E-Waste Crisis Consumer electronics are increasingly treated as disposable items. Companies create this consumer climate by constantly marketing new technologies, rendering fairly recent products obsolete. In 1999 the average lifespan of a computer in the United States was four to six years. In 2005 the lifespan had dropped to less than two years. (National Safety Council, 2006) Personal computers contain toxic heavy metals such as barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, zinc, nickel and lead (Yadong et al., 2006). All of these materials are regulated by the EPA. According to the study on heavy metal content of personal computers by Yadong and colleagues, each of these elements occur in concentrations higher than the federally regulated levels. The steadily growing stream of electronic waste poses a threat to human health and environmental integrity. In 2005, more than 63 million personal computers will be disposed of according to a recent study by National Safety Council. When these computers are retired there are four options: recycling, donating, returning to the manufacturer, throwing in the trash. The most common procedure is throwing it away. In 2005 an estimated 5.3 billion pounds of electronic waste was generated (EPA, 2005). Of this, only 9% was recycled (Yadong et al., 2006). When computers end up in landfills it is possible that the toxic metal can leach into groundwater. The EPA developed the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TLCP) to simulate a scenario in which toxic materials leach out into landfills. (Schmidt 2003, Jang & Townsend 2003) These tests show that lead and other toxic metals in e-waste do leach. This is an environmental hazard that can not be ignored, however, alternative end-of-life options are yet to produce a cure all solution.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 09:20:15 +0000
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