You know that plastics are not-so-fantastic for your environmental wellness, but did you know that electrical products are also a major issue? In the UK alone, it’s estimated that we produce over one million tonnes of electrical products every year, thanks, in part, to the technology revolution that swept over the world in the last 30 years.
You didn’t really know much about recycling in the UK until its first dedicated recycling center opened in 2001, but in the 12 years that followed only 20% of all electrical appliances were recycled, and the remaining 80% were shipped over to China for disposal. For the wellbeing of current and future generations, more needs to be done – especially as the growing population means staggering implications of where this might lead.
Most technology waste is processed in developing countries, and very harmful substances and contaminants like lead, beryllium and cadmium causes a large risk to the workers who sort and dismantle these items. These harmful substances also find their way into the water system as they break down and create heavy metals when they are place in landfills.
When it comes to precious metals, you’ve probably seen the series of adverts encouraging you to turn in your gold for cash, and this is because gold has never been higher in value and its current price is around £1000 per ounce, though silver is worth a lesser £30 per ounce. 320 tons of gold and over 7000 tons of silver are used in personal computers, mobile phones, tablet computers and other electrical products every year because gold never corrodes and is highly conductive of electricity. Manufacturers also use other precious metals such as copper, titanium and aluminum in technology production, and mining these metals from goods worldwide could generate over 20 billion dollars a year, or £12 billion.
To encourage recycling and reduce goods production, all resellers and manufacturers in European Union have to follow legislation in the WEEE directive in order to place electrical products on the market. Products that conform to WEEE, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment have the wheelie bin logo displayed on it.
Other solutions would be to produce less or keep things for longer and repair them; instead of having the mindset that ‘new is always better’ which is perpetuated by marketing. Manufacturers could also make their products upgradeable instead of changing their whole form, so technology and styles could be updated without scrapping and wasting entire products.
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