Tag: producers

Developing Biodegradable Electronic Products

The new wave of technology

As discussed in a previous post, one response to increased producer responsibility is the development of new technologies to make electronic products more sustainable by design. With this has come a new wave of technology, and the emergence of biodegradable products as a more viable and sustainable future for the electronics industry.

New materials have been created in the push to invent more biodegradable electronic products (DeWeerdt, 2017).

A group of scientists from Stanford University managed to create a new semiconductive polymer which can decompose upon contact to weak acid (Lei et al., 2017). By using this material to make electronic devices, such devices can completely disintegrate within a month when treated with mild acid. The acid required is also so mild that the natural environment alone could probably provide appropriate conditions to break down the polymer, according to the researchers.

This is the future of electronic devices. With such advancements in research and technology, biodegradable electronic products will become more and more viable, allowing for non-biodegradable products to be gradually phased out. Hopefully, this will reduce the amount of e-waste generated, if electronic devices themselves become absorbable into the natural environment.

References

DeWeerdt, S. (2017). Totally biodegradable electronics could help solve e-waste problem. Anthropocene. Retrieved 27 March 2022, from https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2017/05/totally-biodegradable-electronics-could-help-solve-e-waste-problem/.

Lei, T., Guan, M., Liu, J., Lin, H., Pfattner, R., Shaw, L., McGuire, A. F., Huang, T., Shao, L., Cheng, K., Tok, J. B. -., & Bao, Z. (2017). Biocompatible and totally disintegrable semiconducting polymer for ultrathin and ultralightweight transient electronics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS, 114(20), 5107-5112. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1701478114.

The Extended Producer Responsibility System

Who’s responsible for e-waste?

It’s the age-old debate of who’s responsible for the management of e-waste—is it the consumers, or the producers?

We could spend forever debating this topic, but it’s undeniable that both sides have some part to play to a certain extent. In order to hold producers more accountable, extended producer responsibility (EPR) principles have been established as part of e-waste regulation strategies worldwide.

The management process of e-waste as framed by EPR, which can help to drive a zero-waste circular economy (Zero Waste Scotland, n.d.).

The OECD defines EPR as an environmental policy approach, whereby producers’ responsibility for a product extends to the post-consumer stage of the product’s life cycle (OECD, 2016). This effectively places the responsibility for tackling e-waste on the corporations which are producing and selling electronic products.

Countries around the world have their own variations of EPR-driven policies. In Switzerland, the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the Advance Recycling Fee (AFR) policy exist to ensure that producers and importers of electronic goods manage the e-waste generated (Adanu, 2020). Across the globe in Japan, the Home Appliance Recycling Law, which went into force in 2001, which dictates that producers have to consider product recycling in the design and production of their products (Cao et al., 2016).

EPR-driven schemes are just one way in which a zero-waste circular economy could be achieved. In future posts, we’ll talk more about innovative ways in which producers have approached EPR regulations.

References

Adanu, S. K., Gbedemah, S. F., & Attah, M. K. (2020). Challenges of adopting sustainable technologies in e-waste management at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Heliyon, 6(8), e04548-e04548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04548.

Cao, J., Lu, B., Chen, Y., Zhang, X., Zhai, G., Zhou, G., Jiang, B., & Schnoor, J. L. (2016). Extended producer responsibility system in China improves e-waste recycling: Government policies, enterprise, and public awareness. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 62, 882-894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.04.078.

OECD. (2016). Extended producer responsibility: updated guidance for efficient waste management. OECD Publishing, Paris. Retrieved 24 March 2022, from https://doi-org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1787/9789264256385-en.

Zero Waste Scotland. (n.d.). Extended Producer Responsibility. Retrieved 24 March 2022, from https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/our-work/extended-producer-responsibility.

Pollution Crime: The Illegal E-Waste Trade

The great escape

Let’s think back to the post on the Khian Sea Waste Disposal Incident, and the creation of the Basel Convention international treaty to stop transboundary movement of e-waste. Hopefully, that’s helped to reduce e-waste exportation from developed to developing countries, right?

Wrong.

Even despite legislation such as the Basel Convention, the movement of e-waste from developed to developing nations continues even today. By exploiting legislative loopholes, countries have found “innovative” ways to bypass such regulations and continue shipping their e-waste to developing nations. For instance, one of the amendments to the Basel Convention permits the trade of second-hand or used electrical and electronic equipment (UEEE) or recycling materials. This was added with the intention of increasing access to technology for the underprivileged, but has however backfired.

The Basel Action Network (BAN) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to fight against toxic trade and prevent prevent pollution dumping in underprivileged areas (Basel Action Network, n.d.).

A group of researchers from MIT partnered with the BAN to test this legislative loophole (Carcamo, 2018). They planted hidden trackers in 17 cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors and disposed of the monitors in e-waste collection sites in Los Angeles, California. According to the researchers, 6 of the 17 monitors were smuggled to Asian countries like Malaysia and China. This highlights how countries have found ways to successfully get around international laws policing e-waste and avoid complying with them.

By exploiting the amendment in the Basel Convention, e-waste thus continues to be exported for disposal in countries outside its generation. According to a report by the UNODC (2013), an estimated 8 million tons of e-waste gets smuggled into China every year. The e-waste is channelled through places like Hong Kong, which is a free port and has become a central hub for e-waste trafficking. The BAN has successfully tracked shipments of CRTs which managed to evade customs control in Hong Kong and were stored in the New Territories area in Hong Kong, before eventually being transported across the border via trucks (UNODC, 2013).

It is apparent that legislation like the Basel Convention remains inadequate in preventing the trade of e-waste between developed and developing nations. While organisations like the BAN have spearheaded crackdowns on such illegal activities, this is clearly not enough to tackle the massive amount of e-waste that continues to be smuggled illegally across the world. It is time to re-evaluate whether the Basel Convention and other forms of related legislation should be updated and reviewed to address this issue.

References

Basel Action Network. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved 18 March 2022, from https://www.ban.org/about-us.

Carcamo, A. M. (2018). How to combat electronic waste trafficking? The path may be tracking. Yale Environment Review. Retrieved 18 March 2022, from https://environment-review.yale.edu/how-combat-electronic-waste-trafficking-path-may-be-tracking.

Purchase, D., Abbasi, G., Bisschop, L., Chatterjee, D., Ekberg, C., Ermolin, M., Fedotov, P., Garelick, H., Isimekhai, K., Kandile, N. G., Lundström, M., Matharu, A., Miller, B. W., Pineda, A., Popoola, O. E., Retegan, T., Ruedel, H., Serpe, A., Sheva, Y., . . . Wong, M. H. (2020). Global occurrence, chemical properties, and ecological impacts of e-wastes (IUPAC technical report). Pure and Applied Chemistry, 92(11), 1733-1767. https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2019-0502.

UNODC. (2013). Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment – East Asia and the Pacific. Retrieved 18 March 2022, from https://www.unodc.org/documents/toc/Reports/TOCTA-EA-Pacific/TOCTA_EAP_c09.pdf.