E-waste and How to Reduce It Rebecca Adams October 2018
Introduction Each year sees the production of 20-25 million tons of e-waste, categorized as unwanted electronics such as computers, phones, printers, and fax machines. 1 Households, businesses, and governments all bear responsibility for this figure. As the amount of e-waste increases, it has also spread across international borders, with large amounts being transported overseas for disposal to lower income countries. As a result, e-waste is becoming a global problem, with its disposal releasing ever higher levels of greenhouse gasses. Domestic companies are in a position to address this problem through local and international programs (e.g. recycling electronics through local initiatives). In so doing, businesses would be providing an important service both to themselves and their consumers. How E-waste Impacts Climate Change E-waste disposal contributes to climate change due to the chemicals released when it is burned. Electronics contain materials like copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), and iron (Fe), 2 and when burned these metals accumulate in the air. Harmful chemicals like polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) are the principal toxins released when electronics are burned. 3 PBDEs are used as flame retardants in electronics, and during combustion release carbon dioxide (CO 2). 4 Collectively, these various chemicals when burned for disposal cause harm both to humans and the environment. According to a study conducted in the major e-waste recycling region of Guiyu, China, the concentration of PBDEs in the air was 21.5 ng/m, 3 140 times higher than in Hong Kong for example. 5 Mass emissions of PBDE, meanwhile, were between 82,207 and 188,118 tons/year. 6 Such high concentrations pose a serious health risk to humans and wildlife. Toxins that seep into the soil and water are in turn accumulated by organisms, which over time negatively impact health. The manufacture of electronics also releases large amounts of CO 2. In another study it was found that, for every ton of CRT display products manufactured, 2.9 metric tons of carbon were released. When properly recycled, only 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are released. 7 Compared to traditional methods of disposal such as burning, recycling provides new alternatives to reduce emissions. Fortunately, there are already policies in place to help companies reduce their e-waste. 1 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It
E-waste Mitigation Policies United States The burden of addressing e-waste does not fall on business alone. Indeed, a government program in the United States is already making an important contribution in this area. The National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship (NSES) a multifaceted program advising government agencies, businesses, and citizens on how to reduce e-waste production has the stated goal to 1) Build incentives for design of environmentally preferable electronics and enhance science, research, and technology development in the United States. 2) Ensure that the federal government leads by example. 3) Increase safe and effective management and handling of used electronics in the United States. 4) Reduce harm from U.S. exports of electronics waste (e-waste) and improve handling of used electronics in developing countries. 8 Were businesses to effectively employ this program, for example, their produced e-waste would be properly disposed of with little cost to the businesses themselves. Twenty-five states now have policies in place to manage their e-waste on a statewide level, with manufacturers responsible for managing e-waste. 9 However, while state laws represent a good starting place for tackling this problem, not all of these currently specify targets or even how the programs in question are to be implemented. Indeed, Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, and others neither specify targets nor impose bans on problematic e-waste disposal. 10 The federal government has some policies in place, but with a diverse range of stakeholders to deal with, and with each state having a different set of policies its regulations are hard to implement. Compared to other countries, the US has been less successful in addressing this important issue. Japan and Switzerland, by contrast, have developed programs that effectively manage e-waste, and the US could derive benefit from examining their successes. Japan 2 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It
Japan currently has two policies in place for managing e-waste. Broadly, responsibility for proper disposal of such waste in the country falls upon both manufacturers and consumer. The first of these policies, the Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources (LPUR), focuses on the disposal of personal computers and small appliances and requires manufacturers to provide access to proper recycling facilities. The second policy, namely the Law for Recycling Specified Kinds of Home Appliances, meanwhile requires consumers to pay for the cost of transporting and recycling appliances like televisions, air conditions, refrigerators, and other such household technologies. 11 The aforementioned policies are implemented at the federal level, and are overseen by multiple ministries. Their success is in large part due to the shared responsibility for e-waste as stipulated by the two laws, with both consumers and manufacturers involved in shouldering this important burden. This agreement was made possible by the limited amount of land in Japan. The country has a densely populated and varied landscape with few natural resources, and its population and manufacturers must consequently rely heavily on the recycling and reuse of electronics. Sharing costs in turn reduces them, and firms and citizens alike are therefore incentivized to cooperate with the program. Switzerland In Switzerland, meanwhile, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment has implemented a policy entitled the Ordinance on The Return, the Taking Back and the Disposal of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (ORDEE). The implementation of e-waste management in the country is organized by producer responsibility organizations (PRO), in which manufacturers cooperate to meet standards. PROs manage e-waste through financing, transportation and collection, and by controlling the waste system itself. 12 The current structure has proven successful to date because of the collective effort entailed, with industries cooperating to responsibly handle e-waste. PROs work in the best interests of both manufacturers and consumers to ensure that electronics are taken and disposed of in a responsible manner. Such a program could prove successful in the United States as well if electronics manufacturers communicated and agreed upon set standards to uphold, coupled with a joint approach to the overall management of e-waste. 3 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It
Learning from Others Programs such as those detailed above could work in countries like the United States if consumers and businesses agree to shoulder part of the burden for disposing of e-waste. In Japan, this type of burden sharing has been accepted more on account of economic rather than environmental reasons. The same model could be applied in the US. American consumers would need to adjust their disposal processes, and businesses pay for transporting old electronics to recycling facilities as opposed to continue disposing of them in landfills. Promisingly, for the many companies that already dispose of their electronics in a responsible manner, the costs are negligible. Furthermore, there are now fines in place in the US targeting companies that improperly dispose of e-waste. In 2015, for example, Comcast was forced to pay almost $26 million to California due to laws already in place in that state. 13 Similarly, Big Lots, Dolgen California (owner of Dollar General), and Apple have likewise had to pay millions of dollars in fines for improper e-waste disposal. 14 Nevertheless, it is clear that more incentives are needed in order to encourage further change on the part of business. This is where a program such as the one in Switzerland could play a key role, through the provision of assistance as well as cost-sharing incentives. By combining these models both Japan s burden sharing approach and by implementing a system such as that currently in place in Switzerland other countries like the United States could create comprehensive systems that effectively tackle the pressing problem of e-waste. Meanwhile, with the cooperation of manufacturers, businesses would not have to absorb all of the entailed costs. In this vein, the manufacturers would play backup for whatever costs businesses prove unable to afford, for example managing transportation and disposal costs. If the involved parties are brought to agreement, e-waste can be disposed of properly and in a less expensive manner. Indeed, the systems in Switzerland and Japan work largely because they are voluntary. Voluntary programs are effective because businesses are given the opportunity to experiment with new programs without excessive upfront regulation. At the same time, there are often financial rewards for compliance, depending on how great the need for cooperation is. The consumers and businesses involved have been found to view participation in such programs as a privilege rather than a limitation. 15 That said, in order for these systems to be voluntary in a country 4 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It
like the United States, a large number of leading companies and manufacturers would need to first come to an agreement on how to remodel the current structure of operations. In sum, despite the existence of policies designed to promote sustainable e-waste disposal, there still remain significant implementation challenges. One such challenge is the fact that there is currently no set way to ensure that businesses follow the regulations in question. There are, in other words, no penalties for ignoring such policies at present. The amount of e-waste continues to grow each year, and without suitable enforcement mechanisms this will become even more of a global problem. Yet another challenge, in the US context, is incentivizing American companies to purchase green electronics. Currently, the government provides no economic incentives for businesses to purchase sustainably produced technology. If programs such as the ones already in place in Japan and Switzerland are to be successfully realized in countries like the United States, more cooperation will be needed on all sides from the consumer to the manufacturer in order to provide the necessary incentives to innovate. Rebecca Adams is a Research Fellow at the Climate Institute. Notes 1 Brett H. Robinson, E-Waste: An Assessment of Global Production and Environmental Impacts, Science of the Total Environment 408, no. 2 (2009): 183 91, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.09.044. 2 Ibid. 3 Hong-Gang Ni et al., Environmental and Human Exposure to Persistent Halogenated Compounds Derived from E-Waste in China, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 29, no. 6 (June 1, 2010): 1237 47, https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.160. 4 Brian K. Gullett et al., PCDD/F, PBDD/F, and PBDE Emissions from Open Burning of a Residential Waste Dump, Environmental Science & Technology 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 394 99, https://doi.org/10.1021/es902676w. 5 Hong-Gang Ni, Mass Emissions of Pollutants from E-Waste Processed in China and Human Exposure Assessment, 2012, 9. 6 Ibid., 19. 7 Jason Lim, E-Waste & Climate Change, Solid Waste & Recycling 16, no. 2 (May 2011): 14 15. 5 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It
8 OSWER US EPA, National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship (NSES), Overviews and Factsheets, US EPA, August 23, 2015, https://www.epa.gov/smm-electronics/nationalstrategy-electronics-stewardship-nses. 9 State Legislation Electronics TakeBack Coalition, accessed September 16, 2018, http://www.electronicstakeback.com/promote-good-laws/state-legislation/. 10 State Legislation Electronics TakeBack Coalition. 11 Agamuthu Pariatamby and Dennis Victor, Policy Trends of E-Waste Management in Asia, The Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management; Dordrecht 15, no. 4 (October 2013): 411 19, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10163-013-0136-7. 12 Deepali Sinha Khetriwal, Philipp Kraeuchi, and Rolf Widmer, Producer Responsibility for E- Waste Management: Key Issues for Consideration Learning from the Swiss Experience, Journal of Environmental Management 90, no. 1 (January 1, 2009): 153 65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2007.08.019. 13 Jessica Lyons Hardcastle, Comcast Dumps Hazardous Waste, Agrees to Pay $25.95 Million, Environmental Leader (blog), December 16, 2015, https://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/12/comcast-dumps-hazardous-waste-agreesto-pay-25-95m-settlement/. 14 Martin, 3 Ways to Properly Handle E-Waste and Avoid Paying Millions Of Dollars in Fines, Surplus Service, June 13, 2017, https://surplusservice.com/3-ways-properly-handle-e-wasteavoid-paying-millions-dollars/. 15 The Effectiveness of Voluntary Environmental Programs, Resources for the Future, July 20, 2015, http://www.rff.org/blog/2008/effectiveness-voluntary-environmental-programs. 6 The Climate Institute E-waste and How to Reduce It