A new study, led by a researcher at the Yale School of the Environment’s Center for Industrial Ecology and published recently in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, has found that the total mass of electronic waste generated by Americans has been declining since 2015. In an age when most of us can’t imagine life without our digital devices, this surprising finding has ramifications for both how we think about electronic waste’s future and for the laws and regulations regarding e-waste recycling, according to the study’s authors. The biggest contributor to this decline is the disappearance of the large, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors from American homes, says Callie Babbitt, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability and one of the study’s authors. Since about 2011, CRT displays have been on the decline in the waste stream, helping to lead the overall decline in total e-waste mass.
The sheer number of electronic devices entering the waste stream is also leveling off or slightly declining, Babbitt and Althaf say. This is due to something that Babbitt terms ‘convergence’: gaming consoles, for example, can act as DVD players; smartphones are also cameras and video recorders. In the past, says Babbitt, people needed separate devices for each of those applications.
In the United States, e-waste recycling is regulated at the state level, and only half the states have e-waste recycling laws. That leads to a patchwork of regulations which makes it harder for companies to navigate if they wanted to make their products easier to recycle, says Babbitt. A more holistic, federal approach could help increase the overall capture of rare elements. Ultimately, we should “see waste as a resource,” says Althaf: an opportunity, rather than a problem.
Source: Phys.org
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