Don’t Throw That Cell Phone in the Garbage!

If you’ve read some of the previous blogs, you’ve gotten a pretty good understanding of E-Waste, which really just refers to the waste of electronic devices such as computers, hardware, TVs, and other common household electronics. But there’s an underlying misunderstanding that many consumers may have about E-waste. Sure, it may be compelling to just throw away a really old computer or TV that’s just taking up space in your house and doesn’t really work anymore. But what you might be overlooking is the fact that doing so actually has a much bigger impact than you might think.

How is the impact of E-Waste any different from regular waste?

The difference lies in the fact that E-waste means that you’re throwing away things that are electronic, which have more toxic chemicals than say…a water bottle. Tossing these in the trash can be extra hazardous to the environment that they’re going to be transported to, such as landfills or the ocean. Here are some significant environmental impacts of E-waste:

1. Release of Toxic Chemicals: Many electronic devices that you throw out can contain hazardous substances like mercury, lead, cadmium, brominated flame retardants, and PVC plastics. When someone improperly disposes of electronic devices, which many consumers are prone to doing, these toxic chemicals can end up in the soil and water, which can create BIG problems for our ecosystems in the future. Think before you toss your TV into your trash can, or the next time you turn on your faucet your water may be an unappetizing shade of brown!
2. Depletion of Valuable Resources: Along with those toxic chemicals we talked about, these electronics have a lot of valuable materials like copper, silver, gold, and other precious earth metals that our economy values greatly, so greatly that we often use vast amounts of resources to extract them from the earth. If we just throw away these metals that are in our electronics, we’re wasting materials that could be repurposed. If we salvage these electronics for their useful parts, we could reuse them and help reduce issues like habitat destruction, ecosystem disruption, and deforestation that occur as a result of us farming these metals.
3. Energy Consumption: Lots of energy was put into creating all of our electronic devices. In order to conserve energy in an ever-developing world with serious climate change looming over the horizon, we need to make sure that we can keep our devices running for as long as possible and recycle them when we are done using them.
4. Greenhouse Gases: Just like the farm animal, the cow, produces methane, E-waste that is sitting in landfills does the same! The production of electronics releases many greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which depletes our environment greatly.
5. It’s Socially Unjust: A sad reality that we face is that because developed nations have regulations on E-waste, they export it to underdeveloped countries which don’t have such regulations. As a result, these 3rd-world countries are overflowing with E-waste that has not been properly handled, which creates many environmental problems for the surrounding populations.

Seeing how drastic it can be to the environment to create E-waste, it’s our responsibility as consumers and as members of our communities that we properly dispose of our electronics in a way that minimizes the detrimental impact it can have on the economy. That’s right, you need to resist the urge to throw away that clunky 2010 Dell computer and think about dropping it off at a local E-waste disposal site! I thank you for taking time out of your day to breeze over this blog, as this is just the first step in the right direction to helping save the environment!