Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome up Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future. It says driving speaking simultaneously.
Speaker 1: This should be illegal for everyone but me. I'm John Strickland,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and our other regular host, Lauren
Speaker 1: voc Obama is not with us today, but she will
Speaker 1: be back again next time. Okay, Jonathan, I got a
Speaker 1: scenario for you. Hit me. You drop your Android device
Speaker 1: in the toilet. Okay, this is frightening, Lee, similar to
Speaker 1: something that actually did happen to me last month ago. Ahead,
Speaker 1: you fish it out of the toilet. It doesn't work. No,
Speaker 1: it don't work no more. You try, you try all
Speaker 1: the tricks, you put it in a bag of rice,
Speaker 1: to do all that stuff. It's just it's good. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so you go get you a new one. Sure,
Speaker 1: but what do you do with the old one? I'll
Speaker 1: just toss it out the door, don't I out the window? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, just you know, to let it be free. Gone.
Speaker 1: A little Enjroid Way goes to live on a farm
Speaker 1: with a bunch of us, along with all of my
Speaker 1: other gadgets, like my entire Tway six hundred is out there.
Speaker 1: They're gonna all have a grand old time. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: our lives are just full of amazing technology that we
Speaker 1: sometimes we take it for granted. We we just do
Speaker 1: not have the correct level of appreciation for what our
Speaker 1: devices can do. I actually, today, literally the day we're
Speaker 1: recording this, there was a moment where I was I
Speaker 1: was um swiping through my Twitter feed and watching as
Speaker 1: videos were auto playing with no no sound. But we're
Speaker 1: auto playing the video as I'm going through, holding this
Speaker 1: device in my hand and thinking, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: we would never even dream that our computers would be
Speaker 1: able to do this, much less something that I can
Speaker 1: hold in my hand and carry around with me everywhere.
Speaker 1: So once in a while we have those moments or
Speaker 1: we have that realization of wow, this is amazing. But
Speaker 1: I agree, most of the time it's just this thing
Speaker 1: that we have. But despite how amazing these devices are,
Speaker 1: they all, you know, they come to an end of
Speaker 1: term at some point. They break that whether you drop
Speaker 1: them in a toilet or it's just time to upgrade,
Speaker 1: you know. So I've got some kind of slow Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got some stuff I want to talk about as
Speaker 1: far as that goes. So, according to a Gallop survey
Speaker 1: that was done in of Americans upgrade their smartphones as
Speaker 1: soon as their provider allows for it, which is usually
Speaker 1: every two years UM, about two percent will upgrade before
Speaker 1: that time. I bet a lot of them. This is
Speaker 1: just wild. Guess are big fans of a company that
Speaker 1: rhymes with schmapple um just because Apple comes out with
Speaker 1: a new iPhone every year. This is anecdotal, so it's
Speaker 1: completely worthless. But I do know people who will buy
Speaker 1: the latest iPhone every year rather than wait out the
Speaker 1: two years that typically most people would go with. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what's the difference. What what? What's the
Speaker 1: latest iPhone got that the one before it didn't have
Speaker 1: pixels like more of them and they're better. So yeah,
Speaker 1: processor tends to be faster, it tends to be thinner.
Speaker 1: The screen size usually there's some difference in that, though
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily always get larger each generation, but the
Speaker 1: last one, the iPhone six plus sterre did so. At
Speaker 1: any rate, You've got some folks who are replacing these
Speaker 1: devices pretty quickly, which leads to the question what happens
Speaker 1: to the old ones, but that's just phones. Total cost
Speaker 1: of ownership studies actually suggest that you should replace your
Speaker 1: computer about every four years because, yeah, because your computer
Speaker 1: will gradually get less and less efficient over time. It
Speaker 1: just happens, because that's what happens with electronics. You'll also
Speaker 1: be able to run fewer pro grams because they will
Speaker 1: require greater power or greater capabilities than your old piece
Speaker 1: of crap machine can do. So I don't even know
Speaker 1: why you hang onto that thing. You need to you
Speaker 1: need to put it out the pasture along with my
Speaker 1: old android phone. What is this? Uh? This is uh
Speaker 1: pages law right? Yeah, yeah, there are a couple of
Speaker 1: different ones that play into this. But yes, uh that
Speaker 1: as a as processors become faster, software becomes slower. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: because if you have the ability, like you suddenly think, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got all this extra power, I can build in
Speaker 1: all these features that before we're making the computer grind
Speaker 1: to a halt, but now we'll just go at a
Speaker 1: very slow trudge. Um So also, after I just had
Speaker 1: a weird thought, sorry, at what point will will our
Speaker 1: hardware be so fast that people won't even bother to
Speaker 1: remove malware? It's just like, ah, you know, that's just
Speaker 1: the only two percent of my process. It will be fine. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on how efficient the malware is.
Speaker 1: But most PCs are designed to last about five years.
Speaker 1: Um that you know, that's just the way that they're
Speaker 1: being built. And you can have a PC last much
Speaker 1: longer than that. Uh. I think the PC I own
Speaker 1: is getting up there, but I don't have a huge
Speaker 1: pressing need to upgrade to something better just yet. Still,
Speaker 1: I know that that will one day happen. Um. And
Speaker 1: then we often find ourselves in a world where we're
Speaker 1: encouraged to re replace or augment the stuff we have
Speaker 1: with new stuff. I mean, that's kind of that consumerist approach. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's everything you see in advertising. Plus, we're getting into
Speaker 1: a world where more and more smart devices are are
Speaker 1: becoming available, everything from light bulbs to major appliances and
Speaker 1: and everything in between. Um. And this ultimately starts to
Speaker 1: create a really big problem that we've kind of alluded to.
Speaker 1: What do you do with the old stuff, whether it's
Speaker 1: broken or it's just outdated, it's obsolete, What do you
Speaker 1: do with it? How can you dispose of that responsibly?
Speaker 1: Because as it turns out, this stuff is, it's got
Speaker 1: some nasty elements in it. Yeah. So this has been
Speaker 1: referred to, I guess in the media as the e
Speaker 1: waste problem, the electronic waste problem, and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit different than our standard waste problem. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say it's a subset of it, but it has
Speaker 1: some different concerns. Uh So, of course, the standard waste
Speaker 1: problems are, you know, you've got stuff you don't want anymore.
Speaker 1: You can't keep it in your house, so you get
Speaker 1: you put it in the garbage garbage garbage carriers come
Speaker 1: and take it away, and they take it somewhere and
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with it anymore. But you
Speaker 1: better hope that when they take it away, it's being
Speaker 1: dealt with in a way that's not creating more problems
Speaker 1: for your society, for the planet we live on, and
Speaker 1: just just being a nuisance in general. Yeah. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, it might just go to a landfill. Some
Speaker 1: of it could end up getting incinerated, and considering some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that's in electronics, that can be bad
Speaker 1: because it can release those toxins into the atmosphere, into
Speaker 1: the local water supply. You can start doing serious damaged
Speaker 1: to ecosystems, to people, it's a real issue. And so
Speaker 1: when talking specifically about electronic waste, these old devices, there
Speaker 1: are some materials you will often find in them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and this is where we really have to pay attention, right.
Speaker 1: These are things that you don't want to have a
Speaker 1: lot of extensive contact with if you have the choice.
Speaker 1: And you might think, well, how much could how much
Speaker 1: toxic material could my smartphone have inside of it? Truth
Speaker 1: is very little, It's not a whole lot, But you've
Speaker 1: gotta take this all as a whole. These are there.
Speaker 1: There are thousands upon thousands of electronic devices being disposed
Speaker 1: of every year. We'll get into those numbers in a minute, right,
Speaker 1: And and from depending upon who you believe, more than
Speaker 1: half of it ends up going to landfills, which means
Speaker 1: potentially also to incinerators, and that creates some big issues.
Speaker 1: If you've got a lot of this stuff being ground
Speaker 1: up and burned, you could have some real nasty chemicals
Speaker 1: released into the environment. So that includes lead, which we
Speaker 1: know is not great. Right, So lead toxicity can affect
Speaker 1: every organ system in our bodies in some way. Lead
Speaker 1: can inhibit or mimic the actions of calcium and interact
Speaker 1: with proteins, so then it gets incorporated into us. And
Speaker 1: the nervous system is particularly vulnerable and lead exposure can
Speaker 1: cause neurological damage, particularly in children. So it's definitely something
Speaker 1: to be concerned about. There's also not as much as
Speaker 1: there used to be, but there's some mercury in a
Speaker 1: lot of electronics. Since the move from lamp bulb type
Speaker 1: technology to LED technology, there's less mercury, but there's still
Speaker 1: some in a lot of electronics. Mercury is also toxic
Speaker 1: to the nervous system. It's also toxic to the digestive
Speaker 1: system and the immune system, and it can cause blindness,
Speaker 1: muscle weakness, impaired movement, and lots of other neurological effects. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's not good because I take mercury to ward off vampireism. Well,
Speaker 1: I here's the good news. It's working. I guarantee you
Speaker 1: haven't suffered any of the effects of vampiresm since you
Speaker 1: started taking mercury um. There's also arsenic, which, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not just a poisonous a carson carcinogen um. It's associated
Speaker 1: with lots of different types of cancer, and it's also
Speaker 1: a neurotoxin. Uh, there's beryllium. An. Exposure to brillium is
Speaker 1: typically pretty minimal for most of us, but continued exposure
Speaker 1: it can lead to health problems ranging from skin diseases
Speaker 1: to acute beryllium disease, which it's a lot like pneumonia.
Speaker 1: It's a respiratory thing um and also lung cancer, although
Speaker 1: exposure to brillium leading to lung cancer is pretty rare,
Speaker 1: but it can happen. Then you have a whole class
Speaker 1: of chemicals that fall under the category rominadd flame retardants.
Speaker 1: Two really bad things about this stuff, right, Some of
Speaker 1: it is incredibly hazardous to our health and can lead
Speaker 1: to memory and learning problems, thyroid disruption, reduced fertility, advanced puberty,
Speaker 1: and yet delayed mental and physical development, uh, particularly in
Speaker 1: p b d e S, a subclass of this stuff.
Speaker 1: The other problem some people claim that it doesn't really
Speaker 1: make stuff more flame retardants, so it's meant to do
Speaker 1: the specific thing, and it may not do it particularly
Speaker 1: well and also comes with these health risks. Now, not
Speaker 1: all of the the subclasses under romanade flame retardants are
Speaker 1: equally hazardous, and some of them are much more um
Speaker 1: much less likely to leach out of their their you know,
Speaker 1: whatever material they're they're mixed in with. But it's still
Speaker 1: a concern. Now, there are other concerns about about what's
Speaker 1: contained in electronic ways that are not just based on poisons.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the example of rare earth materials. You know,
Speaker 1: these are things that are highly valuable and each individual
Speaker 1: device might not have very much in them, but when
Speaker 1: you consider how much of this stuff we get rid of,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a shame that we're just putting all
Speaker 1: of these rare elements to waste and throwing them in
Speaker 1: a landfill when they could be used for more technology
Speaker 1: or science. You can also find stuff like gold or
Speaker 1: sometimes silver, and some of these electronic devices. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's copper, there's steel. There's stuff that can be uh
Speaker 1: reused if you were able to take it out of
Speaker 1: the electronic device. So there is some value there. Um,
Speaker 1: it's uh the question that then comes down to how
Speaker 1: expensive is it to get the stuff out exactly versus
Speaker 1: how much is it works? And this is going to
Speaker 1: be one of the problems when we talk about how
Speaker 1: you recycle these things exactly. So let's before we get
Speaker 1: into that, though, we should probably look at some scope like,
Speaker 1: how is this a big enough deal? Why are we
Speaker 1: even doing a podcast about it? Is it something that
Speaker 1: has been overhyped by certain media outlets? What what's the
Speaker 1: real scoop? Well, Jonathan, it seems like you may have
Speaker 1: had the same experience I had, which was seeing a
Speaker 1: bunch of different numbers thrown around. Well. Yeah, part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that if you start doing is just
Speaker 1: preliminary research on this topic, a lot of hits you're
Speaker 1: going to receive. Ralph the Bat are coming from various
Speaker 1: advocacy groups that are arguing for more responsible stewardship of
Speaker 1: our electronics right and which I completely agree with. By
Speaker 1: the way, I completely agree with their their agenda. What
Speaker 1: makes me worry is that the statistics they cite may
Speaker 1: or may not be grounded in what I like to
Speaker 1: refer to as reality. Uh it may be, but it
Speaker 1: may not be. So what you want to do is
Speaker 1: try and find as unbiased a source as possible to
Speaker 1: kind of get a feel for how big is this problem?
Speaker 1: Because uh, not that anyone necessarily is consciously trying to
Speaker 1: tweak the numbers one way or the other. But if
Speaker 1: you go with someone who doesn't have an outright agenda
Speaker 1: on the subject. Do you feel a little more comfortable
Speaker 1: with the numbers that they cite. So one of the
Speaker 1: reports I read was actually it was something that Wired
Speaker 1: had had posted in an article, but they were citing
Speaker 1: a report from Markets and Markets, which is a research
Speaker 1: firm that in eleven, the world generated forty one and
Speaker 1: a half million tons of electronic waste between and going
Speaker 1: straight into landfills. So that's I mean, that's huge and
Speaker 1: and not good for all the reasons we just talked
Speaker 1: about with all the toxics, not to mention just a
Speaker 1: waste of those materials we could reclaim and use elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now you have another number here, which was one of
Speaker 1: the ones I cited when I was looking into this.
Speaker 1: It was the UH the United Nations University Estimate that
Speaker 1: put together a report UH that in they said the
Speaker 1: number was about forty two million tons. I think it
Speaker 1: was forty one point eight or forty one point something
Speaker 1: million metric tons, so just a little bit more than
Speaker 1: what the two thousand and eleven number was, which means
Speaker 1: it stayed fairly consistent. UM. But they also calculated that
Speaker 1: the consumption for new electronics amounted to fifty eight million
Speaker 1: tons in twelve, meaning we're bringing on more and more.
Speaker 1: And so when you start looking at that um that
Speaker 1: life cycle that you know, two years for forty four
Speaker 1: two years for a phone for percent of the people
Speaker 1: in the United States who are buying phones, or four
Speaker 1: or five years for computers, and you start thinking, well,
Speaker 1: our consumption levels are growing, therefore our waste numbers are
Speaker 1: going to grow within the next f years. Now, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: here's something maybe you could comment on from experience talking
Speaker 1: about these trends in tech stuff. Not only are we
Speaker 1: incorporating more devices, but do you think devices are typically
Speaker 1: getting shorter lives. I want to say yes. It behooves
Speaker 1: a company to convince consumers to buy the newest thing,
Speaker 1: because that's how companies make money. Of Course, you don't
Speaker 1: want them having the thought that the last time they
Speaker 1: bought something from you, it didn't work for a long time, right,
Speaker 1: which I think is I think two years is that
Speaker 1: sweet spot for a lot of phones. I think Apple
Speaker 1: hit on something where they had they got that even
Speaker 1: more rapid group of consumers, the super fans for Apple
Speaker 1: who are willing to pay the extra amount of money
Speaker 1: it would take to upgrade yearly as opposed to every
Speaker 1: two years. But that's rare, right. I think two years
Speaker 1: is the sweet spot for smartphones for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: one of which is that that gives an of time
Speaker 1: for advances in hardware and software. Two turn whatever was
Speaker 1: that you had from two years ago, uh, into being
Speaker 1: either less useful or maybe even completely obsolete. So, for example,
Speaker 1: you may find out that the phone you have, While
Speaker 1: you love that phone, it can't support any of the
Speaker 1: more recent upbring system updates and the one that it's
Speaker 1: on is no longer being supported. That's a problem, right,
Speaker 1: because any new app coming out may not work on
Speaker 1: your device anymore. You have an incentive to go an upgrade.
Speaker 1: And part of this, I think is is driven by
Speaker 1: the market. I think part of it's driven by consumer behavior. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone necessarily. I don't think there's like
Speaker 1: a cabal meeting behind the scenes at at cell phone
Speaker 1: or computer companies saying so, how frequently do you think
Speaker 1: we can make them buy a new phone? Like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's happening, um, but I'm sure that it's
Speaker 1: played apart. Right. It's it's a trend that I have
Speaker 1: seen and when we get into these new electronics stuff
Speaker 1: that is meant to work into like the automated households
Speaker 1: or the Internet of Things, you run into more of
Speaker 1: that risk because what happens if the company you go
Speaker 1: with ends up not being able to make it and
Speaker 1: suddenly like the stuff you have has limited functionality, it
Speaker 1: doesn't function with other stuff that is still being supported
Speaker 1: in the market. So if I go and buy, you know,
Speaker 1: some home automation stuff from Company A, and Company A
Speaker 1: goes out of business and Company B is still in
Speaker 1: business and they do the same sort of stuff and
Speaker 1: can complete whatever project I had to automate my home,
Speaker 1: it may mean they have to buy all new things
Speaker 1: because Company B stuff isn't going to communicate with Company
Speaker 1: ACE stuff which I already have installed in my house,
Speaker 1: which means I gotta get rid of all that stuff
Speaker 1: I had already bought, and that creates more e waste.
Speaker 1: These are the sort of things that play in. It's
Speaker 1: not just the lifespan of the electronics, it's the lifespan
Speaker 1: of the parent companies that make the stuff, right, So
Speaker 1: we have a lot of different forces at play that
Speaker 1: turn these electronics into trash. From the eyes of the
Speaker 1: person who buys it pretty quickly, like there's an amazing
Speaker 1: churn rate. And all of this obviously tells us that
Speaker 1: this is something we need to pay attention to. How
Speaker 1: can we deal with our electronic waste in a responsible way?
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest challenges is making sure that
Speaker 1: countries that are part of the developing world don't suffer
Speaker 1: uh while the rest of us are figuring out how
Speaker 1: to manage this waste. Right, because we're seeing around the
Speaker 1: world where countries like in Africa, for example, are leap
Speaker 1: frogging technologies. They don't they're not going with landline systems
Speaker 1: because to cover the continent in telephone cables would take
Speaker 1: a really long time. Their leapfrogging are already available, right,
Speaker 1: they're leap frogging directly to cell phones. So because they're
Speaker 1: doing that, they they're jumping ahead. Uh, they're jumping faster
Speaker 1: than they have the capacity to deal with the consequences,
Speaker 1: Like what do you do with e waste when you're
Speaker 1: generating it? And if it's a country that doesn't have
Speaker 1: very strong health and safety regulations or waste management policies,
Speaker 1: then there's a real danger that that stuff could be
Speaker 1: disposed of in a way that poses a threat to
Speaker 1: the environment and to the people who live there. And uh,
Speaker 1: we're seeing that happen a lot um And in fact,
Speaker 1: we're seeing also in the United Nations University study that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of countries that are dealing with
Speaker 1: us not just irresponsibly but illegally, including developed nations that
Speaker 1: are shipping stuff from the developed nations to developing nations. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the way it works is, I've got a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of e waste, right I run a recycling program in
Speaker 1: the United States. It don't really this is a hypothetical situation.
Speaker 1: But I run a recycling program, and I have determined
Speaker 1: that the stuff I'm bringing in it actually costs me
Speaker 1: too much money to really recycle it and reclaim those materials,
Speaker 1: and I would be losing money on the on the proposition.
Speaker 1: So but if you could pay people a very low
Speaker 1: wage to get the materials out of it, you might
Speaker 1: be able to make more money. Or if I could
Speaker 1: just sell it to a country and the country says
Speaker 1: we will pay you x amount per however much weight
Speaker 1: of electronics. You got those for free, or I got
Speaker 1: those for free by running this recycling program. Because people
Speaker 1: are sending me their stuff. I'm getting this free resource
Speaker 1: that I can then sell to some other outlet, and
Speaker 1: they might use a very um shady approach to reclaiming
Speaker 1: the materials inside those phones, which are ultimately harmful to
Speaker 1: the people who live there. Now, this could actually amount
Speaker 1: to big money industry over time, especially you know, one
Speaker 1: of those research firms we mentioned earlier, Markets and Markets
Speaker 1: had a prediction about how much money would be going
Speaker 1: into the e waste industry in the coming years, five
Speaker 1: billion dollar industry by and when you think about this
Speaker 1: is dealing with garbage, right, dealing with stuff that people
Speaker 1: don't want, five billion dollar industry. It's not making something,
Speaker 1: it's not producing something new, and most it's reclaiming stuff
Speaker 1: that's already inside existing products. So let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the responsible ways to deal with electronic waste.
Speaker 1: Because I'm not suggesting to people, Hey, the stuff you've got,
Speaker 1: it's good enough. Stop. I'm not going to tell people that.
Speaker 1: But I am going to tell people look into ways
Speaker 1: to dispose of your electronics in a responsible manner so
Speaker 1: that you have as little negative impact on others as possible. Okay,
Speaker 1: so first method, just pile up the electronics in your
Speaker 1: basement or garage and never look at it again. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that I based upon I just I
Speaker 1: just recently, as of like last night, did a big
Speaker 1: reord thing in my garage. Came across a bunch of
Speaker 1: boxes that had cell phones that probably dated from the
Speaker 1: maybe the early two thousand's, like the big brick ones,
Speaker 1: the candy bar type. And I can tell you that, um,
Speaker 1: that only works for a while, essentially turns your home
Speaker 1: into a landfill, so you probably don't want to keep
Speaker 1: that up. But reusing is the ideal situation, right exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if the electronic device is still in working order or
Speaker 1: it can be repaired easily, relatively easily, then donating that
Speaker 1: to a sir of us that takes in old electronics
Speaker 1: and then UH issues them to two people who need
Speaker 1: them that can be really helpful. Like there's one here
Speaker 1: in the United States where you can donate it and
Speaker 1: it's a it'll go to someone in the military along
Speaker 1: with prepaid phone cards so that they can make phone
Speaker 1: calls back home while they're deployed around the world, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty noble thing, right. There's some that will
Speaker 1: end up UH delivering working cell phones to um two
Speaker 1: people in different parts of the world where there are
Speaker 1: cell services, but there's not a lot of actual phone
Speaker 1: technology there yet. In other words, you're getting phones to
Speaker 1: people who need them but can't have access to them easily.
Speaker 1: That's ideal, right, Uh. And in large operations that that
Speaker 1: do this sort of stuff, typically it involves employing people
Speaker 1: to clean, assess, and repair electronics. And because of there's
Speaker 1: a there's a huge variety of stuff coming in, like
Speaker 1: all sorts of different phones and electronic gadgets that come
Speaker 1: into these places. You can't really employ robots to do
Speaker 1: it because robots tend to be really good at very
Speaker 1: specific things, and then as soon as something outside of
Speaker 1: that falls into their hands, they can't do anything with it. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if you have a robot this program to
Speaker 1: unscrew the back of a Samsung phone, and then you
Speaker 1: give it an iPhone, it's gonna look at it and say, well, well,
Speaker 1: I don't I can't do anything with this. Why program
Speaker 1: to feel pain? Right? Granted, if you were to do
Speaker 1: the same thing to a human they might say the
Speaker 1: same thing, but that's because phones are getting harder and
Speaker 1: harder to take a part more on that in just
Speaker 1: a second. But the idea being that not only are
Speaker 1: you giving someone access to electronics they might not otherwise have,
Speaker 1: and you're getting rid of the stuff you don't want anymore,
Speaker 1: you're also helping employ people because there these jobs require
Speaker 1: human beings in them. So there's kind like a domino
Speaker 1: effect of wind wind going on here when you do
Speaker 1: it this way. Now, granted, ultimately that device is eventually
Speaker 1: going to break and have to be disposed of, but
Speaker 1: this extends its useful life well beyond what it would
Speaker 1: be just in your hands. So that's that's the ideal situation.
Speaker 1: Now you could look at that as a form of
Speaker 1: electronics recycling, but more specifically, that's reusing because you're trying
Speaker 1: to keep the phone as intact as possible as a
Speaker 1: usable device, not just the phone, the device, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But another form of recycling would be looking at it
Speaker 1: from a component's point of view, and this would be
Speaker 1: where you're reclaiming specific materials like that steel or copper
Speaker 1: or aluminum. We we talked about it before. Now there's
Speaker 1: a problem with this, which is that over if you
Speaker 1: look at the entire uh spectrum of all the stuff
Speaker 1: we throw away, and you know those millions of tons
Speaker 1: of things that you throw away, that's just enormous amounts
Speaker 1: of valuable materials. But each individual device doesn't have very
Speaker 1: much in it, right, So then you have to come
Speaker 1: to that determination. Is it worth the trouble to get
Speaker 1: the stuff out of this one phone? Or am I
Speaker 1: gonna be spending more money ultimately trying to get the
Speaker 1: stuff out? Then it's actually worth So you know, you
Speaker 1: do this return on investment calculation and you say, this
Speaker 1: one phone represents X number of sense of of money
Speaker 1: in U S terms, it's gonna cost why amount of
Speaker 1: sense to get it out of there? If why is
Speaker 1: equal to or greater than x, it makes no sense
Speaker 1: s E N S E to actually do it, right,
Speaker 1: you would be less. If you're incredibly altruistic and you
Speaker 1: don't mind the fact that you are spending your money
Speaker 1: to deal with other people's garbage. Uh, then absolutely it
Speaker 1: would be something that uh that you would avoid doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine someone operating at that kind
Speaker 1: of scale for very long. You couldn't afford to do
Speaker 1: it unless you were incredibly wealthy, and you're you just
Speaker 1: decide this is where my wealth is gonna go, which
Speaker 1: would be awesome if someone did that, but you know,
Speaker 1: in the world that we live in, it's not terribly likely.
Speaker 1: So or if you're dealing with solid gold iPhones, which
Speaker 1: does exist, Yeah, yeah, they do have them. So when
Speaker 1: you get one, if you were recycling, if you're a
Speaker 1: recycling center, you'd say, this is worth it, This is
Speaker 1: absolutely worth reclaiming that material because there's no way. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I'm absolutely certain. Like well, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're the type to buy a gold iPhone, chances are
Speaker 1: the idea of being frugal has never entered your brain
Speaker 1: at that point, or at least not recently. Uh So.
Speaker 1: One other thing that it that these recyclers take into
Speaker 1: account is how easy is it to disassemble the various
Speaker 1: types of electronics. Now, this is kind of a frustrating
Speaker 1: thing about the conflict between the state of the industry
Speaker 1: and the concerns of recycling. So ideally, what you'd want
Speaker 1: is a device that can very easily and very quickly
Speaker 1: be taken apart so you can get the valuable parts
Speaker 1: out of it and recycle them. Uh that is not
Speaker 1: the way most devices are made today, especially for example,
Speaker 1: if you look at iPhones today, iPhones are not made
Speaker 1: to be easily disassembled and dealt with. If you've ever
Speaker 1: had the problem where you, for example, you want to
Speaker 1: take the battery out of your iPhone or something, you
Speaker 1: you just not You're not supposed to do that by yourself.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to take it to a very licensed professional,
Speaker 1: take it to the genius bar or whatever it requires
Speaker 1: a genius to deal with that, have them deal with
Speaker 1: it for you. Now, of course you can look up
Speaker 1: videos on how you you can do this at home,
Speaker 1: but they they're trying to scourage that clearly. Well there
Speaker 1: and there are quite a few websites that are specifically
Speaker 1: dedicated to taking apart electronics, and they document the whole process,
Speaker 1: and they even will grade how hard was it to
Speaker 1: take this thing apart? You know? And and it would
Speaker 1: And it's all in the the it's all framed in
Speaker 1: the way of how do you do repairs to this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff or if you need to replace a
Speaker 1: component or something along those lines, Um, how realistic is
Speaker 1: that based upon the difficulty of taking apart this device.
Speaker 1: Recyclers do a similar thing, and Apple is a great,
Speaker 1: great example of a company that makes it very very
Speaker 1: hard to recycle responsibly because they use proprietary screws in
Speaker 1: their products, so you don't you can't just use a
Speaker 1: regular screwdriver to remove the screws. They use a lot
Speaker 1: of glue to hold the components in place in their
Speaker 1: and their mobile electronics, which is great for keeping a
Speaker 1: nice solid, thin form factor, but not great if you
Speaker 1: need to remove those components in order to reclaim the materials. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just it's and the harder it is, obviously, the
Speaker 1: more it costs to recycle that thing, because the more
Speaker 1: effort is required, and as that cost goes up, the
Speaker 1: return on investment goes down. And if it goes up
Speaker 1: too high, then there's the from the recycler's perspective, there's
Speaker 1: no point in even working with the thing because it's
Speaker 1: going to just be a money losing proposition. Um. And
Speaker 1: products are getting lighter as well, which is making it
Speaker 1: more difficult for recyclers to deal with because that lighter
Speaker 1: as also tends to mean that uh, they're being sealed
Speaker 1: with again a lot more glue rather than screws. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that makes it much more difficult to deal with.
Speaker 1: And uh, meanwhile, you've got these other countries that have
Speaker 1: lower standards of waste management and UM and health and safety,
Speaker 1: it may end up being more uh, financially advisable to
Speaker 1: ship off this stuff that's hard for us to get
Speaker 1: into two countries where they still can make a profit
Speaker 1: from that because they're paying the employees next to nothing
Speaker 1: um and they have these very lax policies so they
Speaker 1: don't they don't have to go through the same regulations
Speaker 1: that you would see in another place like the United
Speaker 1: States or in various countries in Europe, that kind of thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's where it gets really ugly, because they will
Speaker 1: take apart those electronic devices. They will use chemicals, very
Speaker 1: hazardous chemicals to leach away stuff so that they can
Speaker 1: get at the stuff they want. And all of this
Speaker 1: has an impact on the environment and the people there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about all the lead and the beryllium and all
Speaker 1: the other stuff we talked about earlier. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: real concern that they're like there are entire city is
Speaker 1: in China where there's a real concern that cancer rates
Speaker 1: are going to skyrocket because they are essentially bordering the
Speaker 1: recycling facilities where tons of this stuff arrive every year.
Speaker 1: So it's a real problem, right, It's a real issue.
Speaker 1: It's not something that is just a hypothetical or being
Speaker 1: um kind of inflated by the media. Um. And so
Speaker 1: it really falls on us to be responsible with our electronics,
Speaker 1: making sure that the any any programs we donate stuff
Speaker 1: too that we go to for recycling, do some research
Speaker 1: on them to make sure that they are being responsible
Speaker 1: and accountable for that stuff and not just shipping it
Speaker 1: overseas and making it someone else's problem. So, apart from
Speaker 1: reusing and responsible recycling, what are some of the other
Speaker 1: weirder solutions people have come up with for how to
Speaker 1: deal with the E waste problem? All right, let's say
Speaker 1: you don't want your phone anymore, right, you've dropped it
Speaker 1: in the toilet. Well, at that point, you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about it, because I'm talking about dissolvable electronics
Speaker 1: what And typically the way it would work is that
Speaker 1: you would have this electronic device that would work on
Speaker 1: a system that's not exactly the same as using microprocessors
Speaker 1: the way our kernel electronics do UM, and you you
Speaker 1: then expose it to something like water, and it would
Speaker 1: dissolve away and you would no longer have a thing anymore.
Speaker 1: It would actually become non hazardous, non toxic chemicals that
Speaker 1: just are safe to wash away. There are, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are people working on this. Um. So back in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen national meeting of the American Chemistry Society, scientists
Speaker 1: were talking about the possibility of dissolvable electronics. They were
Speaker 1: specifically talking about advances that had been made so far
Speaker 1: with the goal of eating electronic devices that would ultimately dissolve.
Speaker 1: And this was largely for the medical field. So if
Speaker 1: you wanted to create a medical device that had a
Speaker 1: very specific purpose and you surgically implant it into a patient,
Speaker 1: if it were able to dissolve after its useful lifespan
Speaker 1: had passed, that would be great because you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to have a follow up surgery to remove the device, right,
Speaker 1: it would just dissolve and be absorbed and that's it. Sure,
Speaker 1: And assuming it's really non toxic and non hazardous, that's great.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously that would be ideal, but the approach
Speaker 1: could also be used for non medical electronics and not
Speaker 1: necessarily be completely totally awesome for you. So um according
Speaker 1: to Dr John Rodgers, who led the research in this area,
Speaker 1: he said that one of the things that would allow
Speaker 1: companies to do would be to design products that have
Speaker 1: essentially an expiration date, so after two years it could dissolve,
Speaker 1: meaning you would be forced to buy a new phone
Speaker 1: because your old one literally turned into goog. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: assume that if they did something like that, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: come as a surprise to the consumer the way their
Speaker 1: technological obsolescence might come as a surprise. So it could
Speaker 1: encourage companies to either to to sort of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: be straightforward about their planned obsolescence. Yeah. Maybe, Uh, I
Speaker 1: think it would be kind of funny to get a
Speaker 1: message on your phone warning in two months, your phone
Speaker 1: will turn into Google. Please back up everything you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to get a new phone. Buster. We've already got
Speaker 1: it lined up. You just have to click this link
Speaker 1: on your phone and you'll be able to get a
Speaker 1: new one. And um Now, there's no telling when, if ever,
Speaker 1: this technology would enter into the consumer market in that way.
Speaker 1: I am certain there are a lot of companies out
Speaker 1: there that salivate over the thought, or company executives, I
Speaker 1: guess I should say, who salivate over the thought of
Speaker 1: a technology that requires customers to buy replacements on a
Speaker 1: regular basis because it guarantees business for a nice long time.
Speaker 1: But it may be that we never see this, at
Speaker 1: least not in the consumer realm. I'm sure that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people working very hard to make
Speaker 1: it a reality for medicine, but we may never see
Speaker 1: it incorporated into phones or computers or televisions or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Um And there's some other solutions. Obviously, Electronics
Speaker 1: manufacturers could consult with recycling companies before they start designing
Speaker 1: new products to make sure that the stuff they design
Speaker 1: is more easily uh taken apart, and the stuff inside
Speaker 1: could be reclaimed more easily, so that it there's a
Speaker 1: higher incentive to do the recycling in a responsible manner
Speaker 1: in a country where you do have those strict policies
Speaker 1: in place, so you remove the incentive to ship it
Speaker 1: off to another country and thus potentially cause some other
Speaker 1: people terrible hardship. Um And we're actually seeing some companies
Speaker 1: do this. There's some computer companies that have received awards
Speaker 1: for changing their computer design so that they're more easily
Speaker 1: taken apart. I believe del has won some awards in
Speaker 1: that in that realm. So yeah, so some companies are
Speaker 1: really taking it to heart, and it's a it's an
Speaker 1: approach that's it's tied into the green electronics movement, where
Speaker 1: you're not just trying to use less hazardous materials, but
Speaker 1: you're also trying to design the products in such a
Speaker 1: way that they're more easily handled at the end of
Speaker 1: their lifespan. So it's a little it's a little forward
Speaker 1: thinking in that sense, like, how can we make this
Speaker 1: a product that is easy to deal with after it's
Speaker 1: useful life has has passed? Um? And then of course
Speaker 1: we could just try to not buy stuff all the
Speaker 1: time away all the time. Yeah, to keep the stuff
Speaker 1: we buy longer. Um, It's it require a pretty big
Speaker 1: cultural change, which is gonna become increasingly more difficult as
Speaker 1: we see more and more electronic devices hit the market.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, Joe, do you think you would really
Speaker 1: be able to resist the urge of buying one of
Speaker 1: those uh special cat callers that can interpret it cat's
Speaker 1: me out and turn it into an English phrase? Do
Speaker 1: you really think you can resist that? I don't know
Speaker 1: how much beryllium is in it, at least one cat's worth,
Speaker 1: I would think, But but I mean you see, you
Speaker 1: see stuff popping up all the time where I mean
Speaker 1: maybe not that. See I don't own a cat, so
Speaker 1: I don't have any desire to buy one of those.
Speaker 1: But you may see more and more stuff up all
Speaker 1: the time that that appeals to you. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta weigh the your desires versus your your feeling
Speaker 1: of responsibility. Um, maybe you don't feel responsible and it's
Speaker 1: just time to go out and buy some new stuff.
Speaker 1: But there's another way we can kind of impact this
Speaker 1: whole this whole equation is just reduce our consumption or
Speaker 1: at least be more mindful of it, so that when
Speaker 1: we are doing these things, maybe we pick devices or
Speaker 1: computers or televisions or whatever that we know have a
Speaker 1: good reputation in this world for the recycling side of things. Um,
Speaker 1: And if we do that then things will be in
Speaker 1: general better. But also just you know, research those recycling
Speaker 1: services that are in your area, see what's available. A
Speaker 1: lot of them will offer things like gift cards or
Speaker 1: a cash return on old devices. It may be a
Speaker 1: very small amount of what you paid for it. In fact,
Speaker 1: it is almost guaranteed to be. But but it's something
Speaker 1: as opposed to just throwing it in the garbage and
Speaker 1: then you don't get anything right. It just goes away.
Speaker 1: This way it goes away, and get something back right.
Speaker 1: So do some research on that. Uh, and and try
Speaker 1: and do your part in not cluttering up landfills with
Speaker 1: toxic materials that could potentially hurt people for generations. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think that's just a general that's a good rule
Speaker 1: of thumb, you know. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be a radical or anything. Joe's just judging me across
Speaker 1: the table. There's nothing radical about you, that's true. Everything
Speaker 1: radical about me die, Everything radical about me died in
Speaker 1: y I'm growdy to the max. All right. So that
Speaker 1: wraps up this discussion about e waste. We're get We've
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of really cool topics in mind
Speaker 1: for future episodes. But if you guys have anything specific
Speaker 1: you would like us to cover. Maybe there's something you've
Speaker 1: always wondered, how will that be? What? What will it
Speaker 1: be like in the future, Send us an email and
Speaker 1: ask us, and we will be glad to research it
Speaker 1: and get back to you with a full blown episode
Speaker 1: about it. But in order to get that word to us,
Speaker 1: you need to send us an email that addresses f
Speaker 1: W Thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. Over
Speaker 1: at Twitter where f W Thinking. If you search fw
Speaker 1: Thinking and Facebook, our profile will pop right up. You
Speaker 1: can leave us a message and we will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this topic in
Speaker 1: the future of technology, I'll visit forward thinking dot com.
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