8. Electronic Waste: What to Do with It?
Steven Leon, PhD
University of Central Florida
A Day at the Office
Abigail Huai, an inspector of hazardous waste for a state agency in the United States, arrived at an electronics recycling company for a routine review of paperwork when she stumbled across a warehouse nearly half the size of a city block, packed with old computer monitors and televisions. For the layperson, this might seem like extraordinary success. People are recycling their old electronic equipment in droves. After all, isn’t this what consumers, businesses, and government want? Let’s save the planet! Look at any Fortune 500 company and many small- and medium-size companies; you will find a great majority of them promoting in some way their sustainability or “green” programs. However, Abigail knew better.
Abigail opened the door to a widespread problem that was hidden from public view and caught many by surprise. Facilities like the one Abigail visited were once collecting monitors and televisions and recycling them profitably. The cathode-ray tubes, or CRTs, were melted down and turned into new ones. Now, what has been uncovered by Abigail is a distressing phenomenon: All the CRT recycling businesses are full of monitors, televisions, broken glass, and lead-laden dust.
Technology Changes
After some additional research, Abigail reported her findings to her manager, Alexander Posey, who asked, “What happened, why the stockpile?” Abigail replied that flat-screen technology has made the monitors and televisions obsolete, crippling demand for the recycled glass used in them and creating stockpiles of the useless material.1,2
1 www.wasterecyclingnews.com/article/20121108/NEWS02/121109949/facilities-overwhelmed-by-crt-glass.
2 www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html.
Abigail added, “This isn’t a local phenomenon occurring just in our area; it is happening across the country. After television broadcasters turned off their analog signals nationwide in 2009 in favor of digital broadcast signals, millions of people threw away their perfectly good older televisions and replaced them with flat-screen models.3,4 Since then, thousands of pounds of old televisions and other electronic waste have been stockpiled deposited at landfills and on roadsides.”
3 www.electronicstakeback.com/designed-for-the-dump/quickly-obsolete.
4 www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html.
Changes in electronics technology have essentially wiped out an entire segment of the recycling industry. Abigail and Alexander were continuing their conversation when Sarah Paltrow, another employee, stated, “We sure didn’t see this coming. We look at hazardous materials trends, but since when have we kept on top of specific industry changes, like technology innovation? During the beginning of the 21st century, there were at least 12 plants in the United States and 13 more worldwide that were taking these old televisions and monitors and using the cathode-ray tube glass to produce new tubes. Now, there are only two plants in India doing this work.” Recyclers were once paid more than $200 a ton to provide glass from these monitors for use in new cathode ray tubes. The same companies now have to pay more than $200 a ton to get anyone to take the glass off their hands.5
5 Ibid.
Repercussions of Changing Demand for CRTs
Another employee, Jerry Callo, chimed in, “With so few buyers of the leaded glass from the old monitors and televisions, recyclers are finding it very difficult to get rid of the old machines and the leaded glass in them. Some recyclers have developed new technology for cleaning the lead from the glass, but the bulk of this waste is being stored, sent to landfills or smelters, or disposed of in other ways that are environmentally destructive.”
If the waste hasn’t found its way to landfills or makeshift roadside dumps, many recyclers have been storing millions of the monitors in warehouses. Since there are federal limits on how long a company can house the tubes (up to one year),6,7 the practice of storing computers and televisions with CRTs can be illegal. CRTs are environmentally dangerous, since they can include up to eight pounds of lead.8,9 In particular, the glass screens, or CRTs, in computer monitors and televisions can contain as much as 27% lead.10
6 Ibid.
7 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/smm/wastewise/pubs/wwupda14.pdf.
8 www.electronicstakeback.com/designed-for-the-dump/quickly-obsolete.
9 www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html.
10 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/smm/wastewise/pubs/wwupda14.pdf.
The sheer quantity of the glass accumulating at some recycling plants has contributed to environmental and workplace safety problems. In Yuma, Arizona, one of the country’s largest recyclers of glass from televisions and monitors found itself overwhelmed. When state safety inspectors visited the company in 2009, they found stacks of the leaded glass, several stories tall. Dust from the mountain of recycled glass had contaminated the surrounding soil, including a nearby orchard, with lead at 75 times the federal limit.11
11 www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html.
Alexander asked Abigail whether the owner of the recycling company intends to clean up the stockpile of hazardous materials in his warehouse. Abigail replied that the owner has disappeared, skipped town, and left the responsibility of the stockpile cleanup to the state and the warehouse owner.
As the conversation continued, Abigail and the others at the state agency reflected on how this might have happened in the first place and what can be done to rectify this situation while preventing similar situations in the future.
Industry Responsibility
They wondered whether the larger solution to the growing electronic waste problem is for technology companies to design products that last longer, use fewer toxic components, and are more easily recycled. In the U.S., consumers scrap about 400 million units of electronics per year.12 Rapid advances in technology mean that electronic products are becoming obsolete more quickly. This, coupled with explosive sales in consumer electronics, means that more products are being discarded, even if they still work.
12 www.electronicstakeback.com/designed-for-the-dump/quickly-obsolete.
The Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), a trade association representing the electronics industry, is encouraging its members to design for the environment (DfE) (see Exhibit 1).13 Other manufacturing techniques are currently in use too. Design for disassembly, value, and concurrent engineering are frequently used. Even with these initiatives and manufacturing techniques, there is evidence that the increase in e-waste has to do with other factors corresponding not necessarily to manufacturing processes, but to the product development and marketing strategies of the electronics companies. Twenty-four percent of laptops fail in the first three years due to hardware malfunctions. Throwaway printers, hard-to-replace batteries, and cellphone replacement contracts all contribute to an increase in e-waste.14 It might be reasonable to expect that these design features are intended not to reduce e-waste, but to increase profit margins for these companies.
13 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/smm/wastewise/pubs/wwupda14.pdf.
14 www.electronicstakeback.com/designed-for-the-dump/quickly-obsolete/.
Government Intervention
Many states have laws that make electronics manufacturers like Sony, Toshiba, and Apple financially responsible for recycling their old products. New York has proposed take-back legislation for electronic equipment that would require manufacturers to establish collection and/or disassembly centers for recovery of at least 90% of the waste equipment. Manufacturers would be required to accept such equipment at no charge to consumers.15 South Carolina’s legislation includes an electronic recycling bill featuring manufacturer responsibility for electronics recycling in the state.
15 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm.
Also in South Carolina, pending legislation from the Recycling Market Development Advisory Council (RMDAC) has proposed a fee on the purchase of new electronic equipment containing CRTs, such as televisions and computer monitors, to help develop a state infrastructure for scrap electronic equipment recovery and recycling. The fee would provide for the collection, transport, process, and recycling of discarded electronics.16 In California, consumers pay for electronics recycling programs when they buy new items, based on the size of the device.17 Alexander and Abigail wondered aloud, “Should we do the same in our state? What repercussions could our constituents/consumers face if our state enacted additional environmental policies on businesses that operate in our state?”
16 http://sccommerce.com/sites/default/files/document_directory/Recycling_-_Smart_Business_For_South_Carolina_Brochure_2010.pdf.
17 www.wasterecyclingnews.com/article/20121108/NEWS02/121109949/facilities-overwhelmed-by-crt-glass.
Abigail and Alexander thought further about state and federal environmental policies and how these policies might have contributed to the evolving problem. Over the past decade, environmental regulators have promoted “take-back” programs to persuade people to hand in the more than 200 million old televisions and broken computer monitors that Americans are thought to have stored away in closets, garages, and basements. A report from December 2012 states that roughly 660 million pounds of the glass is being stored in warehouses across the country, and it will cost $85 million to $360 million to responsibly recycle it.18 The EPA found in 2009 that an estimated five million short tons of products were in storage in 2009, with CRTs from monitors and televisions being stored at the highest rates.
18 www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/us/disposal-of-older-monitors-leaves-a-hazardous-trail.html.
Residential households store five times more computer products by weight than commercial establishments. Furthermore, approximately 2.37 million short tons of electronics were ready for end-of-life management, representing an increase of more than 120% compared to 1999. CRTs compose nearly half or 47% of all electronics ready for end-of-life management. Approximately 141 million mobile devices were ready for end-of-life management in 2009, more than any other type of product, yet by weight, they represent less than 1% of discarded electronics. Twenty-five percent of electronics were collected for recycling, with computers collected at the highest rate, 38% (see Exhibit 2).19
19 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm.
The same take-back programs have encouraged businesses to divert their electronic waste away from landfills to avoid the hazardous chemicals from discharging into groundwater. In 2011, South Carolina law required that all electronic waste be recycled to keep hazardous materials out of landfills. Verizon is helping out by collecting e-waste, or “anything with a plug,” for free.
According to the S.C. Department of Commerce, recycling adds jobs: “By turning waste into valuable raw material, recycling stimulates economic development, creates jobs, and increases tax revenue, as well as generates income for businesses and local governments from the sale of recyclables.” Verizon uses Anything IT to recycle the e-waste. State and federal programs have been so successful that collecting waste is not the problem; it’s that demand for the glass tubes has never been lower.20 The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) recently announced emergency regulations to allow for the disposal of residual CRT glass into hazardous waste landfills if recyclers cannot find a suitable reuse for the glass.21
20 www.postandcourier.com/article/20130328/PC1606/130329304/1268/verizon-to-recycle-e-waste&source=RSS.
21 www.wasterecyclingnews.com/article/20121108/NEWS02/121109949/facilities-overwhelmed-by-crt-glass.
Supplier Oversight
In 2012, the General Services Administration enacted rules discouraging all federal agencies and federal contractors from disposing of e-waste in landfills. About 40% of the heavy metals, including lead, mercury, and cadmium, in landfills comes from e-waste.22 The federal government, which is among the world’s largest producer of electronic waste, disposes of more than 10,000 computers a week on average. However, federal agencies are failing to sufficiently track their electronic waste. Large amounts of it are still being disposed of through public or online auctions, and in these auctions, the waste is often sold to first-tier contractors who promise to handle it appropriately, only to have the most toxic portion subsequently sold to second-and third-tier contractors who move it around as they wish.
22 www.electronicstakeback.com/designed-for-the-dump/quickly-obsolete.
Much of this waste is dumped illegally in developing countries. Most recyclers don’t recycle; they export instead. From 50% to 80% of e-waste that is collected for recycling is shipped overseas.23 Federal legislation known as the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act (RERA) was introduced in the 2012 session of Congress. The bill would restrict exports of untested and nonworking e-waste from the U.S. to developing countries, although it would still allow free trade of tested and working used electronics being exported for reuse.
23 www.electronicstakeback.com/global-e-waste-dumping.
The legislation is supported by major electronics manufacturers, including Dell, HP, Apple, Samsung, and Best Buy, as well as by CAER, which represents 82 U.S. companies that operate 158 electronics recycling and disposition facilities operating in 34 states.24 Exporting e-waste to other countries such as China has many negative impacts, such as lead concentrations in their drinking water more than 8 times the local health standards, lead and cadmium infiltrating the rice grown in this region, and people there exposed to between 15 and 56 times the maximum amount of dangerous toxins.25
24 www.electronicstakeback.com/2013/02/05/2594/.
25 www.sandiego.edu/ewaste/facts.php.
Over the years, e-waste recycling companies have collected state and federal money reaching into the millions of dollars to collect and responsibly recycle electronic waste from local schools, hospitals, and federal agencies, all while the recycling companies are stockpiling e-waste and creating hazards to the surrounding communities.
Good News
Not all e-waste is stockpiled, however. A great deal of what is termed “e-waste” is not waste at all. Some of the equipment can be reused or recycled. Companies are recycling precious metals from televisions, computers, cellphones, and printers that can be recycled profitably. Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 U.S. homes in a year. One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper mined from one metric ton of ore in the U.S. In 2009, approximately 25% of TVs, computer products, and cellphones that were ready for end-of-life management were collected for recycling. Cellphones were recycled at a rate of approximately 8%.26
26 www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/faq.htm.
Source: www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm.
Table 2 Management of used and end-of-life electronics in 2009.