has heard of the massive earthquake which struck Haiti last week. Undoubtedly, everyone has heard horrid stories of devastation. As I wondered what to write this week’s blog about, I found an article, which really speaks for itself, and I just wanted to make our blog followers aware of this cause, because it is a wonderful way to incorporate ewaste issues along with charity.

ReCellular is an organization which collects old phones from consumers like you and I and then donates them to charities. They have worked with charities such as the Red Cross, March of Dimes, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Now, they are teaming up with the Red Cross and all of their efforts in Haiti for a program called Phones for Haiti. This program only takes a few minutes to complete. All you need is an old cell phone. If you visit the program website, you can print a free shipping label to use for your phone and mail this package out. Once ReCellular receives your phone, they will estimate its value and give 100% of the proceeds to Red Cross.

Before sending out your cell phone, make sure to delete any personal information from it. ReCellular will send you a specific how-to guide once you provide information about your cell phone make and model. (http://www.recellular.com/recycling/data_eraser/default.asp)

When talking about electronics recycling, most people would agree that it is a good idea. As a matter of fact, I am also confident that if you told people there is a place close to them which offers responsible electronics recycling, they would be more than happy to recycle old computers, cell phones, etc. But what happens when you ask someone to pay to have something recycled? Then the idea of recycling does not look nearly as appealing as before. This raises a very good question – who is responsible for electronics recycling?

This is a much-debated issue in the electronics world. Let’s face it–if a consumer paid a substantial amount of money for a computer, he or she will not be thrilled with the idea of paying more money to dispose of the computer. For many individuals in such a case, the option of storing an old computer sounds better than recycling it for a fee. Manufacturers are also not jumping for joy to recycle and dispose of electronic components with their money. So, once again, whose responsibility is it?

One would think that both parties are equally responsible. I firmly believe that today’s designers, engineers, and manufacturers are responsible for finding ways to use environmentally friendly materials in order to create reliable products. But consumers also need to take on some of the responsibility by utilizing current and upcoming systems in order to recycle our Earth’s quickly depleting resources.

When dealing with electronics recycling, there are two main terms which pop up frequently: advanced recycling fee (ARF) and extended producer responsibility (EPR).

The advanced recycling fee is a fee which is paid when a customer purchases a computer. This fee is applied at the register and will cover the recycling cost of the computer. I highly recommend John Shegerian’s video; he is the chairman and CEO of Electronics Recyclers, Inc. A more detailed explanation of California’s ARF program is also available here.

EPR is based on the principle that the manufacturer is responsible for the entire life cycle of a product, including its end-of-life disposal. For more information, I highly recommend this Waste to Wealth website, because it contains a wealth of information regarding the subject. In addition, Wikipedia also offers good information about EPR concepts.

Since these views differ so greatly, state legislators need to find the best way to alleviate this problem and come up with a mutually agreeable solution; one which would not place the sole responsibility on the consumer or manufacturer, but one which would share the responsibility between the two parties.

Electronic waste, or “E-Waste,” generated by computers, TVs, cameras, printers, and cell phones, is a growing global issue. According to the U.S. EPA, Americans currently own nearly 3 billion electronic products and as new products are purchased, obsolete products are stored or discarded at alarming rates. About two-thirds of the electronic devices removed from service are still in working order. However, only about 15% of this material is recycled while the vast majority is disposed in landfills. The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), is pleased to announce the International E-Waste Design Competition, in which participants will explore solutions to this problem at the local level and beyond, by using e-waste components to create appealing and useful products.

The competition began in spring 2009 as a local event on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. It was held in conjunction with a class on sustainability and e-waste issues taught by industrial design professor William Bullock of the School of Art and Design. Students in this class conducted an e-waste collection on campus to gather unused CPUs, monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, scanners and cell phones as fodder for design competition projects. Educational goals for the students included learning about ways to re-use e-waste for new and productive means, exploring ideas for how to address e-waste problems, and contributing to the body of knowledge that advances the practice of environmentally responsible product design for current and future computing technology products.

Participants in the spring 2009 competition worked in groups of no more than five people, and their creations were displayed during a public competition event, held on the UIUC Quad. Eighty-one students from various disciplines competed in the contest, which awarded $15,000 in tuition support and other prizes. Judges included representatives from the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center; the Chicago Center for Neighborhood Technology; Dell Inc.; the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Bureau of Energy and Recycling; Microsoft Corp.; Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and West Monroe Partners LLC, Chicago.

Response to the competition was so positive that it was decided to expand the scope of the competition to an international event for 2010. Having projects submitted online in the form of videos allows anyone in the world to participate. The competition is open to anyone 18 years or older who is currently attending college, or who graduated from college since May 2006. Teamwork across disciplines, backgrounds and ages is encouraged. One entry per person or team is allowed. Participants can submit entries in either of two categories: the “Designer/Artist Category”, which focuses on the aesthetic elements and physical interaction with the device, or the “Technical/Geek Category,” which focuses on electronic components. Entries will be in the form of original video compositions uploaded to the competition web site. Registration is free. Online registration opens January 11, 2010. Registration closes and competition submissions are due April 1, 2010. Detailed registration information, judging criteria and submission information is available on the competition web site, http://ewaste.illinois.edu/.

Professor Bullock will once again be teaching a class on e-waste issues in the spring 2010 semester, and students will be holding another local collection event on the UIUC campus to obtain materials for their designs. Students will be encouraged to enter their class projects into the international competition, and will have a local exhibition of their projects, similar to the event which took place on the Quad in spring 2009. The finalists’ videos from the international competition will be presented to the public during the International E-Waste Video Festival, on April 20, 2010 at 5 p.m. in 112 Gregory Hall on the Campus of the University of Illinois. This festival is part of the Food/Health/Place/Sustainability Film Series being shown on campus in the spring. Finalist entries will also be publicized through the ewaste.illinois.edu web site and press events.

Awards will also be announced during the April 20 video festival. The jury will award one finalist from each of the two categories, for a total of six monetary awards. A total of $16,000 in prize money will be awarded to six winning teams: A Platinum Award of 4000 USD, a Gold Award of 3000 USD, and a Silver Award of 1000 USD in each category. The decisions of the jury are final. Honorable Mention awards may be given at the discretion of the judges. Juror invitations have gone out to industry leaders representing Fortune 500 companies, such as Google, Microsoft, Motorola, the U.S. EPA, Boeing, Dell and others, and will be announced in the spring.

The International E-Waste Design Competition and the related industrial design course taught by Professor Bullock are part of the educational component of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI). 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 International E-Waste Design Competition, contact Professor William Bullock at 217-265-0873 or Joy Scrogum at 217-333-8940.

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

Electronic recycling has been a recognized problem for a while now but not a whole lot has been resolved.

Europe, among other places, has been actively trying to solve this issue since early 1990s.  So, what can we learn from them? What are the absolute best solutions for our environment when it comes to electronic waste and what is feasible?

As we have mentioned earlier in this blog, Europe has adopted the WEEE initiative, which holds the producers of electronics responsible for the collection of the electronics. Producers have responded to this act by paying for collection facilities, changing certain materials in their products so that they are easier to recycle, and encouraging recycling of electronics all together. Some European nations have better collection ideas then others. Switzerland, for instance, has some apartment complexes that have separate bins where you sort not only plastics from paper but also electronics from other electronics. Can this work in the States? What about houses?

I have heard someone say that most Americans will not recycle their electronics until it becomes as easy as taking out your trash.  Unlike Europeans, Americans are not commonly living in apartment complexes.

We cannot expect people to be willing to discard of their old CPU by their trash in an open alley where any passerby could grab it and recover the information from the hard drive. So I see three options: one, you could provide everyone with the ability to wipe their own hard drive before they put it by the trash, two, you could provide the residents of a town with a number to call when they are ready to discard of their electronics and a city vehicle would come and pick it up, or three, give everyone a secure, lockable container to place their electronics in before they dispose of them by the trash.

Perhaps these ideas could be partially funded by the producer responsibility act, especially if that becomes national.  But even with funding, the third idea seems unlikely given the cost it would take to provide bins to every resident. 

The first idea has potential but getting everyone to wipe his or her own hard drive could be difficult. I see design potential here. What if there was a button designed into every CPU that would wipe the hard drive when they are done using the equipment.  Side note: this button should not be easily accessible so people wouldn’t push it accidentally.

The second idea is probably something that could go into affect today but each pick up would have to be worth the trip.  And one could also ask how much would the transportation would affect the environment and would this outweigh the positive environmental impact of recovering the computer?

A lot is uncertain about the future of electronic waste but one thing we do know is that for things to improve, we need innovation.

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”.

I will ask for a few minutes of your time to read that enticing article. As I was reading it, I tried not to laugh out loud, because it’s just really funny. The rhetoric used in the article makes the consumers seem like mindless individuals who have fully functional devices, only to replace them with newer devices. The new devices may not have any significantly improved features, but they are mainly purchased because of their novelty. This article was undoubtedly written as a response to the sales which occur on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the upcoming holiday purchases. During times like these, when there are sales on most desired items, people start thinking about purchasing that better, newer version of a given product. I am sure that we have all been there. But it is important that we consider the longer term impacts of our actions.

In his lecture on Nov. 11 (you can watch it here), Willie Cade spoke about computers and their obsolescence. He stated that when dealing with electronics, it is not the obsolescence that is a problem and reason for most of our purchases. Instead, he suggests, it is the appearance of obsolescence that poses a problem. Most computers and electronics are not obsolete, yet they are still rendered useless after only a few years of use. The hardware can still perform its functions, but it is our desire for the better, smaller, light-weight model, as well as the software glitches we experience, that fool us into thinking that our devices are obsolete.

So, before updating your electronics this holiday season, please ask yourself if this new gadget is a necessity. Also, if you chose to update your electronic devices, please consider donating or re-selling your used electronics. If your computers are still functional, you can donate them at organizations such as PCRR, which will take your old computer, wipe off the data from your hard drive, and then refurbish the computer and sell it at a very low price to schools or other non-profit organizations. You can also sell your small gadgets at Gazelle, or you can recycle them at common locations, such as Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, Office Max and others.

I never thought that The Onion would write such a witty article on a very relevant topic that is so near and dear to my heart. But it seems that they were able to obviously point out our insatiable desire for the newest electronics at any cost.

Links to businesses that recycle or refurbish electronics are provided for information purposes only and should not be construed as endorsements by SEI, the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) or any affiliated organization.

Have you ever had a career hero? Someone in your line of work that you really admire? Perhaps a cliché example would be to aspire to have the business sense of Bill Gates.

I have three industrial design heroes. The first is Henry Dreyfuss, an American designer who made significant advancements in the usability and function of products during the middle of the century. The second is William McDonough, a designer and architect known for his ultra sustainable ideas. And the third is Naoto Fukasawa, a well-known Japanese designer famous for his simplistic and sleek products. I became interested in the latter after seeing just one of his designs in an industrial design class I had my sophomore year of college. It was, surprisingly enough, a CD player. Nothing really relevant to anything I was interested in much less relevant to that year (the age of ipods.)  Nonetheless, I was blow away.

The Muji wall mounted CD player has one aspect that I find especially captivating: one pull cord to turn the whole device on and off. Maybe nothing revolutionary but for one reason or another I had never considered something so simple on a device that has become so complicated. Now of course this would not be ideal for every person in every situation but personally, I like to play background music, that’s it. I don’t need to start and stop, skip and replay, I would just like music playing or not playing.  Therefore, I found this to be a great design.

How does this relate to sustainable electronics? Simplistic designs, like the Muji wall mounted CD player, seem to encourage sustainability. This CD player does not have standby power mode meaning there is only energy used while the device is being used. Now, of course, there are a lot of other electronic products that similarly have no standby, but there are probably an equal amount of products that do, for instance, my new ipod speakers. These speakers have a giant wall plug that I always forget to unplug when I am not using it and all it does on standby is light up a green light that says it’s ready for use. Microwaves or coffee makers with standby mode clocks are also examples of unnecessary energy use in my opinion. Have you ever noticed how many clocks are in your kitchen? I think we have four, not counting my wristwatch.

On/off switches are usually good indicators of a device without standby but that is not always the case. For instance, TVs usually still have a standby power mode.

Some estimates show that electronics on standby only account for 5% of electricity consumption while other figures suggest it is closer to 13%. Whatever the number, this is energy used that could easily be avoided with better design.

The good news is that there is a lot already being done to discourage energy use in standby power mode. There are ad campaigns suggesting that you unplug while not in use or have a power strip that you can simply turn off when any of the devices plugged into that are not in use. President George W. Bush administered an executive order that says federal buildings can only purchase products that use less than one watt of energy when they are in standby power mode.  President Obama also committed to have federal agencies make improvements in their environmental, energy and economic performance by the year 2020.  These are definitely steps in the right direction.  All we need now is for designers to stop designing products that have unnecessary standby power mode and this whole problem would be cut off at the cord.

On November 11th, 2009, at the I-Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, IL, Willie Cade gave a lecture titled, “The Truth, Tragedy, and Transformation of E-Waste”.

Watch the high-quality version of this video in Windows Media.

Embed the video using the code below:
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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.

Herat breaks the paper down according to region and initially identifies whether that region has adopted the Producer Responsibility policies or the Advanced Recycling Fee (ARF).  Each policy has its advantages.  The Producer Responsibility approach relies mostly on the commitment of the manufacturers to contribute to the collection of e-waste.  The ARF places an additional fee to the consumer at the purchase of an electronic product.  This fee goes towards programs that help collect and responsibly dispose of the product.

There are obvious benefits to each policy, but in my opinion, the Producer Responsibility has the added effect of encouraging manufacturers to design better products in terms of the end of their life so that the producer won’t have as much difficulty dealing with disposal methods.  Although, when discussing China’s policies, Herat says that “little evidence was found that these directives have effectively driven China’s manufacturers towards eco-design practices.”  Perhaps that will change in the long run.

Most places have adopted the Producer Responsibility policy.  For instance, the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive has the Producer Responsibility basic principle as the basis behind their e-waste collection process.  The majority of states in the U.S. that have regulations against the disposal of e-waste also adopt the producer responsibility policy.  California is the only state in the U.S. that uses ARF but there are other countries like Canada and South Africa that have also adopted this method.

Next, Herat identifies problems with some country’s e-waste regulations.  For instance, every country in the European Union (EU) has adopted the WEEE directive but not every country in the EU has the same restrictions within this method. Herat realizes that this can place a burden on companies trying to comply with these regulations and has asserted that, “harmonization of the law among the EU member countries cannot be guaranteed.”

The paper also has a short overview of the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, which is “a ban on the use of certain substances in EEE,” (electrical and electronic equipment) in the EU and other countries adopting WEEE.  RoHS lists lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE as substances of immediate concern and severely limits the amount of use of these materials in products that are sold in the EU.  Herat identifies some exemptions to this directive and suggests that there might be too much emphasis on plastics and not enough on avoiding “the loss of precious metal values,” but he also recognizes the positive impact it has had on influencing countries like China and Korea to adopt similar directives.

When discussing each country, Herat begins by identifying the prevalence of the issue, for instance, India generates 146,000-330,000 tons of e-waste per year and rising. Herat then explains what is being done about this issue in that country.  So for India, Herat says that current e-waste legislation is in the development phase.  Other places, like Korea, have had a “waste deposit-refund system” but then switched to a producer responsibility method.

Finally, it would not be a conversation about international e-waste without the mention of the Basel Convention.  This is an international treaty that prohibits the exchange of hazardous and toxic waste from nation to nation.  The U.S. is one of the few countries that have not signed this treaty.  Herat gives the full explanation of this agreement in his paper.

No mater the system adopted or the geological location, the same problems arise: how do we efficiently and responsibly get rid of e-waste? Herat concludes that being able to come up with a unified system for collection could be a big help in resolving a lot of the issues having to do with e-waste.

I suggest that you read International regulations and treaties on electronic waste (e-waste) and consider for yourself the differing international policies on e-waste. Unfortunately, Herat’s document is not easily accessible due to copyright reasons.  It was published in Vol. 1 Number 4 edition of International Journal of Environmental Engineering in 2009.  I was able to obtain a copy by going through my library.

Citation:

Herat, Sunil. “International regulations and treaties on electronic waste (e-waste).”  International Journal of Environmental Engineering 1.4 (2009): 335-51. Print.