Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan's trick Land. I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works, and I love all things tech.
Speaker 1: You know, I start off these podcasts saying I love
Speaker 1: all things tech, and you've heard a few where I
Speaker 1: have to walk that back. It is obviously an exaggeration.
Speaker 1: I don't love all things tech. I do enjoy learning
Speaker 1: about and talking about technology. But while I love tech,
Speaker 1: I also recognize that it has good points and bad points, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like any tool. It could be used
Speaker 1: for good or for ill. It could be used responsibly
Speaker 1: or irresponsibly. I think it's important that we take a good,
Speaker 1: hard look at the potential negative impact of technology so
Speaker 1: that we can make the best use of it with
Speaker 1: the fewest negative consequences. So today we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about e waste or electronic waste, because it's a real
Speaker 1: problem for many reasons. One of the big ones is
Speaker 1: that we live in an era in which companies are
Speaker 1: really pushing out new products at a rapid pace and
Speaker 1: doing their best to convince you that you need to
Speaker 1: buy or upgrade or whatever on a frequent basis. That's
Speaker 1: how these companies make their money, so it comes as
Speaker 1: no surprise that they would do this. It's the nature
Speaker 1: of business, and that means a couple of things have
Speaker 1: to happen to make that business plan actually work. And
Speaker 1: one of those things is that ideally you make a
Speaker 1: product that's good, but not so good that your customers
Speaker 1: will never need another one after they buy the first one.
Speaker 1: It's the everlasting gob stopper problem of Willy Wonka. If
Speaker 1: you actually made a candy that never got any smaller
Speaker 1: and never lost its flavor, people would only buy one
Speaker 1: and would never need a second one. And where do
Speaker 1: you go then? So as another example in the tech world,
Speaker 1: let's let's imagine that you have created a really cool
Speaker 1: smart watch and it actually has features that people find
Speaker 1: really compelling. You made the first smart watch that a
Speaker 1: a larger audience thinks that actually makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: So your market is going to be everybody who might
Speaker 1: want and who can afford a smart watch. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: that doesn't include every single human being. Some people are
Speaker 1: not going to be able to afford it, some people
Speaker 1: are not going to be interested in it. But you're
Speaker 1: trying to target everyone who would want one and who
Speaker 1: could afford one. So now, let's say you are incredibly
Speaker 1: successful in an unprecedented move. Somehow you have convinced every
Speaker 1: single person that's in that target group to buy one
Speaker 1: of your smart watches. Congratulations, it's a big hit. Only
Speaker 1: what do you do next. Because you're operating a company,
Speaker 1: you are not going to magically sell more of those
Speaker 1: smart watches beyond your target group because the rest of
Speaker 1: humanity either doesn't want one, or they can't afford one,
Speaker 1: or both. So soon you go out of business because
Speaker 1: you have nothing else to sell. Or let's say instead,
Speaker 1: you want to make a smart watch, and you've come
Speaker 1: up with a whole list of really cool, compelling features,
Speaker 1: but you choose to only implement a selection of those
Speaker 1: features in your first smart watch. You hold back a
Speaker 1: few more. Maybe you're holding them back because they're not
Speaker 1: quite ready. Maybe you're holding back because the technology of
Speaker 1: the smart watch isn't quite at the point where it
Speaker 1: can support those features. Or maybe you're doing it just
Speaker 1: so that you can save some stuff for the next
Speaker 1: generation of smart watches. You also make your smart watches
Speaker 1: out of good but not great materials, including stuff like batteries.
Speaker 1: That way, the smart watches begin to wear out after
Speaker 1: a set amount of time, maybe a couple of years.
Speaker 1: And your goal is that you want to win a
Speaker 1: loyal base of customers, and then you want to convince
Speaker 1: that same group to turn around and buy the next
Speaker 1: generation of your hardware, and then do it again and again.
Speaker 1: That's essentially how a lot of the smartphone industry works,
Speaker 1: at least for brands like the iPhone. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons Apple is so successful is as a company, it
Speaker 1: has managed to convince customers to purchase updated versions of
Speaker 1: its hardware time and time again, sometimes on an accelerated
Speaker 1: time scale. It might not happen with every generation for
Speaker 1: every product, but it happens enough to keep the company
Speaker 1: really profitable. I'm sure you know people. If you are
Speaker 1: not one of these people, you probably know somebody who
Speaker 1: upgrades their iPhone every year, so they get the latest
Speaker 1: version of the iPhone every single twelve months. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of of era we are in. And while that
Speaker 1: doesn't cover every single Apple customer, it covers a lot
Speaker 1: of them. And there are a lot more customers who
Speaker 1: every two years or three years will do this upgrade.
Speaker 1: And while I could and probably one day will do
Speaker 1: a full episode about the concept of planned obsolescence. That's
Speaker 1: where a company makes a product that essentially has an
Speaker 1: expiration date that the company has made something with the
Speaker 1: plan of having that thing become obsolete within a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time. Today, we're gonna look at the other
Speaker 1: side of that problem. What do we do with the
Speaker 1: obsolete technology when something better comes along, Whether the technology
Speaker 1: still works or maybe it's beyond repair, what do we
Speaker 1: do with it when we're done with it. That's why
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about electronic waste. And it's a
Speaker 1: huge category because it includes not just the technology that
Speaker 1: no longer works or technology that's become obsolete. It includes
Speaker 1: all tech that is no longer wanted by its original owner.
Speaker 1: So you might have a phone that's several years old
Speaker 1: but still works perfectly well, but you'll be confronted with
Speaker 1: all sorts of advertising and messaging that what you should
Speaker 1: do is ditch that old phone for something new and
Speaker 1: shiny with a lot more features, and your old phone,
Speaker 1: even if it is still in perfect working order, becomes
Speaker 1: e waste the moment you decide you want a new phone.
Speaker 1: What happens next is up to you. You have some options.
Speaker 1: You might choose to recycle your phone, in which case
Speaker 1: I recommend first you wipe everything off your device, whether
Speaker 1: it's a phone, a computer, anything that could record your information.
Speaker 1: You need to wipe that device clean, return it to
Speaker 1: factory settings, make sure that your personal data is no
Speaker 1: longer associated with that machine before you turn it in.
Speaker 1: And I also recommend you do some research into the
Speaker 1: various services that offer to either recycle components for you,
Speaker 1: or they're going to donate the device to someone in need,
Speaker 1: so it's going to be reused rather than recycled. Make
Speaker 1: sure that that service is reputable. There are some companies
Speaker 1: that can cause arm through the recycling process or through
Speaker 1: the smoke screen of donating it to people in need.
Speaker 1: More on that in just a second. Or maybe you
Speaker 1: don't want to recycle or reuse, or maybe you just
Speaker 1: don't have the the services that are readily available, or
Speaker 1: you're not interested. You just shrug your shoulders and you
Speaker 1: toss your phone in the trash. That is not a
Speaker 1: great plan and it can be against the law depending
Speaker 1: upon where you live. Many electronics have components in them
Speaker 1: that are not environmentally friendly, and they don't exactly biodegrade.
Speaker 1: Electronics might have toxic materials in them. In fact, most
Speaker 1: of them do, stuff like lead, or arsenic or mercury.
Speaker 1: Exposure to the elements would cause those chemicals possibly to
Speaker 1: leach into the surrounding environment and it ain't fantastic. So
Speaker 1: here's some examples of some of the stuff. So lead
Speaker 1: toxicity can affect every organ system in our bodies. Lead
Speaker 1: can inhibit or mimic the act of calcium and interact
Speaker 1: with proteins. The nervous system is particularly vulnerable and lead
Speaker 1: exposure can cause neurological damage, particularly in children. Mercury is
Speaker 1: also nasty stuff. It's toxic to the nervous system. It's
Speaker 1: also toxic to the digestive system and the immune system.
Speaker 1: It can cause blindness, muscle weakness, impaired movement, and lots
Speaker 1: of other neurological effects. Arsenic isn't a lot of electronics.
Speaker 1: That's a carcinogen that's associated with many different types of cancer,
Speaker 1: and it's also a neurotoxin. You've probably heard of arsenic
Speaker 1: and old lace, Yeah, popular poison among uh mystery novelists.
Speaker 1: It's popular because it's deadly stuff. Beryllium is another dangerous
Speaker 1: element that's in a lot of electronics. Exposure to brillium
Speaker 1: is typically pretty minimal for most of us, but you
Speaker 1: could have continued exposure due to maybe living near, for example,
Speaker 1: a recycling center that's not doing a good job at
Speaker 1: containing this stuff. That can lead to health problems, ranging
Speaker 1: from skin diseases to what is called acute beryllium disease,
Speaker 1: which the symptoms are very similar to pneumonia. It can
Speaker 1: even lead, although this is pretty rare, to lung cancer.
Speaker 1: Then there's brominated flame retardants. This is actually a class
Speaker 1: of synthetic chemicals. They're designed to make stuff less flammable.
Speaker 1: Frequently it tends to be incorporated directly into plastics. Some
Speaker 1: of them, like p B d e S, have been
Speaker 1: linked to numerous health risks, including memory and learning problems.
Speaker 1: Also thyroid disruption, reduced fertility, advanced puberty, and delayed mental
Speaker 1: and physical development. So we're talking serious consequences from some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that's inner electronics. There's also the possibility
Speaker 1: that if you throw your tech away, instead of it
Speaker 1: going to say a landfill, which is already pretty bad,
Speaker 1: they might go to an incinerator. Which could be even
Speaker 1: worse because then it gets thrown into a furnace and
Speaker 1: subjected to high heat, it could use other pollutants and
Speaker 1: those could all be released directly into the environment, causing
Speaker 1: environmental harm and health hazards to the population nearby. Or
Speaker 1: maybe you take a different choice. Maybe you don't send
Speaker 1: it off to be reused recycled, maybe you don't throw
Speaker 1: it away. Maybe it just takes up space in your home.
Speaker 1: But that's also not great. Sometimes it feels like it's
Speaker 1: the least bad situation, but you can find ways of
Speaker 1: have it making sure your device is reused recycled responsibly.
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that in just a second, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: In a Gallop survey found that of Americans would upgrade
Speaker 1: their mobile handsets as soon as they were able to
Speaker 1: according to their phone plans. So in America until fairly recently,
Speaker 1: it was really common that these mobile providers would subsidize
Speaker 1: handset costs through the actual phone service plans themselves, and
Speaker 1: so the cost of the handsets to the customer were
Speaker 1: much lower on an upfront basis then you would find
Speaker 1: in other places in the world. So instead of having
Speaker 1: to spend several hundred dollars to buy a handset. It
Speaker 1: might be very cheap, but that cost would be incorporated
Speaker 1: into your phone plan. It would just be spread out
Speaker 1: over the course of your contract, which in America would
Speaker 1: typically last about two years. So every two years your
Speaker 1: contract would come up and you would become eligible to
Speaker 1: upgrade your phone for a new contract. And everybody seemed
Speaker 1: to benefit from this. You got a new phone, the
Speaker 1: phone company had you for another two years. Ultimately, over
Speaker 1: the course of those two years, you're probably paying more
Speaker 1: for that handset than you would if you had bought
Speaker 1: it all up front. It's just those payments have been
Speaker 1: spread out over twenty four months. And it seemed like
Speaker 1: it was a fairly nice proposition, except for the fact
Speaker 1: that meant that people were generating a lot of electronic waste.
Speaker 1: All these old handsets were starting to accumulate, and that's
Speaker 1: just mobile handsets. Generally speaking. Computer experts say that the
Speaker 1: average PCs lifespan is somewhere between three and five years.
Speaker 1: That typically sometime around three to five years, averaging out
Speaker 1: around four years. People need to upgrade their computers because
Speaker 1: they're just out of date. They're not running the latest software.
Speaker 1: Of the parts start to wear out, you know, batteries
Speaker 1: start to go bad. So then you have to do
Speaker 1: the same thing with your computer. What do you do
Speaker 1: with that? That's a larger piece of equipment than a
Speaker 1: mobile handset. Obviously, TVs tend to stick around a little
Speaker 1: bit longer, despite the best efforts of various companies out there,
Speaker 1: because every time I go to c e S that's
Speaker 1: the big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas every year,
Speaker 1: it seems like the big push is to come up
Speaker 1: with a new feature that's going to convince someone who
Speaker 1: bought a new television last year to do it all
Speaker 1: over again. But generally speaking, people don't do that because
Speaker 1: it's pretty expensive. People tend to stick with the same
Speaker 1: television for unaverage around seven years before upgrading. I think
Speaker 1: I'm behind the average there. I don't even I stick
Speaker 1: with my televisions forever, it seems, but you don't see
Speaker 1: that happen as frequently, But that still is an issue
Speaker 1: if you do upgrade. Let's say that Thanksgiving roles around
Speaker 1: in the States, that's typically when you start seeing these
Speaker 1: big discounts on televisions that came out the year before,
Speaker 1: and stores want to clear out those inventories to make
Speaker 1: way for new TVs they're coming in in the new year. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can get these crazy deals on what looks to
Speaker 1: be like a great bargain for a television, but that
Speaker 1: means you have to do something with your old TV again.
Speaker 1: Electronic waste, and there are larger appliances that we tend
Speaker 1: to stick with until we need to replace them. Right Like,
Speaker 1: not a lot of people sit there and say I
Speaker 1: want a new washer and dryer unless their old washer
Speaker 1: and dryer is either become unreliable or has just plane broken.
Speaker 1: But eventually we do have to replace these things. So
Speaker 1: pretty much anything that has circuitry or electrical components fits
Speaker 1: into the category of E waste, from lamps to washing
Speaker 1: machines or smart watches to large screen televisions. An electronic
Speaker 1: waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste
Speaker 1: in the world. As we see technology adoption increase in
Speaker 1: new markets like Africa, we're seeing those numbers climb rapidly. Now,
Speaker 1: developed countries do tend to produce a lot more E waste.
Speaker 1: As a rule, China is known for producing most of it,
Speaker 1: and if you're looking at it from a percentage point
Speaker 1: and looking at each nation. China leads the way, but
Speaker 1: America is not super far behind. When it comes to
Speaker 1: the highest amount of E waste generated per inhabitant, you've
Speaker 1: gotta look over toward Australia, Polynesia, Micronesia in that area,
Speaker 1: they generate the most E waste per inhabitant, but are
Speaker 1: very few people there compared to other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't amount to as much in a grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things. The cost of consumer electronics also continues
Speaker 1: to drop. That makes electronics more accessible to a wider
Speaker 1: group of people, and I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: I think have more people having access to technology is great.
Speaker 1: In general. It's very important accessibility, making sure that we
Speaker 1: start to whittle away at that gap between the halves
Speaker 1: and the have nots. However, when you pair this with
Speaker 1: the trend of pushing people to adopt and then abandoned
Speaker 1: technology rapidly in favor of the next new thing, it
Speaker 1: really exacerbates the problem of e waste. In seventeen, the
Speaker 1: United Nations released a report on e waste that looked
Speaker 1: into trends and challenges, and that report found that by sixteen,
Speaker 1: the global production of E waste had hit forty four
Speaker 1: point seven million metric tons of junk tech. That's the
Speaker 1: equivalent of four thousand, five hundred Eiffel towers. Means on average,
Speaker 1: each inhabitant produced six point one ms or nearly thirteen
Speaker 1: and a half pounds of electronic waste. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: it was more like five point eight kilograms or twelve
Speaker 1: point eight pounds, so the trend was on the rise.
Speaker 1: Not only are we generating more, we're generating more per person.
Speaker 1: Only of all of that E waste was properly documented
Speaker 1: as being recycled or reused under was considered to be
Speaker 1: the the appropriate guidelines. So according to the United Nations,
Speaker 1: of the forty four point seven million metric tons of
Speaker 1: E waste produced by twenty sixteen, one point seven million
Speaker 1: tons of it got thrown into residual waste in higher
Speaker 1: income countries, which pretty much means they either ended up
Speaker 1: in landfills or in incinerators. Only eight point nine million
Speaker 1: tons was documented as collected and recycled, So it's possible
Speaker 1: the more waste is being recycled than we know about,
Speaker 1: but it's undocumented and unverified, which ain't great and since
Speaker 1: the trend seems to be on the rise, this is
Speaker 1: really bad news. Now again, according to the u N report,
Speaker 1: by twenty twenty one will see E waste hit fifty
Speaker 1: two point two million metric tons. I'm citing the United
Speaker 1: Nations a lot, but I should also point out that
Speaker 1: it's very, very difficult to get an accurate representation of
Speaker 1: exactly how big this problem is because a lot of
Speaker 1: countries do not collect or publish statistics about electronic waste,
Speaker 1: and in some cases you may not be entirely certain
Speaker 1: that the findings that are being reported are accurate. So
Speaker 1: some of the numbers that the UN relies upon come
Speaker 1: from estimates as a result of doing some investigation and
Speaker 1: then extrapolating those results to get a bigger picture of
Speaker 1: view of what might be going on. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of advocacy groups out there that really want
Speaker 1: to tackle E waste, and that is a good thing.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with their motivation. However, I will say
Speaker 1: that sometimes some of these groups tend to present numbers
Speaker 1: that I personally cannot track down to a verifiable source.
Speaker 1: That is less good. I definitely agree we need to
Speaker 1: acknowledge and tackle the E waste problem in a responsible way. However,
Speaker 1: presenting information as fact without any evidence to back it
Speaker 1: up is a really good way to allow people who
Speaker 1: oppose your philosophy a means of criticizing your methods. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you're just opening up the door for
Speaker 1: someone to tear down your argument, because if they can
Speaker 1: say this number you're citing as fact has no evidence
Speaker 1: to back it up, then it's like they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: you're arguing that something is a problem, but you can't
Speaker 1: even prove to me that the problem exists. That's not great.
Speaker 1: Many developed nations do have various programs in place to
Speaker 1: deal with electronic waste, things that you are supposed to
Speaker 1: do if you are trying to get rid of old electronics. However,
Speaker 1: these various programs aren't always followed properly, and in fact,
Speaker 1: some practices that are commonplace in these countries are technically illegal. However,
Speaker 1: they are rarely enforced, so you might see people throw
Speaker 1: stuff out in the garbage when they're supposed to follow
Speaker 1: a very different protocol, but because there's not really any
Speaker 1: way of policing that, and even if there were, there's
Speaker 1: not a high likelihood of it being prosecuted. There's no
Speaker 1: teeth to any legislation. People have to do it because
Speaker 1: they want to be responsible, not because they're worried about
Speaker 1: being punished otherwise. So appealing to people's responsibility, to their
Speaker 1: to their desire to be a good person might be
Speaker 1: more helpful. Just because it's not very practical in most
Speaker 1: cases to come up with pollution police. Developing nations have
Speaker 1: it fairly rough. Uh. These are the countries that did
Speaker 1: not benefit from gradually developing this technology and building out
Speaker 1: an infrastructure to support it. Instead, they leap frogged into
Speaker 1: the modern era of electronics without having done that, and
Speaker 1: so they aren't able to deal with the consequences as
Speaker 1: readily as the rest of the world, which has kind
Speaker 1: of grown into this. So I'm talking about places like
Speaker 1: lots of countries in Africa which have thankfully gotten access
Speaker 1: to things like cell towers, cell phones, a lot of
Speaker 1: cellular based technologies, but they did this by leap frogging
Speaker 1: other developments, and they don't have the systems in place
Speaker 1: to handle e waste. And it's also true and unfortunate
Speaker 1: that the people who are at least able to afford
Speaker 1: the problems that come along with electronic waste are the
Speaker 1: same ones who have to deal with it. In many cases,
Speaker 1: there's also an issue with developing countries accepting e waste
Speaker 1: for recycling purposes. Essentially, you've got UH places that will
Speaker 1: either accept or they will actually go out and buy
Speaker 1: electronic waste from other countries, which is not necessarily a
Speaker 1: bad thing on the surface. Recycling can be an industry
Speaker 1: unto itself, and it can provide a valuable service while
Speaker 1: recapturing some of the raw materials that were used to
Speaker 1: make electronics. The u N actually reported that those raw
Speaker 1: materials were worth about fifty five billion euro in UH
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. The euro averaged out to be about
Speaker 1: one point one dollars per euro, so that would be
Speaker 1: that the raw materials were worth around sixty billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So it would definitely be better too to reclaim some
Speaker 1: of that value to leverage it rather than just throw
Speaker 1: it out if you can do that. UH and I
Speaker 1: talked about some of the harmful materials that are in electronics,
Speaker 1: but they can also contain some really valuable stuff in it,
Speaker 1: like gold, copper, alumium, and steel. But the bad part
Speaker 1: comes into play with the practices and processes for recycling electronics.
Speaker 1: If there are a few protections in place and a
Speaker 1: recye link center is not following careful protocols, the process
Speaker 1: of recycling can be very harmful to the environment as
Speaker 1: well as really the people who are working at that
Speaker 1: facility and for the surrounding population as a as a possibility.
Speaker 1: A lot of these places, the reason why they are
Speaker 1: an attractive place to send recycling for the rest of
Speaker 1: the world is that it's inexpensive to do it um
Speaker 1: And part of the reason for that is because in
Speaker 1: a lot of these countries the cost of labor is low,
Speaker 1: meaning they're not paying people very much. And uh that
Speaker 1: becomes a delicate balance too, because if the amount you're
Speaker 1: spending to recycle is larger than the amount you're getting back,
Speaker 1: you're in a losing proposition. So you can't continue to
Speaker 1: operate that way. But in order for you to do
Speaker 1: this in an efficient way, you have to find out,
Speaker 1: you know, what's a what's a low cost method of
Speaker 1: recycling this stuff? And it tends to be sending it
Speaker 1: to very poor nations that very low wages and often
Speaker 1: do not treat their employees very well. There's a terrible
Speaker 1: standard of living, and the measures that are supposed to
Speaker 1: be there in order to ensure people's safety may not
Speaker 1: be there at all, so it's very worrisome. Typically, the
Speaker 1: way a recycling center would process electronic waste would follow
Speaker 1: a pattern. So first it would have to get this
Speaker 1: electronic waste, which is a non trivial problem. Transporting materials
Speaker 1: requires energy, um it has an economic impact. So if
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of energy, if it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of money to get the electronic waste to the
Speaker 1: recycling center, you could be operating in a loss, which
Speaker 1: means it's a nonstarter. Once you get it. The next
Speaker 1: step could be an assessment of each piece of electronic waste,
Speaker 1: because some of these devices could be in good working order.
Speaker 1: Then if it's operable, or if you can do repairs
Speaker 1: on it and make it operable, you might want to
Speaker 1: resell that device for a profit and keep it in use.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the best options out there, honestly,
Speaker 1: because it increases the utility of a device beyond its
Speaker 1: initial lifespan with its original owner, and you don't have
Speaker 1: to go through the rest of this process. People can
Speaker 1: still get use out of it. It removes the necessity
Speaker 1: to make a new one of those, so it is
Speaker 1: reusing is one of the best options. In fact, reusing
Speaker 1: in general, when you're looking at reusing versus recycling, tends
Speaker 1: to be one of the best options out there. However,
Speaker 1: it can be tricky to do because sometimes it's not
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to repair some of these gadgets. More
Speaker 1: in that in just a second. But if you can
Speaker 1: do it, that tends to be step one. Sort out
Speaker 1: all the stuff that could actually be reclaimed, reused, resold next,
Speaker 1: assuming we're going to then reclaim the stuff inside the
Speaker 1: electronics that you cannot sell again. Maybe they're irreparably broken,
Speaker 1: maybe they're obsolete. Maybe there's no demand for those electronics,
Speaker 1: so they might work, but you're never going to sell
Speaker 1: them anyway, but just because no one wants them. Then
Speaker 1: you want to disassemble the device to get at the
Speaker 1: various components inside of it, especially the components that were
Speaker 1: really interested in, the ones that have materials like gold
Speaker 1: or copper on them. But that's not always easy to do,
Speaker 1: and this is also why it's very difficult to repair
Speaker 1: some types of electronics. More and more electronic devices are
Speaker 1: being locked away in their form factors like in the
Speaker 1: old days, good old days, children sit down. Used to
Speaker 1: be able to take electronics apart and mess with them.
Speaker 1: So you hear a lot of stories about how young
Speaker 1: engineers when they were kids would take apart various gadgets
Speaker 1: in order to learn how they worked, and then would
Speaker 1: put them back together again and they would work. Still
Speaker 1: these days, it's a lot harder to do that because
Speaker 1: a lot of electronics are not designed to be taken apart.
Speaker 1: The industry a whole has moved to a model that's
Speaker 1: difficult to do that. Apple is notorious for this. You
Speaker 1: get a new iPhone that is not meant to be
Speaker 1: taken apart. You are not meant to take the battery
Speaker 1: out of that. It is meant to be a single,
Speaker 1: unified device for its useful life. The company this way
Speaker 1: can keep a really tight control on how its technology
Speaker 1: is used. They have a lot of control over it
Speaker 1: as a platform. But this comes at a price. Manufacturers
Speaker 1: tend to use a lot of glue these days. That
Speaker 1: makes it really tricky to take the stuff apart, and
Speaker 1: it just makes it hard not just to do repairs,
Speaker 1: but to get at the various components in order to
Speaker 1: do some recycling. Now, if the device has parts that
Speaker 1: are particularly valuable, those might be set aside for resale value.
Speaker 1: Now this is particularly true for like older television's things
Speaker 1: like that. You might find that there's some working components
Speaker 1: in there that you can take apart or take out
Speaker 1: of the device and then sell those as replacement parts
Speaker 1: or repair parts, and then just recycled the rest of
Speaker 1: the stuff. Now, once you've disassembled the tech and you've
Speaker 1: removed anything that can easily be resold, then you would
Speaker 1: put it through a shredder to grind the components down
Speaker 1: into smaller pieces. Typically, after that point, you would have
Speaker 1: some human employees go through this shredded material and remove
Speaker 1: anything that might be overtly hazardous, like pieces of battery,
Speaker 1: and then everything that's left over after you remove the
Speaker 1: hazardous stuff gets shredded again into even smaller pieces. Then
Speaker 1: you need to separate out those pieces into different stuff.
Speaker 1: One way you might do this is using a really
Speaker 1: big magnet and pass it over the shredded material. Anything
Speaker 1: that's uh, this ferrist is going to be attracted to
Speaker 1: the magnet and we'll get pulled up by it and
Speaker 1: you can then separate that out. Uh, you might otherwise
Speaker 1: need to use various methodologies to sort the particles into
Speaker 1: different densities which will represent different materials, and thus you
Speaker 1: get different piles of stuff. Um there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things like centrifuges or platforms that shake a lot to
Speaker 1: help sort the stuff out. And you do this over
Speaker 1: and over again until you've got your various piles, and
Speaker 1: stuff that has like precious metals might end up being
Speaker 1: uh exposed to an acid bath to burn away anything
Speaker 1: that isn't that metal. And then the pieces of metal
Speaker 1: can be gathered together and then eventually smelted into ingots.
Speaker 1: Glass and plastics can be separated for reprocessing. And then
Speaker 1: you have done everything you could to reclaim as much
Speaker 1: as you could from those devices. And if you've done
Speaker 1: it carefully and responsibly, you've done it without releasing toxic
Speaker 1: fumes or toxic materials into the environment or harming your employees.
Speaker 1: That's easier said than done. It is a challenging thing.
Speaker 1: It is possible. You can do recycling responsibly, but it
Speaker 1: requires a lot of careful work and governance. I have
Speaker 1: more to say about electronic waste, but before I get
Speaker 1: to it, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So on October eighteen, which was just a few days
Speaker 1: before I jumped into the studio to record this episode,
Speaker 1: the world had its very first International e Waste Day.
Speaker 1: The goal there was not to generate more electronic waste,
Speaker 1: but rather to raise awareness of proper recycling and reuse
Speaker 1: programs for electronics, raising awareness over the illegal selling of
Speaker 1: e waste two countries that are buying it for processing
Speaker 1: and also for data mining. That's something that you should
Speaker 1: keep in mind that some of these companies that are
Speaker 1: offering to take electronics off your hands might actually be
Speaker 1: going through them very carefully to see if there's any
Speaker 1: data they can they can get from it, any personal data,
Speaker 1: any like logins, that kind of stuff. This actually does happen,
Speaker 1: and it happens on a pretty big basis. And because
Speaker 1: these companies will often send all this electronic waste to
Speaker 1: some other country that's outside the jurisdiction of whatever country
Speaker 1: you live in. I'm talking about the United States in
Speaker 1: particular because that's where I live, but it happens all
Speaker 1: over the world. That's a dangerous thing. And then they'll
Speaker 1: sell that data to interested buyers, um often wholesale. They'll
Speaker 1: just sell huge amounts of data at a time. That's
Speaker 1: one way of doing it. So it's very important to
Speaker 1: look at various UH resources online in order to get
Speaker 1: an idea of the reputation of the various services that
Speaker 1: are available out there for you to use for recycling
Speaker 1: or reusing UM. Recycling can be economically difficult to support
Speaker 1: unless you're talking about markets that have those very low
Speaker 1: costs of labor, like I said before, the low salaries
Speaker 1: with no benefits, bad working conditions, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So it is a very tricky subject without it being
Speaker 1: more profitable than the only people who are willing to
Speaker 1: do it are going to be the ones who aren't
Speaker 1: having to spend so much money to go through the
Speaker 1: process in the first place. So finding a reputable service
Speaker 1: that will recycle electronics in a way that is responsible,
Speaker 1: it's not exploitative of its workforce, it's not exposing the
Speaker 1: environment needlessly to these dangerous materials that are in electronics,
Speaker 1: that's doing its due diligence is a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1: They do exist, so it is important, and there are
Speaker 1: many of them, and they're all over the world, so
Speaker 1: going into specific ones it is kind of difficult. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're hyperlocal organizations that are really looking for as much
Speaker 1: reuse and re saling ability as possible. Um But there
Speaker 1: are some other alternatives to this approach, things that couldn't
Speaker 1: you can't just do with any electronics, but things that
Speaker 1: might happen in the future. So, for example, there have
Speaker 1: been some proposals to make a new type of electronics
Speaker 1: that are dissolvable, in other words, electronics that will actually
Speaker 1: over time degrade into harmless materials. And the first application
Speaker 1: that was thought of for this kind of stuff was
Speaker 1: perhaps for medical devices, so like a temporary medical device
Speaker 1: that you might have to have surgically implanted. But if
Speaker 1: it's a device that could over time degrade harmlessly and
Speaker 1: get absorbed by the body or excreted in some way,
Speaker 1: then you have eliminated the necessity for a follow up surgery,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing. You know, you want to
Speaker 1: limit surgeries as much as you can, because every time
Speaker 1: you have a surgery, that opens up more risk for
Speaker 1: things like infection. So it's an interesting idea, but you
Speaker 1: could also apply that same principle to general electronics, not
Speaker 1: just medical devices. In fact, one of the researchers who
Speaker 1: was looking into dissolvable electronics had gone so far as
Speaker 1: to suggest that companies could invest in this technology and
Speaker 1: then make electronics that really do have an expiration date,
Speaker 1: electronics that after a certain amount of time, we're going
Speaker 1: to start to degrade, which would necessitate you going out
Speaker 1: and buying a replacement, which sounds pretty awful from a
Speaker 1: consumer point of view. I would hate the idea of
Speaker 1: I saved up money, I got myself this nice smartphone,
Speaker 1: and then two years later it literally will not work anymore,
Speaker 1: and I will need to get a new smartphone because
Speaker 1: the one I have is is decaying into various compounds,
Speaker 1: harmless compounds. Uh. That might be great for the environment,
Speaker 1: it's not great for my bank account. It's not great
Speaker 1: for my morale as a consumer. And you could argue
Speaker 1: the companies are already kind of doing this, only without
Speaker 1: the actual dissolving into inorganic or or organic compounds part
Speaker 1: where you've got companies that because they are constantly updating
Speaker 1: the operating systems of the hardware that they are involved with,
Speaker 1: like Apple or Google with Android. Because they're constantly making
Speaker 1: those those updates, they eventually get to a point where
Speaker 1: the older hardware cannot support the latest version of the
Speaker 1: operating system, and the longer you stick with your older device,
Speaker 1: the further behind you get, so you find you may
Speaker 1: find that you cannot install certain applications because you can't
Speaker 1: run the relevant operating system on that hardware. Well, you
Speaker 1: could argue that that's essentially the same thing as designing
Speaker 1: a device that is kind of in a self destruct mode,
Speaker 1: where it's going to fall apart after a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time. It's just that in the case of the
Speaker 1: you know, obsolescence through the operating system, it doesn't come
Speaker 1: with the benefit of degrading into harmless materials. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of the worst of all worlds. But still, I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of people are going to be
Speaker 1: calling for dissolvable electronics. I also suspect that this researcher
Speaker 1: who was suggesting that companies could invest in this technology
Speaker 1: so that they could make you know, gadgets that become
Speaker 1: obsolete that the literally break within a certain amount of time.
Speaker 1: I suspect he was doing this in where to get
Speaker 1: funding to continue his work, and not that he was
Speaker 1: arguing that electronics need to break down after a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time, but rather I need to continue my
Speaker 1: work in creating this medical technology. I want to make.
Speaker 1: One way I could do it is to convince big
Speaker 1: companies to pour some money into it. That's my suspicion.
Speaker 1: I don't know it for a fact, but there are
Speaker 1: also other suggestions. One of my favorites is to create
Speaker 1: incentives for companies to create buy back programs. In other words,
Speaker 1: the companies that make the technology themselves will buy back
Speaker 1: older versions incarnations of that technology. So not say that
Speaker 1: Apple creates a new iPhone as it does every year,
Speaker 1: but it also offers a buy back program where it
Speaker 1: will buy your old iPhone for obviously a big markdown
Speaker 1: because you've owned it for at least a year, maybe more.
Speaker 1: And uh, it will take the iPhone off your hands.
Speaker 1: And from there, maybe the company resells it at a profit,
Speaker 1: or maybe they take it upon themselves to go through
Speaker 1: the process of recycling those components in a way that's responsible. Uh.
Speaker 1: The way to really encourage this might be through tax
Speaker 1: incentive programs on a government level, where companies that participate
Speaker 1: in such practices get nice tax breaks as a result.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has followed any of the major tech companies
Speaker 1: knows those tech companies love their tax breaks. It's amazing
Speaker 1: that a company can become like a trillion dollar company
Speaker 1: and yet not owe any taxes. That's a discussion for
Speaker 1: another time. It does not belong here. I'm just getting grouchy.
Speaker 1: But those are some possible ways of approaching this problem
Speaker 1: that don't go down the same path of uh, exploiting
Speaker 1: people who are extremely vulnerable. Obviously, those people who are
Speaker 1: gainfully employed through the recycling industry, even if they're being exploited,
Speaker 1: it would be really nice if we could come up
Speaker 1: with a an industry that they could work in where
Speaker 1: they're not being treated so poorly. But uh, we gotta,
Speaker 1: we gotta start solving the problems where we can and
Speaker 1: work our way to the bigger, bigger issues because they
Speaker 1: are huge and there are no easy answers. Life is
Speaker 1: a complicated thing, but I thought it was important to
Speaker 1: really address this topic and to urge you that if
Speaker 1: you have old electronic devices that you need to get
Speaker 1: rid of, look into the various recycling or you know,
Speaker 1: resale options that are available to you and give them
Speaker 1: some serious consideration. Do a little bit more than just googling.
Speaker 1: Look look into those services, make sure they have a
Speaker 1: good reputation, and that way you can be a responsible
Speaker 1: citizen of the of the world. You can avoid as
Speaker 1: best you can contributing to pollution or to human misery.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a pretty noble goal that we
Speaker 1: can all kind of get behind. And uh, as I
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, I still love technology. I just
Speaker 1: have to again keep in mind both the positives and
Speaker 1: the negatives. It's always important to look at the whole picture,
Speaker 1: not turn a blind eye to stuff just because as
Speaker 1: it's inconvenient. If you guys have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, or you've got any requests, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a company you want me to talk about, or
Speaker 1: a product or something along those lines, or maybe just
Speaker 1: a general tech topic, head on over to our website
Speaker 1: it's tech stuff podcast dot com. And over there you're
Speaker 1: gonna find links to how to get in touch with
Speaker 1: me through email or Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Plus you will find a link to our
Speaker 1: nifty podcasts or Remember, every purchase you make goes to
Speaker 1: help the show, and we greatly appreciate it. And I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com,