Electrical and electronic devices are increasingly numerous in our lives: large and small appliances, computer and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, lighting, electrical or electronic tools, toys and sports or leisure equipment, medical equipment, Surveillance or control instruments or vending machines.
When these devices are discarded, they become very polluting waste. The vast majority contains substances such as bromine, cadmium, phosphorus or mercury that can be very harmful to health and the environment. It is studied that the phosphorus of a television can contaminate up to 80,000 liters of water or that a badly recycled refrigerator emits greenhouse gases (GHG) equivalent to the emissions of a car in 15,000 kilometers.
The rapid development of electronics has brought many advantages and opportunities that have contributed to an improvement in life. However, its negative aspect is that the proportions and speed of technical innovation in this area (driven by our unlimited desire to have next-generation technology), coupled with the worldwide popularization of these low-cost devices ( the penetration rate of mobile phones is 96%), they have generated a mountain of electronic waste that keeps growing. Of the 50 million tons (including refrigerators, computers, laptops, mobile phones, game consoles, music equipment and televisions) that are generated every year in the world, only 15 of them are recycled. % and 20%. Much of the remaining electronic waste ends up in developing countries, where recycling is often carried out by the informal sector, which uses rudimentary methods that pose significant risks to the environment and to the health of the local population.
Citizens with environmental awareness should follow the three R's of environmentalism also with electrical and electronic devices:
- Reduce your use as much as possible, have only the necessary ones.
- Reuse them to give them a longer life. If they still work, they can be given as a gift to a friend or relative, donated to projects so that they can take advantage of them in solidarity or send them to various Internet initiatives that allow them to recycle old devices, such as mobile phones, and move on. money.
- Recycling: if the appliance does not work and a new one is purchased, the establishment is obliged by law to accept it for free and to take charge of it so that it can be conveniently managed. When it is operative, the Renove Plan of electrical appliances is a good time to replace the old ones with new ones of high energy saving. If you just want to get rid of the device, you have to take it to a clean point. The Ecolec Foundation locates them in a map of their website so that the citizen can find the closest one.
Electronic waste: a valuable product
Electronic waste is no longer an issue that exclusively affects the environment and public health. This report also highlights the commercialization of e-waste and points to the considerable increase in patenting activity related to the recovery of rare earth metals (eg, lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium), which are used in modern electronic devices, and also with the recovery of noble metals, such as gold, silver and platinum, from the electronic waste stream.
Source:
- http://www.consumer.es/web/es/medio_ambiente/urbano/2012/09/10/212515.php
- http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/es/2014/03/article_0001.html
- http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/es/2014/03/article_0001.html
I hope you liked it! :)