The damaging effect of electronics on the environment
Description
Mobile phones and accessories contain concentrations of toxic heavy metals or other metals including cadmium, lead, nickel, mercury, manganese, lithium, zinc, arsenic, antimony, beryllium, and copper.
The number of unused or retired phones will keep growing year after year, posing an ever increasing problem for the environment. Most mobile phones have components that require specialist treatment to minimize their impact on the environment. The content of mobile phones varies from model to model, and as the technology advances so we will see changes in the composition.
Enablers
- Technology
- Consumers
- Environmental organizations
There are many international organisations that deal with the environment. These organisations have many initiatives to bring the attention of the public to corporations that harm the environment. One the most well know organisations is Greenpeace. One of their initiatives is the “Green Electronics Guide”. The Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies regarding both their use of toxic chemicals, and the degree to which they take responsibility for dealing with the electronic waste (e-waste) generated by their products. They publish and update this guide every quarter in order to try to get corporations to think and adjust their ways of doing. In doing so Greenpeace hopes to reduce toxic chemicals in products, pollution from old products.
- Global Warming
Inhibitors
Paradigms
- Adaptation
Population and economic growth into the next century will greatly increase the demand for natural resource commodities. Even though population growth has slowed, a population of six billion growing at 1% adds the same number of people as three billion people growing at 2%. The historical success of adaptation to increased demand for these commodities is by no means a guarantee of future success.
- Recycling
Resource conservation, reuse and recycling are important parts toward sustainability. Recycling requires far less energy, uses fewer natural resources, and keeps waste from piling up in landfills.
Timing
In the course of the twentieth century technological change has driven an enormous increase in the production of goods and services. The annual output of the world economy has grown from $31 trillion in 1990 to $42 trillion in 2000; in 1950, total world output was $6.3 trillion. The ever increasing output of goods and services will fuel the scarcity of resources.
Web Resources
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