It's time we stopped talking rubbish about e-waste - by peter judge

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Feb 21 2011)

1. 

   Last week over at eWEEK Europe UK, I said we are pissed off with WEEE. The line doesn’t really work in an international blog, but the issue certainly does.

   Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment or WEEE is a by-product of ICT, produced by data centers and front offices. The kit we throw away includes toxic materials, and governments are trying to keep that poisonous garbage out of our environment.

   There’s multiple ways to attack this. Make the manufacturer pay for the disposal of all the equipment they sell,when it comes to the end of its life. Make the consumer pay a higher price for electronic goods to cover the cost of recycling them.

   Another approach is to try and encourage people to repair and reuse equipment  or else sell it on, or give it to charities.

   All the approaches boil down to building the real cost of the materials and the necessary environmental care, into the economics of the product lifecycle. There have to be rules that prevent outright poisons getting into our hands, and into our living space, but beyond that there are grey areas - materials which are safe in the devices, but potentially toxic when disposed of.

   The US EPEAT rules are often said to work better than the European WEEE and RoHS (Restriction of hazardous substances) directives, as the EPEAT approach is about encouragement at the procurement stage, while Europe relies on regulations which are virtually impossible to enforce in an economy where the public sector is very tightly squeezed.

   The best approach to getting rid of WEEE - and its toxic constituents - responsibly is a combination of laws to prevent toxic material going into the machines, and incentives - carrots and sticks - to make sure they get pulled out of the waste stream safely. .

   Is it working? Well, I’d have to say no, as Greenpeace tells me there are still plenty of illegal shipments of electronic goods headed for the developing world - China, Africa and South America. Once there, their valuable chemicals are often reclaimed...  but people actually die in the process, as a vulnerable unprotected workforce struggles in horrendous conditions. 

   In the next few years, there will be fewer inspectors around, as governments cut back. Meanwhile, businesses feeling the pinch will cut corners on disposal - using unlicensed dumpers whose priority is simply to ship the garbage away quick and ask no questions about the harm it will do.

   However, there are people that want to keep this issue in the public eye, and companies in the field will be campaigning  in the UK and elsewhere, to improve the level of repair and reuse of electronic equipment.

   The problem in data centers is that old kit uses so much more power, that it is vastly more expensive to use, and - if you discount the embedded carbon and environmental costs of disposal - data  center managers feel greener junking it, because their energy bills and carbon footprint go down.

   But overall, the eventual fate of the equipment we use is our responsibility. If there are rules we have to obey on it, that may be a headache. But it’s also a pain if you want to dispose of equipment properly but can’t, simply because the ecosystem has not developed to make it happen.

   I’m running a poll on eWEEK to find out how aware people are of what happens to their old IT kit. I’d love to hear from you all. 

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