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The Economics of E-Waste and the Cost to the Environment

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The Economics of E-Waste and the Cost to the Environment The Economics of E-Waste and the Cost to the Environment Christopher “Smitty” Smith -waste or waste electrical and electronic equipment elements (REEs) used in the manufacture of electronics. (WEEE) has been generally defined as anything with Both of these considerations have led to global initiatives to a cord or battery. See Balde, C.P., Wang, F., Kuehr, R., institute sustainable practices for management of WEEE. Evi- EHuisman, J., The Global E-waste Monitor 2014, Quan- dence of mainstream interest in the subject is demonstrated tities, Flows and Resources, United Nations University Institute by a recent national news segment on the seventeen REEs for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) (2014) and their role in electronic devices in the United States, on (Balde). Because products with cords and batteries have been the television show 60 Minutes. See www.cbsnews.com/news/ around since at least the nineteenth century, managing the rare-earth-elements-china-monopoly-60-minutes-lesley-stahl/. waste stream for those products at the end of their useful life is REEs include fifteen chemical elements in the periodic not a new problem. What is relatively new is the perception of table referred to as lanthanides. See Rare Earth Elements: A WEEE not just as waste, but instead as a valuable resource that Review of Production, Processing, Recycling, and Associated Envi- can be managed through reuse of the electronic device itself ronmental Issues, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (reuse), recycling of its components (recycling), or disposal of (Dec. 2012 Revised) (Rare Earth Elements). Two other ele- the device or its components (disposal). ments, scandium and yttrium, have similar physiochemistry to Recognition of WEEE as a resource has led to a para- the lanthanides and are commonly found in the same mineral digm shift in WEEE management. Historically, management assemblages. Id. These two additional elements are often also of WEEE simply involved choices between disposal options. referred to as REEs. Examples of the seventeen REEs used in That outlook has given way to a focus on recycling and reuse, electronics include yttrium, neodymium, europium, terbium, with disposal becoming much less prevalent. This change and dysprosium. REEs are now present in almost all newly has been attributed to a host of concerns—commercial, manufactured personal electronic devices and serve purposes societal, and environmental. In the modern view, a success- ranging from enabling your smartphone to vibrate to optimiz- ful approach to the management of WEEE seeks to achieve ing the screen resolution on your flat-screen television. See economic efficiency while minimizing impacts to the environ- www.livescience.com/38094-facts-about-rare-earth-elements- ment. Regardless of the perspective taken on WEEE, there can infographic.html (accessed Apr. 24, 2015). Utilization of these be no denying that economics are the leading policy driver. elements and others has allowed devices to increase in effi- But societal or environmental concerns do not take the back ciency and decrease in size. seat. Acceptable WEEE management is seen as requiring har- The benefits of REEs do not come without significant costs. monizing of commercial, societal, and environmental interests Extraction, production, and processing of REEs involve sub- equally. stantial negative environmental impacts for a relatively small Recycling and reuse of WEEE has become a common prac- yield. Although REEs are abundant in the earth’s crust, they tice around the world due, in large part, to the ubiquity of rarely occur in concentrated forms. Mining of ore-contain- electronics in our daily lives. The boom in personal electronic ing REEs produces extensive potentially toxic waste. Further devices began when households started purchasing cathode impacts occur in the production and processing of REEs (using, ray tube (CRT) televisions in the mid-twentieth century. It e.g., grinding or acid digestion), which create contaminated has steadily grown since and now includes devices unimagi- waste materials. Disposal of mine tailings or process wastewater nable when the first CRT televisions were introduced. Today, creates still other environmental issues. Rare Earth Elements in developed countries and many developing countries, life at pp. 3–10. without personal electronic devices is almost inconceiv- The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the mining of able. Examples engrained in our daily lives include flat-screen REEs is conducted almost exclusively in developing countries televisions, personal computers, and most significantly smart- or in parts of developed countries where environmental regu- phones; all of which are being constantly improved and lations, if any, may be loosely enforced. For example, the U.S. replaced with newer, more advanced versions, leaving behind Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in recent them a trail of WEEE. years China has provided more than 95 percent of the REE As the generation of WEEE has boomed, concern has consumed worldwide, under far looser environmental regula- grown over sustainability, not simply for the negative envi- tions than those of Western countries. Rare Earth Elements at ronmental impacts, but also over the scarcity of rare earth pp. 2–7. REEs are increasingly recognized as finite in nature. Given Mr. Smith is an environmental attorney with the law firm of Squire that current production is centered in countries where, for Patton Boggs (US) LLP. He may be reached at via email at cwsmith@ geopolitical or other reasons, stable supply cannot be assured, squirepb.com. recycling of WEEE, which contain REEs, becomes clearly NR&E Fall 2015 1 Published in Natural Resources & Environment Volume 30, Number 2, Fall 2015. © 2015 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. advantageous not only from environmental but also from eco- to limit negative environmental impacts. While both for- nomic perspectives. mal and informal strategies are currently employed around the As mentioned above, WEEE was historically managed world and likely will be in the future, greater environmental almost exclusively by disposal. And while recycling and reuse awareness and available recycling infrastructure could tip the have recognized environmental advantages over disposal, ulti- scales in favor of more formal WEEE recycling. While align- mately, the determination of which management option is ing stakeholders’ incentives on a global scale may seem like an preferable will depend on the facts and circumstances pre- insurmountable hurdle, policy makers have devised approaches sented. For example, in countries where the practice of WEEE that could be implemented on such a scale. management is well developed, recycling may be the most One proposal involves instituting worldwide collection effective and efficient tool. By contrast, in developing coun- point systems. Under such a system, informal WEEE collectors tries, where WEEE management is still developing, reuse may and dismantlers would continue in business, but a marketplace be the most effective and efficient option. would be created where the materials collected and extracted could be brought to collection points for sale to institutional recyclers for prices higher than those generated through infor- Recycling WEEE mal recycling by the collectors and dismantlers themselves. Oftentimes, the process of WEEE recycling in developed coun- This would remove the informal collectors and dismantlers tries begins with a collection point. Typically, these points from the processing of the WEEE, typically the point at which are organized by local or national governmental entities, environmental and health risks are the greatest. See Williams, contracted out to private waste management companies, or J. Yu, J., & Kahhat, R., Collection Points as Alternative Policy through retailers of personal electronic devices. At those col- Instrument to Address Informal Recycling of E-Waste, presented lection points, members of the community are encouraged to at International Society for Industrial Ecology, Lisbon, Portu- bring all of their WEEE. From there the materials are typically gal (2009). By limiting the processing of the dismantled WEEE sent to a sorting facility where the WEEE is sorted based on to formal operations, the impacts to individuals and envi- the types of products and materials that make up the WEEE. ronment could be more closely and carefully managed. The For example, CRTs can be sorted into one bin and smart- ultimate tool would be the economic disincentivizing of infor- phones into another. From that point the materials are broken mal recycling altogether. Id. Implementation of a worldwide down into their component parts where the valuable materials collection point system was initially envisioned to require gov- present in the WEEE are extracted. This process of breaking ernment subsidy, but current simulations, taking into account down the materials can occur through an automated system in the current WEEE marketplace, show that it could be profit- more formal and advanced settings or it can take the form of able even without subsidy. Id. individuals doing the labor by hand. See Hieronymi, K, Kah- hat, R., and Williams, E., E-Waste Management:
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