CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Where Do You Throw Your Chewed Apple?
People have not embraced the urgency to respect and reuse valuable components. Recycling is not worth it for the owner. Though it should be.
Dimitris Glynos
May 23, 2020
Animation: Armin Sarajlic
As a child I had a passion: I loved phones and especially mobile phones. They fascinated me. There are multiple photos of baby me with different phones. I could not speak properly; but somehow, I was already chit chatting. If they weren’t being used by an adult in the family, any old devices –functional or not – would end up with me. As if this was their destiny all along. The true reason for their production. And I possessed many. Every time my father bought a new cell phone, I got the previous as a toy.
This happened quiet frequently. Either my father was too careless or he was experiencing the delirium of the consumer society of the late 90s early 00s. Point being that anytime I wanted a new toy, I could pretty much sabotage his current phone - for instance by throwing it in a glass of water. And my father would give it to me. Because there was not such a thing as recycling electronic devices. Or at least it was not an established concept.
Has the situation changed from those days - which I can assure you are not long ago? Today the roles have been reversed. It is more likely that I get a new device and my old one ends up with my father or another boomer in the family. And in most cases, this constitutes an upgrade for them. The sad common ground: the device is not recycled. Despite the raw materials it contains.
This realization applies to a plethora of electronic devices. People have not embraced the urgency to respect and reuse valuable components. Recycling is not worth it for the owner. Consumers don’t perceive the financial benefit of it, so they refrain from doing it. `'Recycling for the sake of the environment' is a concept that doesn’t “move” the user. After all, they consider the price they paid for their fancy smartphone, fridge or television. When comparing it with the reimbursement for recycling, if there is one, they feel offended. The collectors- either recycling companies or product manufacturers- treat their beloved items as worthless packages. But unlike packages they have paid a fortune to acquire them, and the package itself has been disposed in colourful cans. It is not that people want to store them in Victorian armoire in case they adopt a more hipster lifestyle. They don’t want to open a museum for obsolete devices, where they would exhibit their collection either. The absence of measurable financial benefit is translated into reluctance to recycle. So, our drawers, our basement and our garden in the summer cottage come to resemble a setting out of a Kusturica film.
The European Commission
describes the ‘’waste of electrical and electronic equipment such as computers, TV-sets, fridges and cell phones as one of the fastest growing waste streams.’’ More than 12 million tonnes are expected to be generated in the EU this year. As a comparison, the total amount in 2005 reached 9 million tonnes. The trend is clear, and it illustrates a substantial worldwide increase over the next decades. Our world becomes more digitalised and at the same time the replacement cycles of the devices- take mobile phones as a typical example- become shorter. Approximately 44.7 Million tonnes of discarded electrical and electronic equipment have been accumulated across the globe in 2016. That would be the equivalent to almost 4500 Eiffel Towers. In one year. This data stems from ‘The Global E-Waste Monitor 2017’.
Researchers from the United Nations University, the International Telecommunication Union and the International Solid Waste Association have joined forces and published this fascinating report, where they express their concern regarding the low recycling levels of e-waste. According to their estimation it does not exceed 20% worldwide. The rest is either stored in households, collected through informal channels and possibly subjected to improper treatment or disposed in landfills and incinerated as unsorted municipal waste. The last two are the worst-case scenarios.
E-waste contains hazardous materials. The toxic content endangers the public and poisons the environment, when it burns or remains exposed. In this context, the transfer of e-waste to other regions is restricted as prescribed in the Basel Convention. Another beautiful city on the long list of conventions that have not been ratified by the USA. Apropos USA, the collection rate of e-waste generated is 22%. In Germany 34%. Not great, not terrible. Northern Europe achieves the highest rates in the world. Generally, the EU urges its member states to improve their performance by implementing the WEEE Directive
(2012/19/EU). As the German Environment Agency
describes, the European Commission set an ambitious goal from 2019 onwards at 65% ‘of the electrical and electronic devices put on the market in the prior three years’.
Setting the environment and public health aside, low recycling levels undermine the efforts toward a circular economy in line with the Agenda
for Sustainable Development 2030. Sophisticated electronics are comprised of up to 60 elements from the periodic table. And these are wasted when they do not enter the formal recycling chain. Although many of them are technically recoverable. The market mechanisms simply do not facilitate the recovery of these resources. Instead they promote the purchase of new devices and the extraction of additional resources. Because buying a new device is cheaper than repairing. And more profitable - for the seller. Because extraction is cheaper than reuse. Based on the example of mobile phones, the report elaborates on this paradox. In 2016 the average selling price of a new smartphone was around 200€, whereas a used one was sold on average for 118€. The estimated value of the raw material was 2€ per piece.
For those who neglect the ecological aspect and do not comprehend the necessity of prolonging the product usage span. For those who are reluctant to establish systems and invest in infrastructure that treats e-waste as a resource. For those who see the world from the monetary perspective. I have a final argument to make. The e-waste generated in 2016 was worth 55 Billion €. Hopefully, this information might set market mechanisms in motion for more efficient waste management.
Dimitris Glynos holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from the Technical University of Berlin and is now pursuing his master’s. In our Institute, he serves as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.
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