Dale Marion
Today, it takes multiple devices to determine the value of a part from an electronic device and it is harder to sell that part than it is to part ways with a broken device—to trash that device altogether, despite not knowing where that trash goes. What causes efficiency also creates waste; we must hasten the campaign to stop electronic waste (e-waste) whose contents include cadmium, copper, beryllium, mercury, lead, and polyvinyl chloride, whose parts disappear by dissolving into the earth—below the ground—from which we fertilize and farm the ground and feed the world. To stop that catastrophe, we need a solution that accurately prices electronic parts, finds buyers for these parts and makes it easy to recycle these parts.
To start, we need to inform the public before we can inspire people to act. We need to make news focus on recycling by saying for the first time—to the many—what only a few have known for a long time: that e-waste threatens to reduce the world into one uniform wasteland. We need more than a single image—the standard image—of waste, where birds nest atop mountains of refuse and garbage trucks dump additional piles of trash.
New Perspectives About Trash
We need to smell the problem before we look to solve the problem. Rather, we need to know what problems do notsmell, such as: the screens that emit waves instead of fumes, the terminals that fan themselves without scenting the air, the mice that move and click a billion times without leaving the slightest dropping. We need to look at the devices in our hands and pockets, as well as the computers in our homes and offices.
We need to visualize the problem in the following context. While an actual mouse—a rodent—maycarry viruses or bacteria, a computer mouse doescontain toxins that (in sufficient doses) can kill an otherwise healthy person. Picture how we recoil (for the most part) at the sight of a rat, while we do not react—we have no reason to wince or waver—when we hold a mouse whose contents we would never want to contaminate our rivers and lakes or our seas and oceans.
Clarify and Certify What You Destroy
Before people join the campaign to end e-waste, they need to know that what remains will cease to remain: that whatever data may be on their electronic devices will be destroyed without anyone seeing, reading or try to sell it. The process for destroying data should be clear, something that a recycling center can certify—that it does certify—that what was is no more.
Before we certify what we have done, we must clarify what we intend to do. It is not enough to name the chemicals in e-waste. Not when, to paraphrase the physicist Richard Feynman, there is a huge difference between knowing the name of something and understanding it. We need to tell people what the chemicals in e-waste do—why the chemicals are dangerous.
Economize by Maximizing the Value of Electronic Waste
To the extent that there is treasure in trash, and there is a lotof treasure ($400 billion, from 11 billion tons of solid waste each year, according to Dun & Bradstreet) in the trash disposal industry, to the extent that e-waste is an undervalued commodity, people trash what they do not know they can sell or convert into cash. What people need to know is that there is a market for e-waste—a big one—in which they can scan a part and get accurate pricing for what they have. That they can do this from a smartphone or tablet, and get the latest bids for specific parts, is all the more reason to sell or resell electronic parts that we can recycle into new components and consumer products.
Recycling the Message
In lieu of a conclusion, let me recycle my message: we have a right to build and use all the recycling centers we need. What people need is a cause they can understand, a system they can support, safety they can measure, and results they can see. The measurements must reveal a reduction in e-waste. The results must show the absence of waste in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the soil we seed and the land we harvest. The results must show a renewal of life, based not on the business cycle but the rhythms of nature.
Dale Marion is Founder and President of Pfane Canada. He can be reached at [email protected].