Thursday, Nov. 15, marks the 16th year of America Recycles Day.
The day is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of recycling while providing an education platform that helps raise awareness about the value or reducing, reusing and recycling — every day — throughout the year.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and groups around the world have begun collaborating on a strategy in the hopes of curtailing an ever-increasing international problem – electronic waste.
Our need to talk and be connected 24/7 along with the “want” to have the latest and greatest in high-tech products is creating an insurmountable amount of electronic waste. E-waste is today’s fastest-growing waste stream.
This is an example of how fast electronic waste is growing: 65 million smart phones were sold in the U.S. in 2010. In 2011, that number jumped to 95 million. Worldwide, 1.8 billion mobile devices were sold, up 11.1 percent from 2010.
The ramification of how we deal with e-waste is not just a national concern but a global one as well.
The EPA reported that Americans disposed of approximately 2.4 million tons of electronic waste in 2010 with only about 25 percent of it being recycled. The amount of e-waste worldwide is even more staggering at approximately 40 million tons.
Cell phones alone only average a recycling rate of 8 percent, which means we’re missing out on the recovery of valuable metals such as copper, silver, gold and palladium.
It’s estimated that roughly 75 pounds of gold, 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver and 33 pounds of palladium could be recovered from 1 million cell phones.
This huge surge of electronic waste hasn’t gone unnoticed. On America Recycles Day in 2010, President Barack Obama established an Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship to deal specifically with e-waste.
The purpose of the task force, which includes the EPA, General Services Administration and the Council on Environmental Quality, was to develop a strategy that would address the life cycle of electronic products — from design to the eventual recycling or disposal of items.
The need to have a policy in place is for national and international reasons.
The recovery of metals and materials through recycling reduces the environmental impacts and energy demands that would otherwise occur with mining and manufacturing. With just 25 percent of e-waste being recycled, the U.S. is sending tons of it to the landfills and exporting the remaining to developing countries.
Unfortunately, because recycling is unregulated in developing countries, crude recovery practices are used, leading to the release of toxic substances such as lead, mercury, acids and dioxins into the environment.
Serious public health and environmental impacts are a growing concern, and the EPA is working with international groups such as the United Nations University-Solving the E-waste Problem Initiative to develop a cradle-to-grave strategy for these electronic products.
Locally, the state of Maryland generates 150,000 tons of e-waste annually. A statewide electronics recycling program has been in place since 2007 with recent modifications implemented on Oct. 1.
The revised law applies to manufacturers of a “covered electronic device,” a computer or video display device with a screen that is greater than four inches measured diagonally. The law requires manufacturers to put a manufacturer’s brand label on the device; pay a registration fee; and provide educational and instructional materials relating to the destruction and sanitization of data from the device.
E-waste generated at Fort Meade is processed through the Defense Logistics Agency, previously known as DRMO. One of DLA’s major roles is to explore reuse opportunities for the equipment while making it available to other DoD organizations through reutilization, transfer or donation.
Additionally, because the Recycling Facility at Fort Meade is limited to the type of e-waste it can accept and process, only cell phones and batteries from laptops can be turned in at the facility. No personal e-waste can be accepted by DLA or the Recycling Facility.
Best Buy and other companies such as Samsung and Dell have initiated take back programs and recycling programs that allow customers to drop off old electronics for re-use or recycling.
Taking that a step further, these companies have committed to standards and guidelines that their recyclers must meet to ensure that the e-waste doesn’t end up in landfills or sent to developing countries for a higher profit.
For more information about reducing electronic waste, call Suzanne Teague at 301-677-9185 or Arthur Frechette at 301-677-9674.
This Fort Meade Live blog was written by Suzanne Teague, Environmental Division.
