Disposal of E-­‐Waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem Honors Undergraduate Thesis
Meaghan Owens Spring 2015
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
Table of Contents A BSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... 2
I.
I NTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 2
II. D EVELOPMENT AND A NALYSIS OF THE E-W ASTE P ROBLEM .....................................................7
I.
B ACKGROUND .........................................................................................................................7
II .
E CONOMICS OF E-W ASTE .................................................................................................... 10
III .
E-W ASTE IN THE U NITED S TATES ........................................................................................ 13
IV .
I MPACTS OF E-W ASTE ON THE E COSYSTEM ......................................................................... 16
A.
T HE E NVIRONMENT .......................................................................................................... 16
b.
H UMAN H EALTH .............................................................................................................. 20
V.
E-W ASTE M ANAGEMENT ..................................................................................................... 24
A.
U NITED S TATES ................................................................................................................ 24
B.
E UROPEAN U NION (EU) .................................................................................................. 28
C.
C HINA ............................................................................................................................... 34
III.
S USTAINABLE S OLUTIONS .................................................................................................... 42
IV.
C ONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................... 45
V.
W ORKS C ITED .......................................................................................................................... 47 1
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
ABSTRACT One of the major global environmental issues is concomitant with the disposal of wastes.
Among several types of wastes electronic waste are considered the one of fastest growing.
Recent studies estimated that in 2012 global generation of e-waste totaled 45.6 million metric
tons. Some study also report projected that by 2017 global e-waste will increase a further 33%
from 49.7 million to 65.4 million tons per annum. Due to unrestrained rise in e-waste production
and disposals practices, the global community is trying to shape up various regulatory apparatus
to contain environmental and ecosystem impacts. It is believed that large volume of e-wastes is
legally and illegally traded to least developed countries. Informal and formal recycling practices
in developing countries are key center of attention. Most of the recent scientific studies are
primarily focusing on connections of inappropriate handling and health effects of workers in
developing nations. Significant number of studies also laid emphasis on degradation of
ecosystem health. Many researchers see an imminent concern of global tragedy, if appropriate
measures are not taken. These study reports and experts views warrants that producing developed
nations to consider developing an effective plan for collection, disposal, and remedy of e-waste.
Key Words: Electronic Waste, E-waste, impacts, disposal, management, heavy metals
I.
INTRODUCTION Electronic waste consists of white goods and brown goods. White goods are the larger
appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines and microwaves. Brown goods are the
smaller items such as televisions, radios and computers. The disposal of electronic devices has
begun to cause because of the volume that is being created each year. Electronic waste is only
considered “disposed” when the electronic device is going into the trash or is being recycled. It
does not include e-waste products that are not being used anymore but are stored in homes and
offices (EPA, 2011).
E-waste mainly consists of discarded appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines
and microwaves as well as old computers, radios, televisions and cell phones which contain
plastics, glass, and precious metals. Once these devices become outdated or broken, they get
disposed of by going to landfills or recycling plants. Most of the time, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency, the electronic waste is put into landfills with only twenty2
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
seven percent of all e-waste being recycled (EPA, 2011). The seventy-three percent of the
electronics that get disposed of in the United States go into landfills or incinerators where the
heavy metals like lead, mercury, cadmium, and copper can seep out into the ground through the
leachate (rainwater that has percolated through the landfill). Landfills are created to prevent
leachate seeping into the ground by adding a device that catches it and returns it to the surface
where the contaminated water can be treated and then put back into the environment. Old
televisions and computers used cathode ray tubes that contain between four to eight pounds of
lead, or newer computers and televisions that use mercury lamps can create a hazardous
environment if those heavy metals and plastics go through incinerators or seep through the
landfill linings (Jaragh and Boushahri, 2009). Incineration results in both toxic solid and gaseous
waste products and the ash and smoke become toxic. Once enough ash has been collected, it will
get deposited into a landfill where the creation of leachate can become a concern (EPA, 2014).
Twenty-seven percent of e-waste is recycled while the rest of the e-waste is typically
shipped, illegally, to poorer countries to recycle and reuse. Some of the waste that had been
recycled in the United States will also get shipped overseas, making the amount of e-waste being
shipped to other countries around 80% of all the waste that is collected (Robinson, 2009). The
two major countries that import the to-be recycled e-waste are China and India, which are known
for using primitive e-waste recycling methods. Primitive or informal e-waste recycling methods
are defined as the methods that do not use proper infrastructure or safety precautions when
burning or dismantling an electronic device. Because primitive e-waste recycling methods lack
equipment, it can be extremely hazardous because these methods can release heavy metals into
the environment harming the ecosystem and human health around the e-waste recycling areas.
(Electronic Waste, 2015). The release of mercury or lead into the environment at high levels can
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
become ingested or inhaled and then cause neurological damage, especially at the young age or
in the fetus and infant development period (EPA, 2010). The release of high levels of cadmium
from primitive e-waste process can cause respiratory, cardiovascular, renal, and skeletal effects
in humans and other animals living in the areas nearby (EPA, 2014).
This contamination into the ecosystem occurs most often when methods of disposing ewaste are primitive. Guiyu, China and the methods that town uses result in the majority of its
citizens becoming ill and experience side effects of chronic exposure to these heavy, and toxic,
metals. In developing countries uncontrolled dumpsites also create hazards for the environment
and human health since the dumps are often left unmonitored, open and unsecure (UNEP, 2011).
However, despite the harm that the disposal of e-waste can create, it is still an enormous part of a
developing country’s economy, especially in the rural areas. Because of globalization, China has
been able to gain a strong GDP by importing e-waste and building, creating and supporting their
infrastructure for e-waste. With the increasing dependence on technology and electronic devices
it is impossible to escape the inevitable enormous quantities of e-waste that are being created
currently and will be created in the future. As such, proper disposal of e-waste is imperative to
the health of the ecosystem, including the environment and human health (Joines, 2012).
Internationally, there have been many ways countries have tried to control the disposal of
electronic waste. In the European Union, there are two major legislative pieces that require the
safe disposal of e-waste. They are called Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
and Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). This has set the international stage for proper
e-waste disposal and China is also following in the European Union’s footsteps, hoping to have
the restrictions and technology for recycling put into place by 2020. To catch up with the rest of
the developed world, the United States needs to also implement similar restrictions on their
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
electronic equipment and offer more incentives for the producers and consumers to recycle and
dispose of their e-waste properly.
To date, the United States has left the management, collection and regulations up to the
states and the consumers to recycle. The Environmental Protection Agency has instead been
tasked to encourage citizens to recycle their electronic equipment out of social conscience.
Recycling e-waste still remains completely voluntary. The National Strategy for Electronics
Stewardship was created combining the efforts of the white house, the EPA and the General
services Administration. To curb the mismanagement of e-waste, the National Strategy for
Electronics Stewardship (2011) wants to build incentives to build greener and less hazardous
products, promote take-back programs with the companies that sell electronics, and establish a
trade flow that complies with the Basel Convention trans-boundary regulations for hazardous
waste. The proper management of electronic waste problem is a massive problem that needs to
be regulated and monitored through the cradle-to-grave. Cradle-to-grave is stated in the
hazardous waste regulations the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) where
hazardous waste is monitored from when it first produced to when it gets disposed of (Hazardous
Waste Regulations, 2015).
Consumerism and the need for new electronics every time a new model comes out needs
to be discouraged and management practices need to be established to achieve a sustainable and
safe way to dispose of e-waste. To decrease consumerism, it is essential to change the mentality
of the citizens. This would include, but not be limited to, changing how people perceive
electronics (i.e. changing the value of the electronic device mentally) and changing the stigma
that the electronic device needs to be exchanged for a newer model every few years. By
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
decreasing consumerism, it would decrease the demand for electronics and then in extension,
decrease the disposal of electronics.
The purpose of this paper is to examine and critique the way electronic waste is disposed
of and managed after it has left the consumer’s sight. Specifically, this paper looks at how
electronic waste is managed in three different countries (the United States, China and the
European Union) and assessment of the different laws and legislation that have been put into
place. This paper will also look at how the improper and primitive e-waste recycling in the
developing countries can impact the ecosystem in ways of health and the environment from
various studies conducted at the e-waste recycling sites.
The paper will conclude with sustainable solutions for the e-waste problems. The
solutions include combined efforts from governments, consumers, and companies in the
electronic industry. The governments from developing countries and developed countries both
need to begin to create infrastructure and legislation that will curb improper e-waste disposal.
The companies can aid this effort by encouraging electronic waste recycling. They can also help
the e-waste problem by boosting the longevity of the electronic product by making the product
last longer before it breaks and by helping to create a product that is desirable for a longer period
of time. Lastly, the consumer can become educated on the e-waste complication. Society and the
consumerism culture need to become less wasteful in their purchases of electronics so that the
demand of electronics is not so large.
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
II.
DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF THE E-­‐WASTE PROBLEM i.
BACKGROUND Electronic waste, or e-waste for short, is a quickly growing stream of municipal waste in the
United States. As the reliance and need for newer and more innovative technology continues to
draw in consumers, the more e-waste gets created. Electronic waste also gets thrown out due to
perceived obsolescence and planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence happens when the
manufacturers purposefully create the electronic device to break down or be obsolete within a set
amount of time with parts that break easily.
A percentage of the e-waste does not get disposed of and sits inside, unused, in homes
and offices. The seventy-five percent of e-waste that does get disposed of can either be recycled
or it can be trashed into landfills or incinerators. Figure 1 shows the relationship between the
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
trashed e-waste and the recycled e-waste from EPA data in 2012. For cell phones, EPA (2011)
estimates that roughly twenty percent of mobile phones are kept in storage after usage instead of
being recycled or thrown away. That type of waste includes refrigerators, computers, televisions,
radios and mobile phones. Electronics need to have a flow of energy in order to work. To get that
flow of energy, circuit boards are created with conductors, insulators and semi-conductors. The
conductors are in the circuit boards to allow electricity to run through the device, insulators are
made from glass and plastics and they keep the circuit from shorting out or getting too hot, and
semi-conductors are used to keep the current of electricity going but at a slower rate. The metals
used for semiconductors are silicon and germanium. The best conductors use metals like steel,
copper or aluminum to allow energy to pass through easily (“Basic knowledge of Electronic
Parts”). Lead is also good for being able to send signal from electronics because it is good for
solder on circuit boards (Black, 2005). In addition to having circuits for electricity, some of the
older electronics, like televisions, use cathode ray tubes which can project different colors.
Because they are so easy to make, they can be mass produced fast and have been around for
more than seventy years. They are no longer made anymore as they have been replaced with
mercury lamps (Gassler, 2012). Out of all the metals used in electronics, cadmium and lead are
by far the most toxic. Cadmium is very toxic because it can easily penetrate into plants and
agricultural crops that can be consumed. Lead is extremely toxic because it has a long residence
time and can climb up the food chain easily and remain there. Mercury is a used in electronics as
a lighting device to help illuminate flat screens. If released into the environment, mercury can be
converted into methyl mercury which can interfere and damage the development of fetuses
(Greenpeace).
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
To determine the approximate amount of how much waste of a certain item is created,
Robinson (2009) uses the formula E=MN/L where M is the mass of the item, N is the number of
units in service and L is the average lifespan of the item. This equation can be used to estimate
how long people own their devices. The author suggests that smaller items get replaced faster
than larger items (e.g. an air conditioning unit is expected to last twelve years and it weights
55kg while a cell phone weight .1kg and gets replaced every two years). In addition to
correlating the weight of a device to how long it is in use, Robinson also correlates the global
production as a function of that country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As a country starts to
get more income and have more money, the per capita use of computer and electronics also
grows, thus allowing the disposal of electrical waste to increase as well (Robinson, 2009).
There are a few ways electronic waste can be disposed. There is informal or primitive
recycling and there is formal e-waste recycling. In the European Union and 182 other countries,
e-waste is considered a hazardous waste which means that countries need to give and receive
permission to export and import hazardous wastes into other another country’s borders. This
agreement to monitor and regulate the harmful substances as called the Basel Convention on the
Control of the Trans-Boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their disposal was
established. Countries that signed onto this acknowledged that these items carried high toxicity
rates when burned or recycled due to their composition and thus “developed a framework for
controls on the trans-boundary movement of such waste” (Widmer et al., 2005). The United
States signed but did not ratify the Basel Convention. The majority of the United States’
electronic waste is sent to developing countries like China or India, legally because the Basel
Convention has not been ratified, where they dispose of the electronic waste using primitive or
informal methods, impacting the citizens’ health and the environment. “Approximately 10.2
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
million units of computers were exported annually from the United States to developing
countries, including China, India and Pakistan” (Wong et al., 2007). The United States often
ships the majority of its e-waste to landfills or incinerators. As e-waste continues to grow, it will
be important in the coming years to have firm rules and solutions to control the disposal of ewaste.
ii.
ECONOMICS OF E-­‐WASTE According to the United Nations Environment Program (2011), a total of 11.2 billion tons
of solid waste are collected each year. Ewaste is set to grow exponentially over the
next few years with the developing countries,
India, China South America and Africa,
making up the bulk of the electronic sales as
they catch up with the developed countries.
As economies strengthen, so do electronic
sales (Figure 2).
In 2014, consumers worldwide spent
$244 billion US dollars on electronics like computers, and mobiles. In 2015, the expected
buying trend for global devices (PCs, tablets, and mobile phones) shipments is to grow 2.8% to
2.5 billion units. Specifically, the mobile phone market is projected to grow 3.5% on the global
scale to 1.9 billion units (Van Der Meulen Gartner, 2015). This means as there is more
production and sales of electronic devices, there is more waste. Perceived obsolesce and planned
obsolesce are also very important to acknowledge when discussing e-waste because not only
does it change the economy, it also creates addition, unnecessary waste. Perceived obsolescence
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
is where the appeal of the electronic device changes and so the device gets thrown out because it
lost its desirability even if it is fully functional. Manufacturers purposefully enact planned
obsolescence because it causes a shorter lifespan of their products than the normal lifespan and
raises the demand for the product. This causes faster replacement for electronics. For example,
radios were once designed to only last three years. Planned obsolesce can also come in the form
of limited repair or cost of repair, which is when the repair for the electronic has a similar price
to just getting a new one. Faster replacement of an electronic can also come in the form of
upgraded, function enhancement or new design aesthetics to the electronic. This is enhanced
when cell phone companies offer cell phone upgrades every two years to keep the appeal of their
company to the customers. This leads to people unnecessarily upgrading the cell phones and
discarding the electronic devices into the e-waste stream (Guiltinan, 2009). In 2014, a survey
was conducted to examine what kind of e-waste went to developing countries and it was found
that roughly less than 95% of cell phones, televisions, digital cameras, and laptops were not
second-hand. Most of the electronic devices that had been discarded could have had a longer
lifespan, especially the consumer electronics since they were being replaced every couple of
years unlike the larger appliances that got changed out roughly every eight years (Chi et al.,
2014).
China specifically uses e-waste to boost its economy by breaking down the electronics
and taking out the raw material which is then re-circulated and reused rather than recycled
(Veenstra, 2010). Globally, China
creates the second largest volume of
e-waste. In 2001, the country only
produced 32.99 million units and in
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
2012, the number jumped to 229.66 million units. According to the United Nations, China is
expected to produce 7 times more mobile phone e-waste in 2020 compared to 2007. Figure 3
shows the relationship between China’s GDP per capita, urbanization rate and e-waste generated
from 2001 to 2012. The e-waste comes from households, institutions, or from equipment
manufacturers (Lu et al., 2015).
E-waste parts are highly sought after, especially cell phones, calculators, and circuit
boards where the precious metals make up 70% of the device’s value (Cui and Zang, 2008). The
metal that is recovered can be resold at different prices depending on which metal it is. For
example, in desktops, lead, which is one of the main metals found in electronic waste, can be
sold at $1.70 to $3.80 for 620-1373 grams. The aluminum found in electronics is usually around
680-960 grams which can be recovered and sold at $2.00 to $2.80 while copper can go from
anywhere between $12.00-$22.00 for 1370-2640 grams in a desktop. Platinum in the desktop can
go for $4.30 for only .066 grams. Getting the valuable metals from electronics can become very
profitable, especially in poorer areas of the world that do not have a lot of revenue or income.
Dismantling the electronic devices becomes a quick and easy way to get money, despite the
concerns that it could have on public health or the environment. It is estimated that the sales from
computers in the United States is roughly $90 billion and recycling the machines is roughly .3%
of the market— $270 million. In a developing country, one CRT computer can bring in $50
which is significant amount of money for those households (Williams et al., 2008). There is an
open market for recycling e-waste and that market seems to be primarily in developing countries
where unwanted electronic items or their parts can get recycled and reused and the citizens of the
countries can profit from it. Developing countries try and use whatever they can to boost their
economies. This includes recycling e-waste for whatever little profit they can get because they
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
can dismantle the electronic devices relatively cheaply. China, specifically, their economic
policy since 1977 has been “[economic] growth at any cost,” including health costs. Recently in
China, there has also been a trend of job loss in the agricultural fields as more and more people
are finding that they cannot feed their families on a farmer’s salary. This means that more people
in China are beginning to rely on other ways to get money, including recovering e-waste’s
precious metals (Joines, 2012).
The transfer of electronic goods from developed countries to developing countries was
studied by Breivik et al. (2014). The study was to examine the references of other data and try to
see how close the previous studies from 2005 have estimated the amount of e-waste being
exported from OECD countries to non-OECD countries. The amount, after looking at many
different studies from Guiya, China to Taizhou, China to Qingyuan, China, is around
4,900kt/year. Total, for all non-OECD countries has been estimated at roughly 5,023kt/year.
The economics of e-waste are complicated but what is certain is that developed countries
produce the most amount of e-waste and then developing countries import the e-waste from
developed countries to try and make some money to increase their economies.
iii.
E-­‐WASTE IN THE UNITED STATES In the United States, e-waste is treated as municipal solid waste and can be thrown into
landfills or be incinerated. Sixty-nine percent of that municipal waste is sent to landfills while
seven percent of the waste created was sent to incinerators and the remaining twenty-four percent
of the waste was recycled. Municipal waste can cause air, water and soil pollution, emit
greenhouse gases and cause health effects from being put into landfills or incinerators (Austin,
2013). These effects are even more prominent when disposing of electronic waste because of the
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
heavy metals, specifically leader and copper, and plastics, which can release toxic chemicals
when burned or incinerated, contained inside. Over the past few years, there has been a shift in
products being sold. Before, more cathode ray tube televisions were being sold, and now the
televisions sold are flat-panel televisions, which have transition from using more lead to using
more mercury. There is also a shift from computer monitors that use cathode ray tubes to
computers monitors that are flat. Cell phones are fairly recent in the sales for technology—
starting to pick up sales in 2000—however, the EPA has state that there is a tremendous amount
of opportunities to collect mobile phones. The EPA also concludes that Americans store a great
deal of electronics that they do not want in their storage spaces like basements or garages (EPA,
2011). In 2010, according to the EPA report released in 2010, almost half of the e-waste that gets
disposed is computers and monitors. Table 1 shows that computers made up 17% of total ewaste disposal with 423,000 tons and monitors made up 24% of total disposed e-waste with
595,000 tons disposed. In addition, both devices had a recycling rate of less than 50%. In total
for 2010, only 649,000 tons of e-waste were recycled, which consisted of only 27%. TV
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
peripherals, such as VCRs, DVD players, cable and satellite receivers, converter boxes and game
consoles were not included in this study (EPA, 2010).
When e-waste is recycled, according to the EPA (2010), 1 million cell phones can
recover roughly 50lbs of gold, 550lbs of silver, and 20lbs of platinum. In addition, one ton of
mobile phones can retrieve up to $15,000 in precious metals including, but not limited to, silver,
gold, palladium, and copper, and when recycling cell phones, reclaiming the aluminum can save
90% of the energy needed to mine for new aluminum. Developed countries, the ones that create
the most amount of e-waste do not recover these metals because it is considered expensive.
Instead, the developed countries send the electronic devices to developing countries where the
disassembly of e-waste is much cheaper (Joines, 2012).
Wealthy countries create and export more electronic waste than poorer countries, who are
usually the receivers of the hazardous waste as wealthy countries send their electronic waste. To
curb the wealthy countries and their waste disposal to poorer countries, the Basel Convention
was created through the United Nations in 1989 and put into practice in 1992 (UNEP, 2011). The
Basel Convention is composed of 170 countries that have all signed and agreed to monitor their
toxic waste and its disposal as it crosses over international borders. The Basel Convention
ensures that the country disposing of its hazardous waste, including electronic waste, is given
authorization by the country receiving the waste so that no illegal dumping occurs. In addition,
the Basel Convention makes countries responsible for disposing of their hazardous waste in the
most environmentally friendly way. The United States has signed but not ratified this convention
and is thus exempt from the governing laws. This has allowed the United States to ship its
electronic waste over to developing nations, commonly China or India, to be recycled or
disposed of (UNEP, 2011).
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
The raging growth of technology and need for newer and more advanced electronics, has
made the stream of e-waste become more rampant and prevalent than ever before. E-waste is the
fastest growing stream of waste because the “global market for PCs is far from saturation and the
average lifespan of a PC is rapidly decreasing— for instance for CPUs from 4–6 years in 1997 to
2 years in 2005.” In 2009, the United States alone created 2.37 million short tons of waste,
according to the EPA, with roughly 38% of all e-waste collected being computers. 500 million
PCs contain approximately 2,872,000 tonnes of plastics, 718,000 tonnes of lead, 1363 tonnes of
cadmium and 287 tonnes of mercury. These heavy metals cause enormous health problems in the
environment and to human health (Widmer et al., 2005).
iv.
IMPACTS OF E-­‐WASTE ON THE ECOSYSTEM a.
THE ENVIRONMENT As the e-waste disposal grows, it is important to look at the effects e-waste recycling has
on the environment. Specifically, it is important to look at the environment and how primitive
and informal e-waste recycling affects it because the methods used for melting, cutting, and
dismantling of the e-waste usually takes place in the open and there is more of a possibility for
transportation of heavy metals into the soil, water and biota. Lead (Pb), copper (Cu), and
cadmium (Cd) are the three main heavy metals that are the most concern because they persist in
the environment for a long time. They are also most likely to be found in plants or in paddy
fields due to atmospheric deposition (Luo et al., 2011).
India, as a developing country with a rapidly growing GDP also imports large volumes of
electronic waste to recycle and extract parts from the United States. The country lacks
infrastructure and resources to properly extract heavy metals. They rely on mostly informal and
primitive e-waste recycling methods that can impact the environment. In addition, India has their
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
own e-waste that is growing and the country’s citizens begin to buy newer technologies and
dispose of their old ones. Heavy metals that are released from the primitive e-waste methods are
likely to seep into the ground and contaminate the soil and water. The heavy metals can also go
into the atmosphere when primitive e-waste recycling methods are used. Plants can then take up
the heavy metals; this is especially dangerous for humans if the plants that take in the heavy
metals are agricultural crops that are consumed.
In India, Delhi is a known city where e-waste recycling takes place, specifically the
Mandoli region. A study was conducted in the North-East of Delhi, India where five sites were
chosen. From those five sites, soil, plant, and water samples were taken and examined. The
results shows that from the five sites, it was common to have heavy metal levels in the soil to be
extremely high with silver, cadmium, copper, lead, selenium and zinc. Figure 4 refers to the
levels of heavy metals in each site from the study conducted in India. The plant samples that had
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
also been taken were put through analysis showing that there was a difference in the biology of
the plants that were situated closer to the e-waste recycling centers.
The data shows that plants were not affected by the arsenic, chromium or selenium too
much, but were affected by the other heavy metals. Plants can absorb the heavy metals through
the roots of the plants and through the atmospheric deposition. It was shown that the underlying
factor in the level of heavy metals in the plants were related distinctly with the level of heavy
metals in the soil suggesting that the informal e-waste recycling methods did have an impact on
the plants and their heavy metal levels. In the water samples, it was found that the water was
acidic and that the heavy metals in the soils were leaching and contaminating groundwater. The
water tested had levels of arsenic (17.08mg/kg), copper (115.5 mg/kg), lead (2,645.31mg/kg),
and cadmium (1.29mg/kg) that were all extremely high—much higher than the World Health
Organization’s safe drinking water limits. As there is already a scarcity of fresh water in the area,
this will cause problems for water resources. All three of the sample types (e.g. soil, water and
plant) showed that there is a difference between the samples of residential communities and
primitive e-waste recycling communities (Pradhan and Kumar, 2014).
The large amounts of heavy metal pollution can have a negative impact on the
environment. E-waste recycling towns generally border agricultural sites where the heavy metals
in the soil can be absorbed by the crops because the towns that disassemble the electronic goods
either make their own food or were primarily agricultural places before they started
disassembling e-waste (Joines, 2012). Levels of heavy metals (e.g. lead, cadmium,
polybrominated biphenyls, PBDs, and PCBs) can leach into the crops and increase the risk of
contamination of the heavy metals traveling to the consumer. The Guangdong province of south
China engages in primitive e-waste recycling with agricultural fields directly adjacent to the e18
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
waste recycling processes. Their agriculture includes rice, vegetables, and raising fish to eat in
the river nearby. Five samples were taken from an open e-waste incineration cite, a vegetable
garden, a paddy field, an area of deserted soil, and a pond area. The samples showed that
cadmium, lead, copper and zinc were prevalent— although cadmium and copper were the only
two that had levels higher than regulation standards. The pH of the pond was less than 5.5 and at
some points in the pond, less than 4.5. The plants that were screened showed that copper, lead,
and zinc showed up in the majority of the wild plants, but cadmium showed up the most often in
domestic, vegetable stems. Plants that have broad leaves are more likely to absorb more of the
heavy metals due to atmospheric deposition. Plants or vegetables that grow quickly can also
uptake more heavy metals due to the roots up taking more water. Transfer factor of heavy metals
in plants is based on metals that are easily transferrable from the soil to the plant tissue.
Cadmium turns out to have a really high transfer rate, TF values, .038 to 1.258, which is fifty
times higher than copper or lead (TF, or transfer factor, is a ratio based on the metals transferring
into the plants, mg kg-1FW from the soil, mg kg-1DW and copper only had a .002 to .02 TF
values while lead only had .001 to .21 TF value). This suggests that cadmium is the major heavy
metal in vegetables that the citizens living near the e-waste recycling center need to be concerned
about. Because although copper is high in the soils, its uptake in plant roots is very low. For lead,
atmospheric deposition is the best way for the metal to reach the plant and get absorbed (it has a
similar rate as copper).The rice in the paddy field showed high levels of lead, which suggests that
rice grains absorb lead well and the people who have eaten the rice growing in the paddy fields
have consumed some amount of lead (Luo et al., 2011).
Primitive e-waste recycling is incredibly dangerous to the environment. The heavy metals
can be dispersed through atmospheric deposition or through leaching into the soils. If the soils
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
become contaminated with the heavy metals, it is possible that the nearby plants can be affected.
This is especially dangerous for the villages that use primitive e-waste recycling methods and
have agricultural fields nearby. Lead and cadmium are the two elements that seem to show up
the most in foods that people eat. In addition, food can get transported, so the problem becomes
more widespread as more people get exposed to these high levels of heavy metals.
b. HUMAN HEALTH The electronic waste research has been growing in the past years. However, despite this,
there is still a great uncertainty as to how breaking down the electronic devices impacts human
health. Five databases ((PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, PsycNET, and CINAHL) were
examined and it was found that from all of the studies on those databases that were looked at, ewaste exposure is harmful, but none of them have actually found a strong enough correlation.
Boys in electronic waste recycling towns had a lower forced vital capacity (the ability to force air
into the lungs) than boys who did not grow up in recycling towns. There are more studies that
show women having
trouble with their
pregnancy including
premature births, reduced
weight births, stillborns
and unplanned abortions
(Grant et al., 2013).
Regulations for
heavy metals are divided
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
into classes depending on their chronic and acute toxicity to humans. The “residues of metals can
either be present as the original form of the metal or as a form of the metallic element altered by
downstream chemical processing.” Exposure to these metals should not exceed certain amounts.
Class 1 metals are metals that contain human carcinogens and harm the health if ingested,
inhaled or come into contact with. Table 2 shows the Class exposure to heavy metals and their
concentrations that should not be exceeded in parts per million and µg/day for medications. PDE
stands for permitted daily exposure. For the intake, the acceptable daily intake (ADI), which is
used by the World Health Organization (WHO), was added to the table (European Medical
Agency, 2007).
Guiyu, China has become incredibly notorious for their improper ways of recycling ewaste, specifically circuit boards where they burn the plastic to get to some of the precious
metals inside. When they burn or melt the plastic, glass and metals, it releases toxic chemicals
into the air. Samples were taken of freshwater rivers Lianjiang and Nanyang inside and outside
of the city to compare and contrast the differences between blood lead levels in the residents.
Outside of the city, in the reservoir and in the two rivers, the water quality was described as
having low total dissolved solids and a neutral pH. This contrasted sharply with his samples from
Guiya that showed a spike in dissolved silver, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel and zinc (Wong
et al., 2007).
In 2004 when samples of the dust were taken from the roads and nearby workshops in
Guiya, the samples found higher levels of heavy metals, specifically lead, copper and zinc,
throughout the city, with the most concentrated amounts closer to the workshops where they
were melting the circuit boards. The toxic particulates get absorbed through the skin, inhaled
through airborne pathways, or ingested by the humans living there and begin to affect the organs
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
after an extended period of time by after continuous exposure to the metals. Having all these
high levels of heavy metals causes serious health concerns for the people who live around that
particular area because it can cause chronic or acute toxicity that can damage the nervous system
or vital organs. Children who have parents that recycled circuit boards had the highest blood lead
levels than the children whose parents recycled plastics (Leung, 2008).
Children are also more sensitive to e-waste chemicals because they can be exposed in
many different ways that adults do not usually do. Children are exposed more by different routes
and different behaviors. For example, children normally breastfeed when they are young, which
adds extra risk to their exposure to heavy metals. Children are also more likely to use their hands
to eat and pick up heavy metals through oral ingestion. It not only makes them more prone to get
cancer later in their lives but also suffer from respiratory diseases, kidney and liver failure and
bone loss. In addition, Alzheimer’s disease and neurological damage was found to be linked to
burning copper wires. Long-term exposure to these chemicals can result in peripheral vision loss
and damage to the central nervous system (Mulvaney and Robbins, 2011). In Guiyu, children six
year and under have all been tested for levels of lead in their blood and compared to children
outside of the city. Children who live
inside Guiyu had a much higher blood
lead levels than the children in Chendian
(another city in China). Over 81% had
blood levels higher than > 10 µg/dL,
where the average blood lead level in
children in America is roughly 2 µg/dL
(New York State Department of Health,
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
2009). Researchers have linked the high lead levels in the children’s blood to be from primitive
e-waste recycling where workers and, in extension, the children, are exposed to the heavy metals
from the electronics (Huo et al., 2007). Figure 5 shows a young child in a house in Guiya, China
dismantling circuit boards that had been sent over from other countries to be recycled for parts.
Behind the child is a pile of discarded electronic equipment that shows just how massive Guiya’s
e-waste recycling production is. The toxicity does not remain in Guiya. Wind patterns in China
have blown the dust from the city to other cities where they have seen rises in lead and cadmium
level concentrations and cadmium in the body. In Eastern China, Taizhou, it was found that the
rice samples had 2-4 times more lead and cadmium in the rice than what was allowed (Robinson,
2007).
In addition to having devastating consequences on human health, poor e-waste recycling
practices have also been shown to hurt ecosystems and the environment. Next to Guiya, China,
researchers found fish wish elevated amounts of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDEs) that
were high due to bioaccumulation in the carp due to the wind blowing the particulate dust across
the region into the waters and soils. (Robinson, 2007).
It is not just China that has to worry about heavy, toxic metals. In a study conducted that
examined jewelry that was made in China and then exported into the United States. It was found
that the jewelry contained higher than normal amounts of copper, lead and tin. When circuit
boards are heated in pools of molten solder, which is a popular technique when recycling
electronic waste, the copper will move into the solder which is already half lead and half tin. It is
suggested that to be opportunistic, the makers take the solder and then create the jewelry from
that. This means that without even realizing it, Americans can be impacted from the primitive ewaste methods in China (Weidenhamer and Clement, 2007).
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
In India, a study was conducted in Bangalore and Chennai, India to see what the effects
of e-waste recycling were because India uses the same primitive e-waste methods as China. Soil
samples and samples from people from both cities were taken for comparison. To measure the
trace elements in humans, hair was taken and examined. The samples were studied and it was
found that the Bangalore slums where the e-waste recycling was taking place had high levels of
heavy metals. Concentrations of trace elements (e.g. copper, lead, chromium, cadmium, zinc
etc.) were found in the soil, air and in the hair of the citizens of Bangalore. The hair of the
residents in Bangalore showed substantial amounts of silver and cadmium, noting that the values
for mercury were low. Nonetheless, there was still a tremendous difference in hair of the locals
in Bangalore and the people of Chennai (Ha et al., 2009).
Human health can be severely compromised when using primitive, informal e-waste
methods. Being exposed to heavy metals constantly can damage the health to not only the adults
but to the children in the e-waste recycling towns as well.
v.
E-­‐WASTE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES a.
E-­‐WASTE IN THE UNITED STATES E-waste in the United States only consists of a one to two percent of the municipal waste
volume. In the United States, e-waste is not regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
E-waste is exempt from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which is a
federal law that governs the disposal of solid waste and hazardous wastes because the
government does not see e-waste as hazardous. It can safely go into a landfill without issues
because modern landfills are complex enough to handle e-waste and leachate (Vaughn, 2009).
Although the EPA strongly encourages citizens to recycle and not dispose of their electronics to
the landfills, e-waste can be disposed of in landfills since the EPA considers e-waste to be non24
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
hazardous waste or non-waste. Specifically, the EPA classifies household wastes as nonhazardous wastes; this also includes electronics, scrap metal, precious metals and whole circuit
boards.
While the United States has little to no regulation of e-waste, the federal government
does monitor the cathode ray tubes as those are considered hazardous waste (Tonetti, 2007).
Most waste in the United States goes into landfills because it is easier to control the pollutants
that can emerge from landfills as opposed to incinerators which create toxic air pollution and ash
(Lehmann, 2011). Landfills in the United States are usually underground. A layer of plastic,
which is usually polyethylene, is put down to keep the contents from percolating into the soil
below and polluting the groundwater, then the trash is added to the hole where soil is promptly
put in place to cover the trash. Having water percolate through the landfill is unavoidable and as
it does, the water picks up chemicals and compounds. This is called leachate and is usually
collected and sent to a treatment center to be cleaned (El-Haggar, 2007).
The leaching of heavy metals from electronic waste was tested using actual computers
and televisions and monitors with cathode ray tubes put into landfill simulation columns. The
experiment found that lead from CTRs was most likely to leach out of the landfill and
contaminate the ground below. When measuring the amount of lead, researchers found that lead
leaches from the CRTS at an average concentration of 18mg/L in toxicity characteristic leaching
procedure (TCLP), a soil sample extraction method at the EPA standards usually used for
hazardous waste. This exceeded 5mg/L which was limit of a waste being classified as hazardous
(Li et al., 2009). A study, with contradictory results (although that could be because it was done
at a different site than the previous), of the leaching of lead into the ground from landfills was
also studied using a similar method of columns with waste in them. The authors found that the
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
leaching of the lead from a modern, well engineered landfill would not result in large quantities
of lead leachate. This was done as a simulation of a landfill in a lab with acid added to aid the
leaching process (acid makes the leaching of lead occur more frequently) for a worst-case
scenario. The lead levels were still below regulatory levels. Electronics were added to
manufactured waste and after a year, the fifty samples of leachate were collected with the highest
lead concentration being 66µg/L. this number is expected to go down in the real world since the
acidity levels used in the lab will not likely be present (Spalvins et al., 2008).
Problems that make recycling e-waste difficult is that the federal government usually
leaves it up to the states as to what they want to do so laws tend to vary from state to state (Selin
and VanDeveer, 2006). In addition, more problems can occur depending on how the device is
made. Manufacturers do not usually make electronics easy to dismantle and for those who
recycle the material, this means that getting to the heavy metal that needs to be recycled or
disposed of separately can be extremely challenging. For example, Jaragh and Boushahri (2009)
state that televisions that use mercury lamps have to have them taken out because of the
mercury’s toxicity level. However, getting to the lamps is a difficult process since the television
is held together by different screws or glue and the end result is the recyclers just discarding the
whole television into the landfills. In addition, Jaragh and Boushahri claim that the television
screens are made up of a certain type of liquid crystal that cannot be recycled and the
recommended way of disposing of the crystal screen is to incinerate it.
Landfills are the most common way to dispose of e-waste because e-waste recycling
needs certain infrastructure which has the means to actually recycle the material. Since the
United States does not have adequate fixed infrastructure for recycling to handle huge volumes
of e-waste production. For instance, the United States has only a few people employed to recycle
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
electronics with only California having a Electronics Waste Recycling Act. However, there is
still no single strategy for collecting electronic waste and most of the strategies mainly consist of
drop-off areas. In all these cases, the consumer is responsible for the transportation and
knowledge of electronic waste recycling. A curbside pick-up of e-waste is the easiest way for the
consumer to dispose of the e-waste properly; however, this creates a certain amount of risk for
theft and abandonment for other waste that isn’t e-waste. In addition, having people store their
electronics damages the probability that it will be recycled since as an electronic ages, the most
difficult it is to access the parts and recycle them (Kang and Schoenung, 2005).
When recycling the cathode ray tubes, it is common for the CRT glass to be recycled into
new CRT glass. This is done by removing the case on the outside of the CRT, then putting the
tubes through a depressurization stage where it will then go through a shedder to separate the
metals and plastics. Once that takes place, the glass goes into the furnace where it will be made
into new glass. The other method for recycling CRT glass is the glass-to-lead method where the
CRTs are shredded and then plastic and metals are separated. Then it goes through a smelting
process where the lead and copper are taken out. However, the downside of this process, while
overall cost effective and safer for the workers, requires smelters, which are a very expensive
and rare. The scarcity of the smelters could be remedied by building more. The glass-to-lead
recycling method also reduces the quality of the glass that comes out after the process (Kang and
Schoenung, 2005).
The United States has created ways to dispose of e-waste including exporting it to other
developing countries, incinerating it, or burying it in a landfill which is monitored by the EPA
who states it is allowed. The majority of e-waste in the United States does not get recycled or
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
reused due to consumers’ lack of knowledge and lack of incentives and the lack of e-waste
recycling services that get offered in the United States.
b.
E-­‐WASTE REGULATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) In contrast to the United States and their weaker legislation on regulation of hazardous
waste and e-waste, the European Union has taken a strong stand to protect human health and the
environment from e-waste. The EU has begun to create new legislation to mitigate the harm that
electronic waste can create to monitor the use, recycling and disposal of hazardous waste ewaste. Waste Electronic and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS) are initiatives that the EU has taken to curb the effects of e-waste disposal.
These initiatives were proposed in 2002 and put into effect in January 1, 2003 (Zeng et al.,
2013). WEEE was designed to increase the EU’s recovery and recycling electronic equipment by
using extended producer responsibility (EPR) methods. This is done by putting the responsibility
of the electronic on the producer who are the ones who then have to recycle and reuse the
electrical equipment. For this to work, the consumer can drop the electronic equipment off free
of charge while the producers, the companies, are offered incentives to recycle, reuse, and
dispose of the e-waste in a safe manner. There are ten categories that e-waste can be disposed
into. They include: large household appliances, small household appliances, information
technology and telecommunication equipment, consumer equipment, lighting equipment,
electrical and electronic tools, toys and leisure, sports equipment, medical devices, monitoring
and control devices, and automatic dispensers. Because the EU operates underneath the Basel
Convention, they prohibit exporting e-waste to developing countries to get the waste out of sight,
out of mind (Selin and VanDeveer, 2006).
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
According to Black (2005) the EU has also imposed a ban on lead, mercury, cadmium,
and hexavalent chromium in electronics and as such, now the electronics industry has begun to
search for new and alternative alloys for keep the temperature low in electronics without using
lead. This is due to the RoHS initiated which directly limits the use of lead, mercury, cadmium
and hexavalent chromium as well as polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE) and polybrominated
biphenyls (PBB) (Selin and VanDeveer, 2006). These six substances are allowed only in a .1%
by weight in each device.
In addition, the EU also has the regulation, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals
(REACH) program. It is the program that will evaluate and regulate the risks of chemicals in the
electronics including the registration of chemicals that are being imported or produced in the EU.
This program is also responsible for regulating any new chemical or substance that wants to be
introduced into the EU market for consumers. This program is the largest and most complex
environmental law that the EU has ever undertaken (Selin and VanDeveer, 2006).
However, these laws have been the result of extensive debate and negotiations between
the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament and as such, some of the
limits had to be waived in order to reach an agreement. Critics have often argued that because
some of the limits were rejected and compromised, the law isn’t green enough. This, in turn, has
led EU members to create stricter rules regarding policy on producers disposing of their e-waste
properly. Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have all created harsher laws that
regulate hazardous e-waste. Sweden, for example, has begun to move to a mercury free society
where they ban all products that contain it. In contrast to these countries, the chemical companies
have pushed back against the strict laws of the REACH. They claim that the new laws harm the
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
economy and their businesses as the chemical industry is the third largest manufacturing industry
in Europe (Selin and VanDeveer, 2006).
Furthermore, the European Union will be extending their e-waste laws so that each
country will be required to collect 45% or more of their electronic products by 2016. After 2019,
the initiative will make it so that all members that are part of the EU can either collect 65% of all
electronic waste sold or 80% of all electronic waste that was generated with no charge to the
consumer. However, an environmental spokesperson in the EU does warn that electronics sold
by companies will probably contain a hidden cost to the consumer (Fela, 2012).
Cui and Zhang (2008) have collected data from around the European Union and their
methods to reclaim and reuse metals. The authors have reviewed the different processes to get
the metals from the electronic devices. E-waste recycling gets broken down into three stages:
disassembly, upgrading, and refining. Disassembly consist of the e-waste being taken apart for
reusable parts and getting the hazardous parts out of the device. Mechanical processing is the
step that prepares the electronic pieces for the refining process. The refining process is where the
materials are gathered and using metallurgical processing. To get the best results, the electric
waste should be shredded into tiny pieces with a diameter less than 10mm. mechanical
processing or metallurgical processing is the best for getting a full yield of materials, which
includes plastics. After the materials have been screened, then the material can be sorted through
either electric-conductivity, magnetically, or by its shape (Cui and Forssberg, 2003). In the last
step, different metallurgic techniques to melt of dissolve the metals. This is done by
pyrometallurgical processing and hydrometallurgical processing. Pyrometallurgical processing is
the incineration and smelting to remove the extra metals, scraps and plastics. The Noranda
process in Quebec, Canada uses the energy created from the melting and combustion of plastics
30
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
and flammable material to help run the smelter. The copper that emerges from the smelter is
99.1% pure with the other .9% representing heavy metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and
nickel. In Boliden Ltd. Ronnskar Smelter, Sweden, materials that have high amounts of copper
are put into the Kaldo Furnace. The Kaldo Furnace then produces a copper alloy that can be sent
to another converter to get the other metals (gold, silver, nickel, selenium, etc.) out of the alloy.
The Dunn’s patent for gold refining effectively retrieved gold from the electronic device after
washing it with hydrochloric acid and the Day’s patent for refractory ceramic precious metals
scraps allowed for the retrieval of platinum and palladium. The hydrometallurgical processing ewaste recovery is more precise and easily controlled. Its expected steps consist of acid and
leaching (often using cyanide or halide, fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine) of solid material.
After that, then the materials get separated and purified. Throughout the whole process, the pH of
the acid concentration plays a heavy role as to how much lead and copper can be retrieved from
the material. This type of e-waste recycling is becoming used less as people have begun to get
wary of the use of cyanide. Biometallurgy is an e-waste metal reclamation process that has been
heavily studied and researched recently. It is the way microbes (algae, bacteria, yeasts and fungi)
interact with the metals to either bind metals together or to trasnsport them somewhere else.
Bioleaching allows scrap metal concentrations to become available and mobilize from 60% to
90% using bacteria Thiobacilli to help leach the metal. This worked best with copper, nickel,
zinc and aluminum. Fungi can also leach the metals and the metal-waste by creating oxidizers to
eventually precipitate out. Biosorption deals with mostly algae, fungi, and bacteria. This depends
on many different factors, such as acidic conditions (favorable for the bacteria). Gold is the most
commonly focused on metal and the process uses ion-exchange and chemical adsorption onto the
cell walls of the bacteria. Out of all of the methods to reclaim e-waste metals, biometallurgy has
31
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
the most potential (Cui and Zhang, 2008). Throughout Europe, there are many places where
infrastructure is being built to accommodate the growth of e-waste disposal safely and the
policies governing e-waste disposal, the infrastructure will only grow.
Despite the European Union’s laws, much of the e-waste that is produced in the European
countries still goes to a landfill or gets exported to a developing country. It is estimated that only
a third of the e-waste actually gets recycled—the rest either still gets exported to developing
countries or put into landfills. One aspect of the European Union’s e-waste recycling program is
to curb hazardous and toxic parts, which is the WEEE, RoSH, and the REACH program. The
other aspect is the idea of a circular economy, where electronic devices are monitored, managed,
and documented because electronic goods are usable. Circular economy tries to keep the wastes
processed as close to the source as possible. Since e-waste has so much value, it is argued that
the European Union needs to keep the e-waste re-circulating in their economy instead of sending
it out to developing countries (the developing countries are non-OECD). This means changing
the mindset of the European people into thinking that the contents of their electronic device are
important resources or raw resources that recovered to be more efficient (Kama, 2015).
The European Union has led the world in many things before and now it is leading the
world in legislation on electronic and hazardous wastes. Extended Producer Responsibility
(EPR) is a concept that the EU has created to make producers of electronics more responsible for
the e-waste after the consumer is done with it. This is done by changing the responsibility from
municipal wastes back to the producers by offering incentives to handle the electronic devices in
an environmentally friendly way (Environmental policy tools and evaluation, 2015). The general
goal of Extended Producer Responsibility is to ensure that the products that are created are
environmentally friendly and that the electronics are made with high quality materials that have
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Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
been reused or have been retrieved from places that are environmentally sound. Individual
responsibility and collective responsibility is an essential part of EPR programs where the
producer will take responsibility of their own products or where the producers in the same
product group will collaborate together no matter the trade name; however it has been studied
and suggested that individual responsibility works best because companies can keep the
materials within the same cycle (Van Rossem et al., 2006). Implementing Extended Producer
Responsibility is more challenging. The incentives for the producers to take extended
responsibility were examined. The producer’s interest in EPR is largely dependent on the
benefits that the producers will receive. If there are no incentives and the producers feel they are
losing money, they will not want to participate in the EPR system. Parts of the system that can
cost money or make EPR less incentivized is stock piling the e-waste. This costs money with
very little to no profit made for them in this step since the producers have to accept the electronic
device free of charge. Sometimes, producers will end up trying to bid for their products from
third parties if the consumer does not return the electronic device directly back to them,
especially with third party cherry picking where parties get access of the electronic devices
before the producers and get the “precious parts” of the waste(Kalimo et al., 2015). Third party
e-waste collectors are called producer responsibility organizations (PRO). These are the
organizations disposing of the actual e-waste— the producers fund them—and they can be
private or public departments (Surak, 2011). The EPR also has vague statements on what the
consumers should be doing. Consumers have been told that it is discouraged to discard their
electrical devices into the municipal waste stream but that they still needed to make appropriate
measures to minimize the disposal of electronic waste. To alleviate some of the problems that
EPR is experiencing, it would be helpful to spread out the responsibility to others more, as well
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
as get move government intervention (Kalimo et al., 2015). Another flaw in EPR is that it does
not decrease the volume of e-waste being created. It simply tries to control where the e-waste
goes after the consumer is finished with it. This means that perceived and planned obsolesce and
still a factor (Surak, 2011).
The European Union is a leading force of e-waste recycling. It has leading methods for
methods and extraction for reclamation. The EU also has launched policies and regulations to
help curb e-waste disposal and what happens after the consumer is finished with it. The rest of
the world is looking towards Europe and how they deal with e-waste including their WEEE,
REACH, and RoSH policies that establish groundbreaking rules of who takes responsibility of ewaste disposal, what can be in the electronic devices to begin with, and evaluating the dangers of
e-waste.
c.
CHINA’S POLICY INITIATIVES China is a country of particular concern with regards to e-waste. Since most of the
production of electronics takes place in China and China has a large population of people, they
also end up creating a lot of e-waste. Like the European Union, China has also created their own
WEEE and RoHS and life-cycle programs to try and eliminate or mitigate e-waste and stop
hazardous wastes from harming human health and the environment in January 2011. They have
adapted the slogan “polluter should pay.” In China, this means that the disposal of e-waste is
divided into the distributors making sure that they are collecting and delivering the e-waste to the
recyclers. The recyclers, in turn, are responsible for reuse, disassembly, and final deposition of ewaste. Unlike the EU, China has a stronger governmental presence. There are more ministries
and more government hierarchy, such as the state councils, the provinces and then the country
government, in the country than the EU (Zeng et al., 2013). There are currently four government
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
agencies that oversee e-waste. These agencies include: National Development and Reform
Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology (MITT), and finally, Ministry of Finance. The National Development
and Reform Commission tackles resource efficiency and environmental protection. The Ministry
of Environmental Protection (MEP) gives legislation for e-waste management and. This program
is aimed specifically for dismantling e-waste and its reuse and disposal. The Ministry of Industry
and Information and Technology tries to prevent EEE pollution from the sources as well as
trying to curb the use of hazardous materials. This is similar to the RoHS that the European
Union has created. The Ministry of Finance is responsible for subsidizing for e-waste collection
and treatment. It has been suggested that the way to get China and its citizens more aware of ewaste and its disposal is to invoke the “carrot method” which would create incentives for people
to not dispose of e-waste improperly (Lu et al., 2015).
However, because China is still a developing country, recycling and disposing of e-waste
is second to their economy and its growth so e-waste disposal is mostly still using informal and
primitive methods (Veenstra et al., 2010). China’s laws that have been created are called
“Circular Economy Promotion Law,” “Solid Waste Pollution Control Law,” and “Clean
Production Promotion Law.” These three laws that have been enacted try and promote cleaner
production and try to mitigate the design of an electronic. The issue arises when trying to collect
e-waste and at a regional level (Lu et al., 2015).
The development and growth of turning China’s e-waste disposal from primitive to
advanced and safe can be categorized into four steps that can be taken: the informal, primitive
recycling of e-waste that is illegally imported into China (1980’s-2000), the co-existing phase
where the cities recognize the pollution and harm of primitive e-waste recycling and have some
35
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
regulations (2001-2008), the development phase where China WEEE regulation and RoHS
recovery and recycling processes will be developed and implemented, which is where they
currently are in the timeline (2009-2020), and, lastly, by 2020, China wants to have the mature
phase of e-waste disposal in place where they have innovative technology and large-scale,
official dismantling treatment plants for their e-waste (Zeng et al., 2013).
In China, after the consumer gets rid of an electronic device, the device goes to a street
hawker, or street peddler, that pays the consumer for the device. After the street hawker takes the
electronic device, it is then taken to a collection point where the electronic is traded for money to
a secondhand market. The buyers from these secondhand markets can be poor schools, poor
families who cannot afford to buy electronics firsthand, or villages that recycle and scrap the
electronic device. Roughly 21% of all electronics get passed down to another family member in
China. While 55% of the electronics get sold to a street hawker and 15% get sold directly to a
secondhand market. After the secondhand market, it is estimated that approximately 54.7% of
the electronic devices get taken apart for spare parts and raw material while 43% of the devices
are refurbished and resold. To model this, Veenstra et al. (2010) uses the Markov chain model.
The Markov chain model shows that if the electronic is refurbished or resold to a secondary
owner, then the electronic gets delayed from being trashed several years. Overall, the Markov
model also guesses that overtime, China’s WEEE legislation gets put into effect, there will be an
improving ratio in terms of sales-to-disposal, meaning that China would have to encourage
dealers and retailers and discourage secondhand markets as high volumes of e-waste get
disposed of and not reused or recovered. It is also projected that there will be an increasing role
of dealers in recovering products and since there will be a greater focus on producer
responsibility. (Veenstra et al., 2010).
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
The concern with street peddlers and dealers is lack of knowledge and so they begin to
use informal methods of dismantling the electronics to get at the metals, wires, or circuit boards
by cutting, heating and melting, and recovering the metals. Besides, the street peddlers and street
hawkers there is a general lack of public participation. In 2004, China created cities specially
designed to handle the disposal of e-waste. One such city was Haier, China which had a facility
that only treated 800 devices when the total annual capacity of the facility had been created to
dispose of 6000,000 units. Companies in China began to try and encourage e-waste recycling by
joining together and collecting the e-waste. In 2009, China launched its “buy a new one with a
used one” campaign to get citizens to trade in their home appliances. This allowed China to
reach 69.52 million units or 1.52 tons of e-waste in 2011. This is causing an economic boom in
China as there is a great need and demand for e-waste recycling centers through large-scale
delivery and distribution. To treat e-waste, it can be chemical, biological or physical (physical
recovery is still the most popular recycling method for e-waste since it can take the since it is the
physical break down of the electronic and separating different parts based on physical
properties). Public participation is also spurred by the general lack of a collection system in
places, there is also the technological challenge. China simply does not have all of the resources
to effectively treat a lot of the e-waste and therefore, many places that recycle e-waste are still
largely informal without the technology capabilities or the financial resources (Lu et al., 2015).
While China still has a long way to go before their laws and their legislation begins to see
a large difference, they are still actively trying to mitigate the dangers of having e-waste going
around the country without regulation. This is a start and by modeling, their laws after the
European Union, China will eventually see great success in their control over e-waste and their
products as most and more e-waste gets created. The Markov chain model shows that overtime,
37
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
China’s e-waste will not be as out of control and the sales to disposal ratio will improve. Added
to the legislative powers that China’s government possesses, the country’s e-waste disposal
dilemma will mend overtime.
The economics and revenue of formal e-waste disposal in China is positive and has a
great deal of potential. There is a huge market niche for reusing and taking certain parts,
specifically from electronic home appliances (EHA), from the old electronics in Beijing in a safe
and proper manner. When looking at a few facilities in Beijing, the time it took to dismantle an
electronic was examined as well as the economic feasibility. This was done by separating levels
of e-waste processing and evaluating how effective they were. Economic feasibilities were
measured by the profitability of the material after it was extracted from the appliance and the
processes of each home appliance.
Televisions took roughly 9 minutes to disassemble and take the parts from and
refrigerators were noted for being sent to the incinerators the most often. About 70%-90% of the
time, the dismantling was done by people and not machines. Overall, the net revenues for
dismantling televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines were negative. Computers were the
home electronic that consistently came out with a positive net revenue when dismantled. Because
of the net revenues, it was then calculated that if the money paid to the household was decreased
even a fraction or if companies paid for part of the e-waste disassembly, then it would be easier
for the facilities to break-even.
When conducting a poll in China, it showed that the citizens generally wanted the
producer of the electronic device to pay for the cost for e-waste recycling (Figure 6). However,
producers do not want to pay and will resist any additional charges on them, meaning that the
burden of baking up the extra cost to recycle the material will fall onto the consumer. Most of the
38
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
citizens agreed that they would not
dispute a fee so long as the fee did not
exceed 50 RMB per electronic appliance
(Figure 7). If those small costs can be
chipped into the facilities, then the net
revenue of e-waste recycling can
become more positive and more
economically feasible. There is a push to
make the producers more responsible
for the electronic appliance and even if
the producers are not willing to foot the
bill, then it has been shown that Beijing
(and perhaps other parts of China) are
ready to tackle the issue of the growing
e-waste issue. China can change their
ways from informal and primitive e-waste management to formal e-waste recycling and reuse
(Liu et al., 2009).
When examining the e-waste streams in Taizhou, researchers found that most of the ewaste came from Japan and only 35% of it came from the United States. While Taizhou (and
other county towns of district sites like Fengjiang, Wenling and Yuhuan) has some firms that can
recycle e-waste, it also has many households that take apart e-waste for its valuable parts because
not only is e-waste frequently brought into the city whether through formal ways or informal
ways and it is a “low-stake” way to make a profit. To encourage safe e-waste recycling, China
39
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
will receive twelve dollars and fifty cents to certified recyclers. This amount of money is still
creating competition among the formal e-waste recycling sector and the informal sector. When
asking residents if they would recycle their e-waste safely, 60.7% stated they did not see the
difference in the price difference that the recyclers saw if they recycled their e-waste safely or
not. In addition, 15.8% firmly stated there were similar prices in e-waste recycling were the same
whether they discarded their electronic devices through formal streams or informal streams. It
was concluded from this specific study that the there is a lack of incentive to dispose of e-waste
in an environmentally friendly way and that the competition between the formal sector and the
informal sector are still competitive—something that needs to change if China ever wants to stop
informal e-waste recycling (Chi et al., 2014). A similar study was done in Beijing and it
discusses how residents there are also not willing to participate in e-waste recycling even if it
benefits the environment. The citizens most likely look for an easy way to dispose of their
electronic devices and accepting an additional payment for safe recycling has not caught on just
yet. People there are still incredibly reluctant to pay more but ultimately would accept the charge
if laws and regulations in China changed and forced them to pay. The citizens’ reluctance in ewaste recycling was also dependant on how easily it is to get recycle the electronic device. As of
now, many Beijing residents would like to recycle more but are limited by time and professional
recovery spots. In Beijing, it will be important to try and educate its citizens on the pros of safe
e-waste recycling as well as try and create more structures so that those who want to recycle their
electronic devices in a proper manner can do so (Wang et al., 2011).
E-waste is more likely to become properly disposed of in the urban setting as opposed to
the rural, small towns like Guiya or Taizhou, China. Taizhou relies on imported e-waste to keep
its economy steady. In cities like Taizhou, e-waste is incredible valuable because of money it can
40
Meaghan Owens
Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
create in the households and is one of the largest e-waste recyclers in China. Like most
developing countries dismantling e-waste, they import it illegally through a nearby port (Chi et
al., 2014). In rural areas of China, this is not uncommon. Many jobs are in the urban parts of the
country with the exponential population rise and the exponential growth of China’s economy,
most of the jobs are found in the city or around it. This displaces the people who live in rural
areas and formerly dealt with agricultural lands and business to migrate into more industrial
areas of the country. The recent and rapid urbanization has caused many rural areas to convert
their agricultural land into industrial development, urban construction, and infrastructural
projects. These three movements of transitioning the type of land use can also be correlated with
land tenure rights and compensation measures, the rural workers’ livelihoods as well as
environmental degradation. In 2008-2009, it is estimated that the unemployment rate for migrant
workers was around roughly 23 million with only 2 million out of the 14 million workers that
had left their rural towns for the cities finding jobs outside of their home town (Siciliano, 2014).
The example given was the overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, however, the recycling of ewaste parallels that of the residents of the rural towns that dispose of e-waste. Being able to
disassemble e-waste in homes allows for people to continue making money without having to
travel into the city. It gives them an occupation to make money (Chi et al., 2014). To remedy
this, Siciliano (2014) claims that the Chinese government needs to step in and help ease the wage
gap between the rural areas and the urban areas, give aid to workers that cannot find work, and
help ease the transition process of the displaced better. The Chinese government will need to
completely re-think their plans for rural development so that e-waste mismanagement can
become less of a problem in the rural areas where the residents are just trying to make a
livelihood.
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
China is a developing country and their policies and legislation on e-waste is an
enormous step for them. China will need to continue to regulate and monitor e-waste as many of
their methods are still informal and primitive. They also need to begin to develop more resources
in their country for more assessable e-waste disposal as well as start encouraging the public to
recycle and dispose of their e-waste properly. Incentives need to be given to citizens that discard
their e-waste in a proper manner and street peddlers and secondhand markets need to be included
in the incentives so that the e-waste does not find its way to remote places that dismantle e-waste
inadequately. However, once those resources are in place, China should have an easy time
reaching their goal of mature e-waste disposal infrastructure that can handle large scale recycling
processes.
III.
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS As time passes, more electronic equipment will be created. It is important to establish
clear and rigorous guidelines that countries have to follow globally, developed and developing
countries alike. Developed countries cannot be exempt from any regulations because those are
the countries that are doing most of the disposing of e-waste and sending it into developing
countries. Developing countries cannot be exempt from regulations because most of the time,
those countries lack the infrastructure to safely disassemble the electronic device and avoid
putting hazardous metals or substances into the environment that could harm the public. It has to
be a joint effort to reduce the impacts e-waste disposal can cause. Like the European Union and
China and their WEEE, RoHS, and REACH programs and governmental agencies, the United
States needs to begin to take e-waste seriously. This includes making the consumer and the
producer aware of the risks in the e-waste stream and creating more laws and infrastructure to
42
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
encourage and allow for more e-waste recycling and reuse. To do that would mean making the
consumer educated in the dangers that improper e-waste recycling can have on communities
across the globe. This includes making laws and regulations to make people conscious of their
waste as well as creating governmental initiatives to help drive e-waste recycling.
The developing countries like China will have an additional obstacle that they will need
to overcome. This will be the migration of rural areas to urban areas due to livelihood loss. The
people in the rural areas are at a disadvantage than their urban counterparts in developing
countries as they lose parts of their income and the wage gap increases between the two areas. To
assuage the desperation of the workers in the rural areas where they dispose of e-waste
improperly, the Chinese government will need to offer incentives that are larger than the
incentives that the residents have now: disassemble e-waste despite the harm to the environment
and human health to make a living and support the family. The unemployment rate of rural
workers is becoming larger and larger and if the government completely stops the inflow of the
electronic devices, then the unemployment will rise as the residents will not have a way of
getting an income. Instead of cutting the e-waste stream off completely, the government should
consider building safe infrastructure so that the residents can dismantle the e-waste in a safer
way as opposed to doing it in the open and improperly.
Sending e-waste to landfills simply because the infrastructure is not or not known of
cannot be an acceptable excuse anymore. There cannot be a reason why the United States does
not recycle or reuse e-waste and the precious metals inside. To encourage recycling and reuse of
electronics, the United States also needs to push to make the producers of the electronics more
liable and more accountable for the electronics from cradle-to-grave. Steps need to be taken so
that electronic companies will take the electronic device back and then extract the precious
43
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
metals to be reused in their newer products or have companies join together to collect the same
type of e-waste, like collector responsibility in the European Union. Extended producers
responsibility needs to be enacted in the United States to help ensure that the electronics get
disposed of in ways that are safe and beneficial to the environment and the public health.
The United States must also adopt policies to protect the environment and human health.
The United States needs to adopt the Basel Convention and stop illegally exporting their
electronic waste and equipment to developing countries or the United States needs to help fund
infrastructure to ensure the safe dismantling of electronic devices if there is reluctance to accept
e-waste on U.S. territory.
In addition, there also needs to be a push to limit perceived obsolescence and planned
obsolescence so that people are not trading in their new device or discarding it due to a little
broken piece. This includes making the device last longer and making the desirability of the
device last longer. It is inevitable that new technology will come out with new applications and
functions; however, it should be made aware to the public to either recycle or discard their older
electronics properly. This needs to be done on a federal government level and not just leaving it
up to the states. RCRA is a federal law made by the government to oversee waste. This needs to
include electronic waste and not just bundle e-waste with municipal waste.
These steps, if not all of them, need to be executed before e-waste becomes more of an
issue with rising electronic use and disposal. It is important to create boundaries, limitations, and
incentives early on and get companies, governments, and citizens motivated to recycle e-waste
properly soon rather than later. If the steps are instituted early on, there will be plenty of room
for improvement and growth of policies in the future because there will be an adjustment period
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
IV.
CONCLUSIONS Electronic waste is a growing concern for the whole world as more and more electronics
get created and then disposed of when no longer needed. Advances in technology will greatly
boost the amount of e-waste that is created. Disposal of electronic waste needs to be closely
monitored because of the hazardous, heavy, precious metals that are inside of the devices.
Countries need to come to an agreement to help prevent degradation of the environment and
public health from improper disposal of e-waste.
Improper e-waste disposal harms not only those who physically have to dismantle the
device, but it harms those around the primitive e-waste towns either from atmospheric deposition
and winds or through food transfer if there is an agricultural farm nearby the e-waste smog. The
health and environment are compromised greatly around the sites where primitive e-waste
recycling takes place. This happens in the plants and the crops that are grown and also in the
health of the citizens that live there. Citizens are more likely to experience respiratory or
neurologic damage and so informal e-waste recycling methods, while they may bring in a small
income for the towns, need to be replaced by formal, safe methods of e-waste disposal. To stop
this, developed countries needs to stop exporting their e-waste over to developing countries to
dispose of. This means that developed countries that have not already signed and ratified the
Basel Convention, need to do so.
Developing countries need to start enacting laws and legislation that will alleviate the
waste exported to developing countries by creating infrastructure and ways to recycle e-waste
themselves. Consumers need to be aware of e-waste recycling options. There also needs to be a
shift from the consumer taking initiative to recycle e-waste to the federal government and
45
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Undergrad Thesis: Disposal of E-waste and Its Impacts on the Ecosystem
electronic companies taking imitative to recycle e-waste and mitigating the amount of e-waste
that lands in the landfills or incinerators never to be used again. While landfills may not hurt the
environment when constructed properly, the resources within the devices are much too valuable
to be left in a landfill. Those metals, the valuable and potentially hazardous, need to be taken
from the device and reused as close to the source as possibly, employing the circular economy
method that the European Union is attempting to execute.
But while the disposal of the e-waste needs to be re-created, there also needs to be a push
on the consumers. Consumers need to be persuaded to not buy the new electronic device model
that comes out each and every time. Changing the way society views electronics and the metals
and plastics inside will greatly decrease the use, and in extension, the amount of e-waste
disposed of. The consumer needs to be aware exactly how valuable the materials in electronic
devices are and thus treat and dispose of the device with more caution.
The world is changing rapidly and electronics and e-waste are incredibly new to this
earth. While the health impacts and the environmental impacts are no entirely clear, it is crucial
to recognize that high doses of heavy metals are healthy and policies need to be put into place to
curb their unsafe release. E-waste can pose a great threat in the future but it does not need to be
so if e-waste is taken care of responsibly now. This is not a one-solution-fix-all problem. It
requires effort from the private citizens, the electronic companies, and the governments of
developed and developing countries to work cohesively to create a plan to keep e-waste from
harming human health and the environment without wasting the materials inside the device.
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