The e-waste our industry creates is a real problem. Engineers are responsible for this waste (as are others), and it is our duty to help address these problems. We have both helped produce hundreds of millions of electronic devices, and we must painfully face our own responsibility in helping create this problem. We do not want our community, our bodies, or our kids to be poisoned by pollution of any kind. It is no more excusable to poison the land and people in another country.
The question remains: what can we do? We cannot become luddites. We also cannot remain ignorant to the problems that our industry creates. Like all of our societal problems, this problem is much bigger than any individual. Yet, as the old proverb says: “If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”
Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
– BARACK OBAMA
E-Waste Reduction Ideas
This might feel like climate change: a problem that is too big for individuals to tackle. But we can all work on moving the needle in the right direction. Below you will find our collected high-level ideas that we want to start building upon. We’d love to hear and share your ideas as well!
- Individual Exploration
- Design Decisions
- Material and Component Choices
- Recycling Programs
- Local Action
As Dr. Jane Goodall says, “Remember that you make a difference every single day.” When we all start making better, more ethical choices, we move toward a better world. We hope you will join us and choose to make a difference, no matter how small you perceive it to be. Every individual matters.
Individual Exploration
- Vote with your feet and become selective about the projects you work on, ensuring they comply with your standards
- Ask ourselves, as Marylin Dryud highlights: “To initiate solutions, the international engineering community must first examine design: why do electronic products include such potentially damaging materials?” What can we do as engineers about our answers?
- Be willing to pay for electronics recycling through proper channels, rather than looking for “free” recyclers who end up illegally exporting or dumping our e-waste. Look for certified e-Stewards, the most rigorous standard for recyclers, who must adhere to international law on trade in hazardous waste.
Design Decisions
- Fight against the “planned obsolescence” virus. Design products for longevity. Planned obsolescence is not a business strategy that we will support.
- Lengthen support timelines to keep systems relevant for longer.
- Design products with more memory from the start!
- Memory is often something that gets over-optimized up front for cost, rather than for the longevity of the product. This premature optimization is so problematic and widespread that memory is often insufficient at the launch of the product.
- Support the Right to Repair, and increase the reparability and serviceability of the products we build.
- Like Blue Clover Devices, focus on designing products with reuse and recyclability in mind.
- Make your product easier to disassemble in order for different components to more easily recycled, and explore strategies like designing pieces of the system that can be composted at the end of their life (recall Blue Clover Devices’ experiments with untreated wood).
Material and Component Choices
- Voluntarily comply with RoHS standards even when we are not required to. RoHS aims to:
- Reduce the buildup of environmentally-harmful waste in landfills
- Protect manufacturing workers and recyclers from potential poisoning
- Achieve these goals by restricting specific metals and compounds
- Investigate alternative materials, such as wood or TPE (as an alternative to the problematic PVC)
- Incorporate recycled materials (e.g., recycled aluminum) into your product whenever possible, supporting the recycling industry
Recycling Programs
- Implement a program where customers can ship you old devices for free, which ensures that you can properly pass the materials to formal e-waste recycling stream.
- Price e-waste handling costs into your products
- Look for certified e-Stewards, the most rigorous standard for recyclers, who must adhere to international law on trade in hazardous waste.
Local Action
- Educating your local community about e-waste recycling options that are available to them
- Lobbying for stricter e-waste regulations in your local community and region