Has the question of e-waste opened a Pandora's box? An overview of unpredictable issues and challenges

Bakhiyi, Bouchra; Gravel, Simon-Pierre; Ceballos, Diana; Flynn, Michael A.; Zayed, Joseph

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2017.10.021

Cited by 188 publications

(125 citation statements)

References 130 publications

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“…In general, the informal sector is considered to be operating in a type of self-governance as well as being beyond the reach of governments and therefore lacks regulation or structure [63]. The informal sector is typical of developing countries [22,63] where e-waste is mostly recycled through substandard or crude methods that cause damage to human health and the environment. Substandard methods include open burning to extract metals and to melt plastics, acid leaching for precious metals, and direct disposal of toxic residuals [11].…”

Section: Informal Sector Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding Consumer E-Waste Recycling Behavior: Introducing a New Economic Incentive to Increase the Collection Rates

Шевченко

Laitala²,

Danko

2019

Sustainability

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Consumer electronics are made of a wide range of materials, including precious metals and critical minerals with limited global reserves. Ensuring the recycling of these materials is essential for future use, especially since many renewable energy solutions are based on them. In addition, improper end-of-life treatments of these products cause harm to the environment and human health. This study explores the incentives that have been used to increase consumer collection rates for end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment (EoL EEE). Based on extensive global literature reviews, we propose an alternative to existing consumer incentives. The research suggests that implementing an economic incentive based on the electronic bonus card system (EBCS) has several benefits compared to existing incentives. It compensates the consumers for the transaction costs of proper collection and satisfies the consumer perception of EoL EEE as having a residual value. However, application of the EBCS motivation technology will require the cooperation of various stakeholders, including electronics producers and national and international authorities.

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Section: Informal Sector Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In China, weak enforcement of existing legislation [22] and the "waste as value" mentality [66] drives the informal system. According to Liu et al [67], 94% of households dispose of e-waste using the informal sector.…”

Section: Informal Sector Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Consumer E-Waste Recycling Behavior: Introducing a New Economic Incentive to Increase the Collection Rates

Шевченко

Laitala²,

Danko

2019

Sustainability

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“…There also remain knowledge gaps regarding the ecological and health aspects of recycling scrap metals [100]. Studies have indicated that contact with small REE particles might result in serious health issues [101].…”

Section: Crm Recovery: the Smart City As An Anthropogenic Scrap Metalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Smart Is Not Smart Enough!” Anticipating Critical Raw Material Use in Smart City Concepts: The Example of Smart Grids

David

Koch

2019

Sustainability

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Globally emerging smart city concepts aim to make resource production and allocation in urban areas more efficient, and thus more sustainable through new sociotechnical innovations such as smart grids, smart meters, or solar panels. While recent critiques of smart cities have focused on data security, surveillance, or the influence of corporations on urban development, especially with regard to intelligent communication technologies (ICT), issues related to the material basis of smart city technologies and the interlinked resource problems have largely been ignored in the scholarly literature and in urban planning. Such problems pertain to the provision and recovery of critical raw materials (CRM) from anthropogenic sources like scrap metal repositories, which have been intensely studied during the last few years. To address this gap in the urban planning literature, we link urban planning literatures on smart cities with literatures on CRM mining and recovery from scrap metals. We find that underestimating problems related to resource provision and recovery might lead to management and governance challenges in emerging smart cities, which also entail ethical issues. To illustrate these problems, we refer to the smart city energy domain and explore the smart city-CRM-energy nexus from the perspectives of the respective literatures. We show that CRMs are an important foundation for smart city energy applications such as energy production, energy distribution, and energy allocation. Given current trends in smart city emergence, smart city concepts may potentially foster primary extraction of CRMs, which is linked to considerable environmental and health issues. While the problems associated with primary mining have been well-explored in the literature, we also seek to shed light on the potential substitution and recovery of CRMs from anthropogenic raw material deposits as represented by installed digital smart city infrastructures. Our central finding is that the current smart city literature and contemporary urban planning do not address these issues. This leads to the paradox that smart city concepts are supporting the CRM dependencies that they should actually be seeking to overcome. Discussion on this emerging issue between academics and practitioners has nevertheless not taken place. We address these issues and make recommendations.

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“…In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the production of electronic waste (e-waste) to be a growing global environmental health problem [1][2][3][4][5]. In 2005, annual e-waste generation was estimated at 35 million tons, and increasing, with greater production occurring in developed countries, for later transfer to low-and middle-income countries for reuse or recycling [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are a source of hazardous constituents, such as heavy metals, but also valuable materials, including copper, gold, silver, and rare earth metals [1]. There are formal and informal markets for the recovery of these valuable materials [2]. Around 12 to 35% of all e-waste generated in 2014 was recycled formally in developed countries [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Assessment of Electronic Waste Workers in Chile: Study Design and Participant Characterization

Yohannessen¹,

Pinto-Galleguillos²,

Parra³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Little research has been done on occupational health ramifications of informal electronic waste (e-waste) recycling work, which is increasingly common in low- and middle-income countries, and very little is known about this in high-income countries. Our study evaluated informal and formal e-waste recycling workers in Chile, which was recently recognized as a high-income country. In 2017 we recruited 78 informal recycling workers from two cities, and 15 formal e-waste recycling workers from one recycling facility. Participants completed a questionnaire and health assessment regarding their involvement in, and potential impacts of, e-waste recycling, among other measures. Participants were primarily male, middle-aged, married with children, and had worked in e-waste recycling for an average of 12 years. Participants generally reported good health status, and chronic disease prevalence was similar to the national prevalence. Workers commonly reported exposures to several occupational stressors, including mental health stressors and noise, as well as insufficient income.   Occupational injuries were common and use of safety equipment was low. No significant differences were found between informal and formal workers. Informal e-waste workers in Chile face occupational health challenges. The extent to which these issues impact the health of informal Chilean e-waste workers is unclear and warrants further research.

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Has the question of e-waste opened a Pandora's box? An overview of unpredictable issues and challenges

Cited by 188 publications

References 130 publications

Understanding Consumer E-Waste Recycling Behavior: Introducing a New Economic Incentive to Increase the Collection Rates

Understanding Consumer E-Waste Recycling Behavior: Introducing a New Economic Incentive to Increase the Collection Rates

“Smart Is Not Smart Enough!” Anticipating Critical Raw Material Use in Smart City Concepts: The Example of Smart Grids

Health Assessment of Electronic Waste Workers in Chile: Study Design and Participant Characterization

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