electronic waste: what's here and what's next by stephanie alarcon

8/9/2019 Electronic Waste: What's Here and What's Next by Stephanie Alarcon

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Stephanie Alarcn16 Jul 2010

Electronic Waste:What's Here and What's Next


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Hi, I'm Stephanie!

Sysadmin and MES student @ UPenn

Board, not plank, of Hive76

Plant nerd Advocate of the safety bicycle


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Agenda

Why I'm here

What is e-waste and why care?

What's the life cycle?

What laws govern it, and how well?

What can we do and where do we need

brains?

What industries are in a similar position?


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Why I'm Here

Computers + tree-hugging -> e-waste

Sysadmins have to chuck servers

Regulatory policy and environmentaljustice


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I'm notX, therefore I don't know jackabout Y.

Chemist

Materials engineer

Any kind of

engineer

Economist

Structure of substances,health implications

Feasible alternative

materials

Better chemical andmechanical processes

Detailed modeling of otherways of doing business


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What is it and why care?

What is considered e-waste

Quantities, growth predictions

What's in it

Why it's hard to take apart

Risks, costs and externalities


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What is e-waste or WEEE?


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We make a lot of it

Do you manage physical infrastructure?

What's the average lifespan?

How big is your personal stash of crap?

How much have you tossed?


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How much is a lot?

Measuring is tough

Sales data X life span Estimates from volume of junk

Municipal vs. non-municipal waste


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No, really, how much?

24 devices per US household (CEA)

US: 5-7M tons junked every year, EU 10.3M

new devices/year 3B units potential scrap 2003-2010 in US

(IAER)

US Gov't 10K/week!

US: 82% landfilled, 18% recycled


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Moore's Law applies to waste, too

Fastest-growing component of USmunicipal waste and Europeanmanufacturing waste

1998 - 2007: doubled

EU is changing collection goals from per-person to % of sales


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It contains valuable stuff

Conflict diamonds? Conflict coltan

Peak oil? Peak tantalum

Coal mountaintop removal? Goldmining


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20 tons mine production ->18ct ring


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40-800 X more concentrated than ore Only 30% of world's gold from scrap

1 ton boards > 17 tons ore


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Fimiston Open Pit (Kalgoorlie Super Pit)Western Australia


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Contact circuitry

Copper

Gold

Platinum Nickel

Cobalt

Tungsten Molybdenum


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So we're sitting on a gold mine?

Awesome!

Then why is tracking waste so hard?

And why is reclaiming the good stuff sohard?

And why are we sending so much tothe dump and to Asia and Africa?


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The good stuff is hard to get to

Lots of screws and glue

Desolder components

Dissolve and precipitate gold De-vein or burn copper cables

Plastic hard to identify and recycle

Takes time and energy (stamina and BTUs)to extract the good stuff


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It contains nasty stuff

Lead 6.3%

Beryllium

Cadmium

Barium

PVC

Mercury

PCBs [disambiguationneeded!]

Brominated Flame Retardants (PBB or PBDE)


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Stupid (&) expensive system

Well, I think so anyway, but I'm not aneconomist

Planned obsolescence: 3 years? Really?

No take-back, little design for the environment Why can't everything be as swappable as a PCI

card?

Leasing?


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Exports

Labor is cheaper abroad and scrap prices arelow, so we export

Legal in US

Hard to track, hard to enforce When we say recycle, we usually mean

export


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Data security: Lolwhut?

BAN Digital Dump: European forensicsuncovered child welfare data

Frontline Digital Dumping Ground:Northrup Grumman federal contracts

Hard drives scoured for scams


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Disassembly is tough and dangerous

Goes where labor is cheap andregulations are lax

Those places tend to have poor people

and bad worker protection Perfect storm for environmental injustice

Good Magazine has a great summary

video


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It devastates people and places

Acid rivers

Wrecked water supply

Hazardous soil

Lianjiang River: 1338 X EPA safechromium level, 600 X cadmium level


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It screws up markets

Used computers depress local techmarkets, like used clothing and textiles

Junk donations get dumped

25-75% of shipments are useless


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Workers take on huge risk

Fumes, flame retardants from burntcables and plastics, gold dissolution,desoldering

Scant protection from nitric andhydrochloric acid

Children smash CRT lead curtain to get tocooper yoke

Plastic ID by smell


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Guiyu, China2008 Basel Action Network (BAN).


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This is environmental

and economic injustice.


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What

Africaneeds...

is the abilityto meet its

own local need.

-Shina Badaru,Founder, editor ofTechnology Times


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Life cycle

Resource usage

Manufacture and waste

Disposal

Broadening life cycle analysis


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Life cycle

Best: cradle-to-cradle

Better than nothing: cradle-to-grave

What we do: cradle-to-checkout


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Chip manufacture

Source: E. Williams, Environmental impacts of

microchip manufacture, UN University

S Fi P i t


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Doping gases Boron Phosphorus Argon Arsine

Silane Phosphine Arsenic Antimony Beryllium Chromium Selenium

Chip Etching Acid: hydrofluoric nitric,

phosphoric, sulfuric

Ammonia

Fluoride

Sodium hydroxide (lye)

Isopropyl alchohol

Methyl-3-methoxypropionate

Tetramethylammonium hydroxide

Hydroxyl monoethanolamine Acetone

Chromium trioxide

Methyl ethyl ketone

Methyl alcohol

Xylene

Some Fine Print


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Energy and Water Use

Only 25% of energy used for a 32MB DRAM chip isduring use. The rest is manufacture.

6000 MJ to make a computer

Semiconductor site: 4 million gallons of water / day

1 DRAM chip: 32,000 liters

W b f l


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Waste before sale

Electronics: 70% of hazardous waste 2 pounds of waste per pound of computer,

1/3 hazardous

Nasty stuff ends up in our food, our water,and us


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Then we use it for a while...

Th it' b l t


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Then it's obsolete.

Trash landfill (82%)

Stash

234.6M devices stored in homes as of 2007 (EPA)Donate

Great, but then recipient is responsible for disposal

Recycle

Voluntary audit like E-Stewards.org

Export: 10.2 million computers from US to Asia in2002 alone

I ' ll b l ?


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It's really obsolete?

Glass gets recycled domestically No domestic market for plastic until recent

green marketing

CRT monitor export 10X more profitablethan recycling

Trade imbalance: US exports more junk

tech than new tech

Lease vs Own?


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Lease vs. Own?

Buy the use, not the object UNEP researchers in Germany are

interested

Seems to be working for solar panels Makes MakerBunny cry :-(

D t i li ti


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Dematerialization

In the future, everything is made of aether,right? Don't we use less?

Tiny cell phones -> less landfill waste?

2 gram microchip: 1600 grams of fuel andchemicals

Materials used: 630 X the mass of the

final product


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...The amount of materials...is hundreds, if not

thousands of times greater than the quantity

actually embodied in the chip. ...It means that

people like Alan Greenspan...who have cited

microelectronics as an example of radical

"dematerialization" have misunderstood the

situation...

-Eric Williams, United Nations University

Wh t if f t t k t th t h?


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What if manufacturers took out the trash?

Why should my city dump carry amanufacturer's disposal costs?

End of contract swap?

If substances are rare and the stuff iseasy to disassemble, manufacturersshould want their stuff back to reuse.

Whoah, that makes sense!


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But toxicity is cheap...

For some definition of cheap.

Better way: EPR


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Better way: EPR

Extended Producer Responsibility! See: John McNabb's talk earlier today

Design for the Environment, REACH

standards HP: Ideally, from the manufacturer's point

of view, they'd like to get their own stuffback.

Even industry wants regulation


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Even industry wants regulation

Even playing field No guessing at new regulations

4 State programs carry $25M of dead

weight


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Regulation and Enforcement

Basel Convention

EU US Federal and State Voluntary efforts

Basel Convention


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Basel Convention

Gold standard of international hazmat treaties Signed 1992, 172 parties

Covers generation, management,transboundary movement of waste

Guess who's not a signatory?

EU: WEEE and RoHS


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EU: WEEE and RoHS

WEEE: Manufacturerresponsibility

RoHS: Restriction of

HazardousSubstances

Impact of RoHS: raceto the top

WEEE Small Container


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WEEE Small Container

With a convenient double entry self closing lid theTaylor WEEE Bin is ideally suited for the collection ofsmall WEEE. - Taylor, UK manufacturer of metal bins

US Federal Law


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US Federal Law

CRT Rule: call ahead before you dump!

Kind of sucks

GAO says: Treat e-waste as hazardous

Ratify Basel

Work with Customs and BorderProtection

States with E-Waste Laws


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States with E-Waste Laws

Source: Electronics Take Back Coalition

23 states, 61% of US population now covered!

Voluntary Efforts


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Voluntary Efforts

Moral high ground, economic quicksand

E-Stewards.org

EPA Design for the Environment, Plug-Into eCycling

Electronic Product EnvironmentalAssessment Tool (EPEAT)

Lots more


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Systemic solutions

IT industry contributions

Where we need good ideas

What can we do?

So how do we fix this?


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So how do we fix this?

Simple! Just:

Ditch planned obsolescence

Make cradle-to-cradle viable

Write good regulations and enforce them

Develop safe in-field processing

Deploy cutting-edge recycling facilities


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First, get amilliondollars.

Simple,

not easy

:-(

Who's fighting the good fight?


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Who s fighting the good fight?

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), E-Stewards

Basel Action Network (BAN), Basel Convention nations

Electronics TakeBack Coalition

State governments Government Accountability Office (GAO)

UNEP, UN University

Design for the environment competitions and programs

South Africa ewaste facility, Chicago disassembly program

EU and Asian nations with decent laws and accountability (RoHS)

E-waste action centers at Universities

What are they up against?


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What are they up against?

It's the economy, stupid.

US environmental law: CERCLA andRCRA incompatible with Basel Convention?

Limitations of replacement substances

Non-lead solder has its own problems

Enforcement gaps

Who has time to chase shipping containers?

What can tech workers do?


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at ca tec o e s do

Demand longer support contracts

Gartner suggests 5-year for data warehousing

SANs can take 3 years just to deploy and

decomission Demand hardware and packaging take-back

Team up and negotiate collectively

Use an audited recycler E-Stewards.org

Make Friends, Influence People


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, p

Schmooze your facilities folks

In PA, nag about electricity deregulation

Search your employer's website for anythinggreen or sustainable, and use that as amandate to act

Make the case for upfront costs


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p

TCO vs initial purchase estimates can help

VMWare invites you to use its ROI/TCOcalculator! www.vmware.com/go/calculator

Blades reduce over-redundancy, promotesnap-in parts, possibly lower power andcooling

Most data from vendors, not much peer-reviewed sysadmin research

Hard to do if your organization balks. But if yourleadership is going green or you're the boss


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leadership is going green or you re the boss...

Promote Green IT!...like a boss

Brains needed!


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Safer materials

Better design cradle tocradle, EPR, Design for env,

opposite of plannedobsolescence

How to convince manufacturers and customers Safer in-field processing harm reduction

Economic models of how to fund quality recycling Better regulations and enforcement

What industries could facesimilar issues?


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similar issues?

Solar, especially PV

Biofuels? Algae-based fuels?

Nanotech

Selected Sources


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High Tech Trash Elizabeth Grossman

GAO 8/2008, Electronic Waste: EPA Needs toBetter Control Harmful U.S. Exports through

Stronger Enforcement and More ComprehensiveRegulation

BAN: Exporting Harm and Digital Dump

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC)

Eric Williams, UNEP/UN University program

Selected Sources

Wrap up


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This presentation (next week):Scribd.com/greenthumbgeek

Contact: [email protected]

Questions and discussion!

Wrap up
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

electronic waste: what's here and what's next by stephanie alarcon

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