Tag: e-waste

OM in the News: The Growth of Electronic Waste

Supplement 5 in our text, Sustainability in the Supply Chain, stresses the important roles of  product design and circular economy in protecting our planet. But a new report by the U.N. in Earth.com (March 21, 2024) documents the escalating global challenge of electronic waste (e-waste) generation  and how it significantly outstrips the pace at which we are recycling these materials.

E-waste is defined as any discarded product with a plug or battery that harbors toxic additives and hazardous substances, such as mercury. A staggering 62 million tons of e-waste was generated in 2022 –an amount that could fill a line of 40-ton trucks encircling the equator.

Just 22% of this e-waste is known to have been recycled properly, spotlighting the vast amount of valuable resources – worth an estimated $62 billion – that remain untapped, and highlighting the increased pollution and health risks to global communities. The annual rise of 2.6 million tons in e-waste production, with predictions set to soar to 82 million tons by 2030, underscores the problem.

The widening gap between e-waste production and recycling is attributed to several factors, including rapid technological advancements, higher consumption rates, limited repair options, shorter product life cycles, shifts towards EVs, design challenges, and insufficient e-waste management infrastructure. (It is even worse when the extremely dangerous discharged batteries from EVs, not included in the U.N. report, are considered). This complex web highlights the need for integrated solutions that encompass technological innovation, policy reform, and community engagement.

“With less than half of the world implementing and enforcing approaches to manage the problem, this raises the alarm for sound regulations to increase collection and recycling.” writes the U.N. One of the report’s revelations is the current inefficiency in reclaiming valuable materials from e-waste, which presents both an economic loss and a missed opportunity for reducing reliance on rare earth/mineral extraction. “No more than 1% of demand for essential rare earth elements is met by e-waste recycling,” it states.

The report calls for collective action from policymakers, industry leaders, researchers, and consumers to reimagine our approach to electronics consumption and waste management.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why do EVs pose a major challenge?
  2. Identify a product and how its production, use, and end-of-life could be more sustainable.

OM in the News: America’s Electronics Trash–and Mexico

Life and business revolve around electronic waste in this Mexico City neighborhood, much of it from the U.S.
Life and business revolve around E-waste in this Mexico City neighborhood, much of it from the U.S.

On the street here, in Renovación, a neighborhood in Mexico City, Jesus Gómez watches as 8 men and a woman sit in a circle under an intense sun, breaking two huge sacks of spent Motorola cable-TV boxes apart with hammers and chisels. They wrench out bits of copper, metal, and circuitry, with shards of metal and plastic flying everywhere. Gómez will find buyers for all of it.

Outside the workshop are more piles, and there are yet more in the street; the junk seems to pour in constantly, some of it from around Mexico City and a lot from much farther. Heaps are from Texas. “The gringos throw it out,” says Gomez’ partner. “We do the dirty work of breaking it apart.”

That’s the essence of Renovación. At one unlicensed workshop after another, adults and teenagers disassemble printers, monitors, and PCs. It’s hazardous work: Smash an old TV, and you risk spewing lead into the air. Crack open an LCD flatscreen, and you can release mercury vapor. Mobile phones and computers can contain dangerous heavy metals such as cadmium and toxic flame retardants. Mexican workplace regulations, like those in the U.S., require e-waste shops to provide such safety equipment as goggles, hard hats, and masks. There’s little of that in Renovación.

In much of the world, Renovacion couldn’t exist, writes Businessweek (Nov. 14-20, 2016). Business owners wouldn’t be allowed to employ people in those conditions. Twenty-five U.S. states have laws establishing what’s known as extended producer responsibility, or EPR. That means electronics makers must collect, recycle, and dispose of discarded equipment rather than allow it to enter the waste stream. But the lack of a formal, regulated recycling industry is one of many reasons Mexico has become a magnet for spent electronics. E-waste is a poorly tracked trade, but Mexico is the No. 1 importer of used and junked electronics from the U.S., taking in almost 129,000 tons a year.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. After reading the linked article, what has Dell done for EPR?
  2. What are the ethical issues that arise in this situation?

Good OM Reading: Global E-Waste Reaches New Levels

e-wasteThe amount of global e-waste — discarded electrical and electronic equipment — reached 41.8 million tons last year, according to a new United Nations University report (April 20, 2015). The report provides an unprecedented level of detail and accuracy about the size of the world’s e-waste challenge, ongoing progress in establishing specialized e-waste collection and treatment systems, and the outlook for the future.

The bulk of global e-waste in 2014 (almost 60%) was discarded kitchen, laundry, and bathroom equipment. Personal information and communication technology (ICT) devices — such as mobile phones, personal computers, and printers — accounted for 7% of e-waste last year. The-waste comprised:

  • 12.8 million tons of small equipment (such as vacuum cleaners, microwaves, toasters, electric shavers and video cameras);
  • 11.8 million tons of large equipment (including washer/dryers, dishwashers, electric stoves, and photovoltaic panels);
  • 7.0 million tons of cooling and freezing equipment;
  • 6.3 million tons of screens;
  • 3.0 million tons of small ICT equipment; and
  • 1.0 million ton of lamps.

This e-waste represented $52 billion of potentially reusable resources, yet little of it was collected for recovery, or even treated/disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Less than 1/6 is thought to have been properly recycled or made available for reuse. While e-waste constitutes a valuable “urban mine” — a potential reservoir of recyclable materials — it also includes a “toxic mine” of hazardous substances that must be (but too-seldom are) managed with extreme care.

The report estimates that the e-waste discarded in 2014 contained 16,500 kilotons of iron, 1,900 kilotons of copper, and 300 tons of gold as well as significant amounts of silver, aluminum, palladium, and other potentially reusable resources. It also contained substantial amounts of health-threatening toxins such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. Just two countries — the US and China — discarded 1/3 of the world’s total e-waste.

This valuable report contains several graphics about the recycling process that you can use when teaching Supplement 5, Sustainability in the Supply Chain.