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22 Electronics Waste

Farewell, German radio with your green eye and your bulky box
Together almost composing a body and soul.
…. your eye would grow nervous, the green pupil widen and shrink
…your old age was announced by a cracked voice,
then rattles, then coughing, and finally blindness (your eye faded), and total silence.
Sleep peacefully, German radio
Adam Zagajewski (1945-)
Electric Elegy

22.1 INTRODUCTION
Electronics waste (e-waste) is an inevitable and unavoidable by-product of the current worldwide
technological revolution. E-waste is a collective term, embracing consumer and business appli-
ances, products, components, and accessories nearing the end of their useful life due to obsoles-
cence, malfunction, or exhaustion (e.g., batteries). Common examples of e-waste include personal
and mainframe computers, printers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines. There is
no standardized definition for e-waste; however, electronics equipment can be defined as those
devices whose primary functions are provided by electronic circuitry and components, i.e., semi-
conductor devices (integrated circuits, transistors, and diodes), passive components (resistors,
capacitors, and inductors), electrooptical components (CRTs, LEDs, CCDs, lasers, etc.), sensors
(transducers and MEM devices), and electronics packaging (printed circuit boards, connectors)
(IAER, 2002). Some major categories of electronics equipment are listed in Table 22.1.
E-wastes comprise from 2 to 5% of the United States municipal solid waste stream and is one
of the fastest growing fractions of the waste stream (SVTC, 2001). Technological advances for
electronic equipment, particularly personal computers, quickly render them obsolete. The aver-
age lifespan of a Pentium-class computer is currently 2 to 3 years and will gradually decline
(Table 22.2). More than 20 million personal computers became obsolete in 1998 (U.S. EPA,
2002a) and more than 63 million PCs are estimated to be retired in 2003 (NSC, 1999). European
studies estimate that the volume of e-waste is rising by 3 to 5% per year, almost three times faster
than the MSW stream (SVTC, 2001). The U.S. EPA is currently conducting research to estimate
the annual rates of generation and recovery of consumer electronics in the United States. In a
recent EPA report, it is estimated that the amount of e-waste in the U.S. landfills will grow four-
fold in the next few years (SVTC, 2001). New products rapidly heading to the market create addi-
tional waste problems; for example, the disposable cellular telephone is now available for
marketing (Reuters, 2002). Additionally, disposable DVDs are making their appearance on the
market (Truini, 2003).
The issue of how to manage e- waste is a pressing one. Many obsolete and malfunctioning elec-
tronic products can be reused, rebuilt, or recycled. However, electronics that malfunction often are
not repaired due to the relatively low price of replacing them. Only 11% of discarded computers
were recycled compared with 28% of MSW. Most were disposed or remain in storage (NSC, 1999).
It is estimated that nearly 75% of unwanted electronics are in storage, partly because of the uncer-
tainty as to how to manage such items.

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