E-Waste is a Growing Problem for CIOs

A couple of months ago I was working away at my desk while listening to a remarkable and deeply troubling story on Chicago's Public Radio's This American Life. An enormous area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is filling with plastic trash. Variously known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or the Pacific Trash Vortex, this floating continent of plastic is the area of Texas - and the largest "landfill" in the world.

The garbage patch is an accidental problem with real consequences. It was formed and is sustained by the clockwise circular pattern of four prevailing ocean currents off the coasts of the Americas and Asia. The currents pick up debris and the vortex concentrates it similar to the way water spins down the drain. While historically this debris has biodegraded - decomposed by biological agents, such as bacteria - the garbage patch is accumulating vast quantities of plastic. Imagine the ever-growing Republic of Plastic floating around in the open ocean.

The main problem with plastic is that it doesn't biodegrade. Instead plastic is photodegradable - chemically broken down by light - into smaller and smaller pieces. Along the way, it can trap marine life or is consumed and enters the food chain. Any way you cut it, this is a nasty proposition made even more problematic because it's beyond the jurisdiction of any one nation, and is therefore out of sight and out of mind. And yet I can't seem to get it out of my head.

Closer to Home
A week or so later, I was out walking my dogs, and when we came upon a pile of computer gear stacked curbside beside a garbage can ready for pickup. There were several throwaways: a monitor, CPU, keyboard, printer and two portable phones discarded for good measure. This pile of electronic gadgets reminded me of that distant problem way out in the Pacific and got me wondering about a similar problem closer to home. What happens to all the electronic devices - the PCs, laptops, cell phones, PDAs and other devices that are so much a part of our business and personal lives? I set out to do a bit of exploring.

Electronic waste - colloquially known as e-waste - includes obsolete computers, monitors, cell phones, televisions, microwaves, digital cameras, portable electronic games, calculators, etc. E-waste is the fastest growing garbage stream in the world, and according to an Environmental Protection Agency estimate only 10 percent of the e-waste in the United States is recycled. Most of that effort derives from the leadership of 12 or 13 states, nonprofits and a small but growing number of socially responsible technology firms. The federal government has largely ignored the problem.

Disposal of e-waste is complicated because these devices contain lots of parts and materials, some of which are precious; others of which are hazardous.

Almost every component is built with some kind of toxin. Computer circuit boards contain lead and cadmium. Monitors' cathode ray tubes (CRTs) have lead, cadmium, phosphorus and barium. In fact, a large CRT may contain from 4 to 8 pounds of lead. Even cables are bad for the environment, because they're sprayed with flame retardants that can leach into the soil and groundwater. Let us not forget that most electronic gadgets are loaded with plastic that doesn't biodegrade.

To understand the scope of the problem where I live, I contacted the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which estimates that approximately 50 million pounds of e-waste ends up in landfills. This is a large figure for a state with a relatively small population base of 3.7 million residents. It makes me wonder what the numbers are like for California, New York state, Florida and Texas, and what is being done to address the e-waste problem in those states.