The E-Waste Problem and Our Work For Solutions

• The Problem With Electronics:
• Quickly Obsolete
• Hard to Recycle
  • Not designed for recycling
  • Toxics in Electronics
• Discards Badly Managed
  • E-waste in landfills
  • Global e-waste dumping
  • Prison recycling
• Our Work For Solutions:
• Producer Takeback
  • You make it, you take it back
  • Who takes back
  • Take Back My TV
  • About the industry
• Green Design
  • About green design
  • Purchasing green products
  • EPEAT
• Responsible Recycling
  • What is responsible recycling?
    • Beware of fake recycling
    • Manufacturers Commitment
  • How to recycle electronics
    • Find a responsible recycler
    • Manufacturer takeback programs
    • The e-stewards program
  • "R2" is not the answer
  • Info for recyclers
• Legislation and Policy
  • State legislation
  • State legislative toolkit
  • Federal legislation

Made To Break

For More Information:

Made To Break: Technology and Obsolecence in America, by Giles Slade.

This book documents deliberate decisions made by American industry, including the electronics industry, to make their products obsolete.

Problem: Electronics Become Obsolete Quickly

E-waste is the fastest growing part of the waste stream. That's because we are buying new electronics at an astonishing rate and tossing out the old ones. New technology is constantly emerging making that old working gadget no longer desirable. Plus some electronic products simply don't last as long as they should, and they are cheaper to replace than to fix.

How Industry Gets Us To Replace Working Gadgets (some examples)

Industry plays an active role in getting us to replace working products with their new ones:

Cell phone upgrades. Cell phone companies typically allow free or very inexpensive upgrades every two years. People stop using working cell phones simply because there is something newer with more features. The "dead cell phone" drawer, with discarded phones, PDAs, and MP3 players, and a tangle of chargers and cords, is a common occurance in homes.

 

Digital TV Conversion. In 2009, broadcasters will switch from analog to digital TV signal. Millions of Americans are tossing out perfectly good, working analong TVs either because they don't want to hassle with using a converter box on their old TV, or they want to view TV using the HDTV technology.

TV company advertising boldly tells us we NEED to upgrade to HDTV. Sharp has an ad campaign whose slogan is "Change your TV, change you life." They even used the website of www.lifechangingbox.com.

Software upgrades. Microsoft's release of its VISTA operating system alone caused a spike in the e-waste stream. The new operating system simply couldn't run on many older computers which lacked the memory or processing speed, leading those who wanted to keep up with the current platform to replace their computers.

 

Can't change the battery in your iPod. Apple computer is adept in getting its loyal customer base to constantly buy new gadgets. First, they keep releasing slightly different (and improved) versions of their iPods (classic, touch, nano, shuffle, etc). But more importantly, they don't allow customers to easily change the batteries in these products once the battery can no longer hold a charge. (Apple will do that for a hefty fee, but you will lose anything stored on the device.) Sometimes you can find a skilled geek who can also do this for you.

 

Disposable printers. Did your last computer come with a "free" printer? Cheap consumer-grade printers have proliferated substantially over the last few years. They are sometimes cheaper than the toner. They don't last long, and when they break, you'd never even think of getting it fixed (if you could someone who would do it) because it's so much cheaper to just buy a new one.