How Donating Electronics Can Help the Environment
By: Ben Baisinger-Rosen
It would be almost impossible to overstate the ubiquity of technology in the United States today. In every industry, technology is being leveraged to create increased efficiency and development. Despite the rapid development of new models of technology rendering older generations obsolete, the United States lacks a commensurate commitment to effectively managing electronic waste (e-waste) once an item has outgrown its usefulness. Indeed, while conventional recycling has become a societal norm, sustainable solutions to e-waste are harder to find, resulting in a variety of environmental concerns.
The United States generates a tremendous amount of electronic waste annually. We generate just under 7 million tons of e-waste per year. This level of waste generation is not an outlier. As a result of the growing size of the United States electronics and technology sectors, international economic agencies estimate that United States e-waste levels will surpass 80 million tons each year by the end of the decade. On its own, this level of waste would not automatically represent a problem. With effective procedures to properly manage e-waste, this amount of waste would likely have a negligible effect on the environment. However, as with most forms of waste, e-waste is generally not handled properly. Only around 17 percent of United States e-waste is properly recycled, with most of this waste finding itself in landfills.
High rates of e-waste buildup in landfills is dangerous because of the content of this waste. Most technological waste contains toxic chemicals like arsenic and lead, and because standard disposal practices in landfills involves either burying or burning e-waste, these chemicals get released into the atmosphere or leach into water sources and cause significant health impacts. Moreover, the negative effects of e-waste concentrations in landfills extend across the globe. A large chunk of the United States’ e-waste is exported abroad, resulting in a huge number of international communities affected by the harms of e-waste buildup in landfills, while also disproportionately exposing lower-income individuals, women, and children tasked with recovering valuable resources from e-waste landfills to the harmful effects of e-waste.
Inaction is not an acceptable solution. E-waste is the fastest growing solid waste stream in the world, increasing at a rate 3 times faster than the world’s population. As such, there are a number of choices that individual consumers can and must make to prevent e-waste from finding its way into landfills. The first is being more selective with how we treat electronics and when we decide to get rid of a device. Even if many Americans have become better at holding on to phones and laptops for longer periods of time, we should strive to establish a norm of using devices as long as possible to cut down on the growth of e-waste. Similarly, as phone trade-ins are becoming an increasingly popular feature of cell phone contracts, consumers should continue to hold companies accountable for improper e-waste disposal. For example AT&T was sued for improper e-waste disposal, and as a result, implemented more stringent disposal practices. If consumers demonstrate that they are willing to punish companies for harmful practices, companies will respond with more effective e-waste management. On a related note, as with every environmental problem, a key part of a solution is lobbying the government and using your vote, both to support domestic legislation and encourage the creation of international agreements addressing e-waste.
Finally, the most direct way to prevent e-waste from entering landfills is donating electronics to licensed e-waste disposal firms like JustUsed Tech. SWAP has partnered with JustUsed Tech in their mission to pair environmental sustainability in the form of tech recycling with donations to communities in Africa that have been underexposed to the benefits technology can provide. Companies like JustUsed Tech recycle e-waste responsibly to reuse valuable resources while avoiding the harmful effects of traditional disposal of electronics. SWAP will be placing a specialized bin at our storefront where WashU students can donate tablets, computers, phones, printers, and keyboards to be recycled by JustUsed Tech.
As technology becomes an increasingly dominant aspect of global life, we must not lose sight of the necessity of using it responsibly. For every computer that can make a difference in the right hands, there is an old laptop buried in a landfill leaching toxic chemicals into groundwater. With small adjustments to how we handle electronics at the end of their life cycle, we can create positive environmental change at every level.