Environmental Dimension

Production efficiency has been growing at an accelerated speed, as electronics companies have been working hard to constantly come up with new ideas. In order to sustain high efficiencies and competitiveness, many companies update their electronic devices and ICT infrastructure regularly. As end consumers, it is neither difficult to realize how quick many electronic products become outdated. Electronic products varied much from one to the other, the compatibility between them are low (for instance, the batteries and AC adapters of computers are not interchangeable between different brands or even various models with a same brand). In 2009, GSM Association’s 17 mobile operator and manufacturer members decided that they all would use Micro-USB interfaced charger as an industrial standard for new mobile phones²⁹. This action reflected a common environmental consensus among the global leaders, still there is a large space for improvement in other electronic product sectors.

While globally electronics output keeps increasing, the resource consumption and electronic waste also grow. The establishment of efficient recycling systems for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (hereafter WEEE) and the change of relative regulations are not at the same pace with the growth of new products. For instance, computer, one of the mostly used electronic products around the world, its average lifespan

29 GSMA, “Mobile Industry Unites to Drive Universal Charging Solution for Mobile Phones”, 17 February 2009, Barcelona, Spain,

http://www.gsma.com/articles/mobile-industry-unites-to-drive-universal-charging-solution-for-mobile-phones/17752/, (Accessed December 10, 2011)

is three years (Betts, 2008, cited in Robinson, 2009), but there are many countries not yet have laws or regulations on WEEE recycling and disposal.

“Modern electronics can contain up to 60 different elements, many are valuable, some are hazardous and some are both” (Schluep, et al, 2009). While the whole world is endlessly seeking metals everywhere, the treasures in WEEE are often mishandled or neglected.

According to ABI Research, a technology market research firm, only about 13 percent of roughly 53 million tons of WEEE that was generated on the planet in 2009 was recycled³⁰. The abandoned WEEE not only waste a large amount of precious natural resources, also threat the environment, for instance, when WEEE contain toxic heavy metals (such as lead) that are landfilled, the underground water will be contaminated. However, the landfilled WEEE only represents a small proportion of the total. The rest has been illegally exported to developing countries in Asia and Africa. Among the all, China is the biggest receiver of all exported WEEE (Schluep, et al, 2009). With tightening policies and legislation from EU, US and other developed countries, as well as the actions taken by governments in the developing countries, there will be fewer e-waste dumping cases.

Possibly the best way to prevent pollution from electronic products is to start from the design stage of new products. The damages caused by toxic elements to manufacturing workers and end users will be minimized, if the materials are carefully selected from the very beginning.

Electronic manufacturing normally involve a large amount of chemicals, “including chlorinated and brominated substances, photoactive chemicals, toxic gases, acids, solvents, heavy metals, plastics, and plastic additives, many of which impose a heavy burden on the environment and worker health” (Byster and Smith, 2006, p206). To link the occupational illnesses with each toxic chemical substance is impractical and unrealistic (Harrison, 1992).

However, there have been many studies with the intention to discover the connections between electronic workers’ exposures to toxins and diseases such as brain tumors,

30 ABI Research, e-Waste Recovery and Recycling—Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, Sustainable Product Development, Extended Producer Responsibility, and Toxic Exports, 2010, cited in Tom Zeller Jr., A Program to Certify Electronic Waste Recycling Rivals an Industry-U.S. Plan, The New York Times,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/business/energy-environment/15ewaste.html (Accessed in 18 December, 2011)

non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, testicular cancer, and advanced uterine and cervical cancers (Hawes and Pellow, 2006; LaDou, 2006). More researches carried out in the 1980s and 1990s to understand the high miscarriage rate among female workers in electronic industry (e.g., Huel et al., 1990; Schenker et al., 1995; Eskenazi et al., 1995). With the assistance of those studies, governments in many nations have issued legislation to ban or limit the use of hazard chemical substances in electronic and electrical equipments (hereafter EEE) manufacturing. In July 2006, the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (2002/95/EC) (hereafter RoHS) was become effective. The directive banned the use of six highly toxic chemical substances that include Lead (Pb), Mercury (Hg), Cadmium (Cd), Hexavalent chromium (Cr6+), Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)³¹. To many, that was a good movement towards a cleaner and a healthier electronic industry.

In another attempt to fight against climate change, the European Union’s Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC) was in force from October 21, 2009, which provided a more comprehensive guideline on energy saving of many electronics and related products³². Nonetheless, electronics industry especially ICT sector are often seen as “a key enabler of

‘green growth’ in all sectors of the economy”, the sector itself contributes around 2-3% of global CO2 emissions (Coroama and Hilty, 2009, p204), which is also the globally fastest growing emission sector. As a result of increasingly deployment of ICT products, it is reasonable to expect the share will rise further. However, due to the lack of a comprehensive tool to evaluate the actual energy impacts of ICT (Coroama and Hilty, 2009), this remains a mixed picture.

31 DIRECTIVE 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, Official Journal of European Union,

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2003:037:0019:0023:EN:PDF (Accessed November 12, 2011)

32 Directive 2009/125/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for energy-related products (Text with EEA relevance),

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32009L0125:EN:NOT (Accessed February 24, 2012)