The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When I really start thinking, I have a tough time counting all of the electronics that have been through my house over the past five to seven years. I owned three different desktop computers before the one I currently have. My wife and I both have laptops, but I'm going to soon be getting a new one. We've had a few VCRs, a TV, a DVD player, two printers, and several CD players that have all passed through our home in the past few years. The problem with all of this stuff is that it is toxic. The problem of e-waste is one that we are slowly growing in awareness of. There are several problems at work. The first is the falling cost of consumer electronics. While we all like low prices, this leads to us discarding things rather than fixing them. The second is the rapid pace of change. Technology is always changing, forcing us to change as well in order to keep up. The third problem is something called planned obsolescence. This is the fact that many companies plan for their products to exist for only a few years before they need to be upgraded or replaced. Computers used to last for approximately five or six years, but in the past several years this has lowered to more in the range of two or three years. This means more products being upgraded and more products thrown in the trash. This is a big deal. Electronics of all types are nasty products when it comes to disposal. They are actually considered to be toxic waste and should not be disposed of in the landfill. While they make up less than two per cent of our garbage as a country, they account for almost 70 per cent of our toxic waste. Electronics are filled with lead, mercury, all types of plastics and acids as well. All together, more than 20 different chemicals are commonly found in the circuit boards, wiring, and the housings of electronic products such as computers, cell phones, printers, televisions and fax machines. Over the past year, several high profile cases have surfaced showing some alarming things when it comes to the disposal of electronics. Many products that have been recycled over the past years end up getting sent to several villages in China and India. Appalling The pictures and videos out of these locations are appalling as people literally cook up batches of circuit boards and wiring to extract the tiny amounts of useful chemicals from a lethal broth. The streets of these places run with toxic chemicals and the people sleep under clouds of burning plastic. A made-at-home solution is much needed and it looks as if both the Canadian and the Manitoba governments are finally on the move. Earlier this spring, the Manitoba government announced that an e-waste round-up would take place over the summer. While in the North the only depot was in Thompson, and it was only open for a month, it is a start. Taking only residential waste currently, these depots are an attempt to try to clean out some of the stockpiles we probably all have in our basements and garages. While there have been no numbers from this program yet released, the hope is that over 500 tonnes of electronics will be collected and passed onto one of the several places in Canada that actually recycles these products properly. Considering that in 1992, a depot in Winnipeg collected over nine tonnes of stuff and over 5,000 pieces of equipment in a single weekend, this doesn't seem unreasonable at all. Once this pilot project has been completed, expect changes. First of all, the burden of responsibility for the disposal of these products needs to move from the general taxpayer to the consumer and the manufacturer. I completely expect a surcharge to soon be added to the price of almost all consumer electronics to cover the cost of their disposal. Many provinces and states are moving in this direction and I fully expect that Manitoba will follow. I also expect it to become much easier to rid ourselves of these things when they are outdated instead of having to hang on to them, wondering when there will be a hazardous waste disposal day coming to our community again. If they need to be handled correctly, than we need the convenience of doing things correctly. I hope that more depots are set up, allowing us to do the right thing with this waste, to ensure that it doesn't end up being a mountain of burden for those who come after us. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
