We talk a lot about renewable energy, electric cars, and ocean cleanup projects when we talk about sustainability. But the fight for a greener planet often starts closer to home — behind the supermarket, in the back of a hotel, or inside a city recycling depot. Waste management doesn’t usually grab headlines, yet it’s one of the most immediate ways to cut emissions, save resources, and make sustainability practical instead of theoretical. Enter the unsung hero of modern recycling: the humble trash baler.

For decades, managing waste has meant hauling it away and hoping someone else deals with it. Trucks burn fuel, bins overflow, and recyclables get contaminated long before they reach a processing plant. But that model doesn’t really work anymore. As landfills fill up and the global waste stream keeps growing, cities and businesses are realizing they need to handle more of the problem right where it starts. The trash baler is part of that shift — a simple, industrial tool helping to reshape how we think about sustainability.

Rethinking Waste From the Ground Up

The old take–make–dispose model has been under pressure for years. Urban centers from Dubai to Los Angeles are wrestling with the logistics of waste that just won’t stop coming. Every delivery, every product, every plastic wrapper adds to a growing mountain of materials that, ironically, could have been reused if only they were managed better.

That’s where trash baler come in. By compacting waste — especially recyclable materials like cardboard, plastic, and paper — balers make it possible to keep materials clean and organized at the source. Instead of sending dozens of half-empty bins to a landfill, businesses can store compressed bales for recycling, reducing both transport costs and carbon emissions. It’s a simple fix, but it’s quietly powerful.

Small Machines, Big Change

A trash baler doesn’t look revolutionary. It’s a vertical machine that presses waste into neat, stackable cubes. But the ripple effects are huge. Less volume means fewer trucks, less fuel burned, and less air pollution. For small businesses or apartment complexes, that’s a direct line between everyday operations and measurable sustainability progress.

Companies like Bramidan USA have refined this technology to make it even more efficient and easy to use. Their vertical balers are designed for shops, restaurants, and warehouses that want to handle recycling in-house. The result is cleaner waste streams, less mess, and a lot less waste ending up where it shouldn’t.

It’s worth noting that many businesses adopt these machines not because they have to, but because they want to. They’re tired of paying for overflowing dumpsters and unreliable waste pickups. When people see that sustainability can save them time and money, it stops being a buzzword and starts being common sense.

Why Local Waste Management Matters

If you’ve ever watched a recycling truck weaving through city streets, you’ve seen the problem firsthand. Most of what we call “recycling” still depends on long-distance transportation and centralized sorting facilities. Those systems are energy-intensive and prone to contamination — the dreaded mix of wet food, plastic wrap, and paper that renders recyclables useless.

When businesses use balers, they can separate and compress materials on-site. That means cleaner recyclables and fewer rejected loads. The material that leaves the premises is ready for reprocessing, not another round of sorting. Multiply that across thousands of small operations, and suddenly local waste management becomes a genuine climate solution.

It’s not glamorous work, but it’s exactly what sustainability needs more of: everyday, scalable efficiency. You don’t have to overhaul an entire supply chain or build a new power grid to make a difference. Sometimes you just need to manage your trash better.

From Waste to Resource

In the circular economy, waste doesn’t really exist — it’s just material waiting for its next use. Compacted bales of cardboard and plastic have value. They’re easier to sell, ship, and recycle. Instead of paying to throw waste away, businesses can often make money by selling these materials back into the recycling market.

That small economic incentive turns sustainability from a burden into a business case. When you can quantify the savings — fewer pickups, lower disposal fees, extra revenue — it changes how organizations think about environmental responsibility. Sustainability stops being a side project and becomes part of daily operations.

The Human Side of Waste

There’s something almost poetic about it. The more we automate and globalize, the more sustainability comes back to something simple: caring about what we leave behind. Waste management might not feel as exciting as solar panels or carbon capture, but it’s deeply human. It’s about cleaning up after ourselves and doing it a little better every year.

That’s why machines like the trash baler are quietly revolutionary. They give power back to people and businesses to handle their own waste responsibly. They make recycling visible and tangible. And they remind us that progress isn’t always about new inventions — sometimes it’s about using old ideas more intelligently.

Making Sustainability Practical

Sustainability can sometimes sound like a lofty ideal, something reserved for big corporations or government programs. But in reality, it’s built on small, repeatable actions. Every time a store compacts its cardboard instead of throwing it away, every time a logistics center reduces its trash pickups, the planet benefits.

That’s what makes the story of the trash baler worth telling. It’s proof that practical, everyday choices can scale into real environmental progress. Machines like these are redefining what sustainability looks like — not as an abstract goal, but as something you can switch on, load up, and actually see working.

The post Waste Reform from the Ground Up: How Trash Balers Are Helping Cities Rethink Sustainability appeared first on Green Prophet.

Last years e-waste weighed substantially more than all the adults in Europe, or as much as 350 cruise ships the size of the Queen Mary 2. Another metric: 15 pounds for ever person on earth, every year.

Wonder why the planet is lashing back with plagues like Covid-19, floods, global warming? It’s all connected and even though over there and out there is far away, a record amount of e-waste or electronic waste is building up in our planet putting everyone, not just the vulnerable –- at risk.

The United Nations sent Green Prophet a new report: a record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21 per cent in just five years, according to the United Nations in their Global E-waste Monitor 2020.

The new report also predicts global e-waste – discarded products with a battery or plug – will reach 74 Mt by 2030, almost a doubling of e-waste in just 16 years. This makes e-waste the world’s fastest-growing domestic waste stream, fueled mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short life cycles, and few options for repair.

A sad state for electronics recycling

Only 17.4 percent of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled. This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billion — a sum greater than the gross domestic product of most countries – were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.

Who are the biggest polluters, by continent?

Asia, no doubt, being the factory and dumpsite of the world, generated the greatest volume of e-waste in 2019 — some 24.9 Mt, followed by the Americas (13.1 Mt) and Europe (12 Mt), while Africa and Oceania generated 2.9 Mt and 0.7 Mt respectively.

E-waste is a health and environmental hazard, containing toxic additives or hazardous substances such as mercury, which damages the human brain and its coordination system.

About 15 pounds for ever person on earth

• Proper e-waste management can help mitigate global warming. Countries like Israel have made plans and bills but there is very little on the ground enforcement. It’s especially a concern in places like China where the oversight in production is murky and where it is hard to find details of true environment conservation. In 2019, an estimated 98 Mt of CO2-equivalents were released into the atmosphere from discarded fridges and air-conditioners, contributing roughly 0.3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That means every new appliance you buy, one goes to landfill.
• In per capita terms, last year’s discarded e-waste averaged 7.3 kg for every man, woman and child on Earth.
• An estimated 50 tonnes of mercury — used in monitors, PCBs and fluorescent and energy-saving light sources — are contained in undocumented flows of e-waste annually.
• E-waste in 2019 was mainly comprised of small equipment (17.4 Mt), large equipment (13.1 Mt), and temperature exchange equipment (10.8 Mt). Screens and monitors, small IT and telecommunication equipment, and lamps represented 6.7 Mt, 4.7 Mt, and 0.9 Mt respectively.
• Since 2014, the e-waste categories increasing fastest in total weight terms are: temperature exchange equipment (+7 percent), large equipment (+5 percent), lamps and small equipment (+4 percent). According to the report, this trend is driven by the growing consumption of those products in lower-income countries, where those products improve the living standards. Small IT and telecommunication equipment have been growing more slowly, and screens and monitors have shown a slight decrease (-1 per cent), explained largely by lighter flat panel displays replacing heavy cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors and screens.
• Since 2014, the number of countries that have adopted a national e-waste policy, legislation or regulation has increased from 61 to 78. While a positive trend, this is far from the target set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) which is to raise the percentage of countries with an e-waste legislation to 50 per cent.

The post Electronic waste getting worse, up 20% in 5 years appeared first on Green Prophet.

More than one hundred organisations from over forty countries worldwide will organise activities as part of the second International E-Waste Day taking place on 14^th October.

E-waste is an abbreviation for electronic waste, all the metals and materials that get dumped when we throw out our old devices. Some countries like Canada have a fee on new goods bought to recycle them at end of life, and plenty of facilities to bring them to when they die. But not every country is like this. 

So, the event organised by the WEEE Forum, is intended to educate people better on the e-waste problem. An international association of e-waste collection schemes, and its members, brings together e-waste stakeholders across the world to promote the correct disposal of electrical and electronic equipment to enable reuse and recycling.

The International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency responsible for ICT is involved. Well as much as its able. The UN moves slow for action but does serve an important role in motivating countries to file reports about the size of the e-waste problem. 

Growing problem of poisonous e-waste

It is estimated that 50 million tonnes of e-waste will be generated across the planet in 2019. Half of this is personal devices such as computers, screens, smartphones, tablets and TVs, with the remainder being larger household appliances and heating and cooling equipment.

Only around 20% of global e-waste is recycled each year (this company from Israel is one of them – in Hebrew), which means that 40 million tonnes of e-waste per year is either placed in landfill, burned or illegally traded and treated in a sub-standard way and this is despite 66% of the world’s population being covered by e-waste legislation. E-waste or electronic waste happens when you throw out your computer, laptop or cell phone, generating hazardous materials from electronics parts.

E-waste loses raw materials forever

This results in the huge loss of valuable and critical raw materials from the supply chain and causes serious health, environmental and societal issues through illegal shipments of waste to developing countries.

Initiatives being undertaken by participant organisations are designed to increase consumers’ knowledge about e-waste and how to dispose of it correctly. These initiatives are many and diverse and include conferences, school and city collections, promotions in stores and recycling centres, videos and animations, and an online guide for proper e-waste disposal. All of these will be promoted locally on and around International E-waste Day.

Infographics for electronic waste

The WEEE Forum itself has developed a series of infographics that illustrate the growing e-waste problem as well as videos featuring different representatives from e-waste value chain giving their take on how to tackle the challenge. All the materials can be viewed here.

Karmenu Vella, EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries explained in his dedicated video message for International E-Waste Day, “We are entering the next stage in Europe’s commitment to foster a circular economy. This will be part of the new Green Deal for Europe announced by the incoming Commission President Ursula van der Leyen.”

He continued “Prevention and dealing with e-waste will be part and parcel of our coming work. This means recycling all our electronic waste where it cannot be avoided. But it also means rethinking the value chain for electronic goods. It means considering their appropriateness for reuse or recycling from conception. It means even going beyond and prioritizing dematerialization and closed loop systems.”

EU makes a pact to clean up e-waste

Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum, said, “From 2019, the minimum collection rate to be achieved annually in EU member states will be 65% of the average weight of appliances placed on the market in the three preceding years, or alternatively 85% of WEEE generated. The new collection targets seek to ensure that around 10 million tonnes, or roughly 20 kg per capita, will be separately collected. Such a high collection rate is impossible to reach without the involvement of all actors in the value chain, including citizens. We are confident that International E-Waste Day will contribute to improving the societal awareness and through this help in improving the collection rates not only in Europe, but also globally.”

He added: “There are many countries worldwide that are currently in the process of implementing e-waste legislation. We are therefore very pleased to have participants from six continents involved in this year’s International E-Waste Day”.

The post An international day for electronic waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

Apple product releases are  delayed in the Mideast shortening the supported product life in this part of the world. Apple also practices planned obsolescence.

In an open letter to customers, Apple’s senior VP of hardware engineering admitted that it was a mistake to remove Apple products from the EPEAT environmental rating system. He writes:”We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.”

The Electronic Product and Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is a voluntary environmental rating system for electronic products.  It was developed in 2003 as a collaborative effort between business, government and academic interests and helps define and measure such parameters as energy consumption, use of toxic materials, greenhouse gas emission, recycling efficiency and serviceability.

When Apple suddenly removed all of its iPhones, iPads and Macbooks from the EPEAT registry, it was the equivalent of an architectural firm suddenly saying it would would no longer look at LEED, BREEAM, Estidama or GSAS green building standards.  It went beyond mystifying, it was just plain stupid.  This isn’t just a green opinion, it was an immediate threat to Apple’s bottom line. When Apple dropped EPEAT, certain government agencies including the city of San Francisco and large companies such as Ford would stop buying Apple products.

Now that Apple has reversed its decision, anyone can search the EPEAT website and see some of the criteria which helped the 15 inch MacBook Pro earn a ‘Gold’ rating:

Retina Display MacBooks “Designed for End of Life”

Apple gets 5 out of 5 points here but they were right about one thing, EPEAT doesn’t tell the whole green story.  Notice particularly criteria 4-3.1.3 Easy disassembly of external enclosure and 4.3.1.7 Molded/glued in metal eliminated or removable.

According to the experienced technicians at iFixit, the 2012 Macbook’s Pro’s display and battery are glued into the aluminum case rendering it virtually unfixable.  You can forget about replacing or upgrading the RAM or hard drive too.

The RAM is soldered to the motherboard and the hard drive does not use an industry standard SATA connector.  Notice also that iPods, iPads and  iPhones do not appear on the EPEAT website.  The current generation are even less serviceable than the MacBooks.

Remember when batteries were replaceable?

Apple knows how to design serviceable products.  Last night I repaired the loose antenna inside my wife’s iPhone 3G using only a screwdriver, a suction cup and a bit of sticky tape.  My thirteen-year-old Apple Powerbook’s DVD drive, hard drive, RAM, battery, keyboard and individual keys can be replaced without any special tools.

Some lithium batteries only last about 300 charge cycles, less than a year of daily use.  So it is conceivable that my 1999 Powerbook will outlive these 2012 MacBooks.  Except that Apple recently obsoleted it with their iCloud service.  Software upgrades and cloud services should extend a device’s life, but Apple found a way for them to do the opposite.  Apple product releases are often delayed in the Mideast further shortening the supported product life in this part of the world.

Can a greenwashable standard keep my iDevice out of the iLandfill?

Apple topped Fortune magazine’s most respected company list for the past four years.  It has beautiful products and enviable market-share.  Sometimes it seems that Apple can do no wrong and yet they were not able to ignore even this weak environmental standard.  Perhaps there is a lesson here for all of us?

Consumers do care deeply about the environment and yet even the best available standard for green electronics overlooks the fact that the current generation of iPhones, iPads and MacBooks are designed to be disposable in as little as one year.

Apple may use green materials and contract with good product recyclers but think of the energy required to ship your device to Apple when a dead battery renders it useless.  Apple’s short-cycle planned-obsolescence violates the spirit of EPEAT standard, but they aren’t being evil.

Planned obsolescence is simply how Apple survives in our fast-paced economy where environmental standards are greenwashable and consumers are focused on “I” and “Now!”   Whether your next iDevice goes into a landfill or is recycled into a toilet seat, it is unlikely to have a long iLife unless consumers demand it.

Photo of Lego man fixing an iPhone by Brian Nitz
Photo of women with laptop via Shutterstock

The post Apple Admits Dropping EPEAT Eco Standard Was a Mistake appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Israeli government continues to process a bill that will regulate, for the first time, management of the country’s electronic waste. If it gets approved by the Knesset, the bill would require manufacturers to finance the proper recycling of their materials.

The bill would also stipulate that by 2020 it would be illegal to send electronic products that had not been recycled or reused to the regular landfill. Data from the Environmental Protection Ministry suggests that Israel produces 85,000 tones of electronic waste a year.

So far the private sector, such as the Israeli company Snunit Recycling, has filled the void in Israel’s recycling infrastructure, collecting and disassembling e-waste for recycling.

But such businesses have only scratched the surface of what is needed. Only 5% of all the e-waste produced in the Middle East is properly recycled, and most of that recycling occurs outside the region.

Amit Bracha, executive director of Israel Union for Environmental Defense (Adam Teva V’Din), referred to this bill as part of an Israeli “recycling revolution.”

But for those of us on the ground, we’ve already seen inspiring citizen involvement in stark contrast to the minimalist, mismanaged government recycling programs.

::Ynet

Image of repurposed imac via Wikimedia Commons

More E-Waste:

Cairo’s Fixers: Repairers That Are Helping Heal The Planet

Mountains of Toxic E-Waste in Pakistan Are a Goldmine

The (Imminent) Death Of My Laptop: E-Waste & The Middle East

The post Israel Introduces E-Waste Management Bill appeared first on Green Prophet.

If only there were a light bulb as efficient as a compact fluorescent light (CFL), but without the ghastly green light and brain-eating  toxic mercury.   Am I asking too much?  The inventors of the Electron Stimulated Luminance (ESL) lights don’t think so.  A company called Vu1 plans to sell ESL bulbs in Europe and the Mideast in 2013.  Vu1 lights are based on cathode ray tube (CRT) technology, are dim-able and have the cozy glow of incandescent light bulbs.  How did Vu1 accomplish this magic?  It helps that I know a little bit about CRTs from the days when my brother and I repaired old televisions.

The Hard Way of Learning About CRTs

Nature Abhors a Vacuum, So Do I: It was the mid 1980s. My brother glared at me in that moment between the sound of breaking glass and the horrible bang-whoosh which tugged at our eardrums and filled the room with a greenish-white cloud, Dad is gonna be mad! I didn’t have time to say, shut up! as we bolted from the room, but I knew it was my fault.  I held my breath to avoid inhaling poisonous mercury fumes from the fluorescent light I had just dropped across the back of Dad’s television.

It was a 1940s vintage Admiral TV with an AM/FM radio, phonograph and a 12 ½ inch picture tube.  It was nearly old enough to have displayed the last time the Chicago Cubs had won the World Series in 1945.  It had been around for Elvis’s debut and the moon landings.  My father had begun to restore it the night before his wedding and my brother had fully repaired it in the mid 1980s– only a few weeks before I destroyed it.

When we mustered the courage to return to the room, we saw that the fluorescent tube was intact but the neck of the TV’s picture tube had broken off.  Air rushing into the vacuum had blown a hole in the screen’s phosphor coating.  I wondered, what we should fear more; mercury vapors, phosphorescent dust– or Dad.

CRT televisions faded into history, but fluorescent lights continue to be my bane.  Our kitchen is equipped with dimmer switches.  The prison-style bare bulb fixture in our bathroom is too fragile to support heavy CFL bulbs.  Some fixtures require screw base bulbs, others have bayonet, candelabra or T-50 floodlight sockets.  Until recently only one style of CFL light bulbs was available in Ireland, so we installed these into as many fixtures as possible.  The CFLs in recessed sockets overheated and the ones we installed in the cool damp bathroom lasted only a few months.  The ones on the dimmer switch didn’t work at all.  Soon I had a collection of dead CFL light bulbs, waiting for the environment minister to devise a disposal plan for the toxic mercury inside them.  His eventual plan was for citizens to ‘look it up on the Internet’– so here I am. Meanwhile, this became one of the first countries in the world to ban incandescent light bulbs.  Am I screwed?

How do ESL lights work?

ESLs work just like the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) in Dad’s old TV.  There are differences but let me first explain how a CRT works.  Inside the fragile glass neck there is a piece of metal called a cathode.  The cathode is electrically heated with a filament similar to those used in incandescent bulbs. This allows electrons to ‘boil’ off of the metal’s surface.

These electrons won’t go far unless you remove the air and push many more electrons onto the cathode, giving it a negative charge.  Since like charges repel, the negative electrons leave the cathode and fly towards a positively charged piece of metal near the front of the tube called an anode. This assembly is called an electron gun.

Where Do the Electrons Go?

Once you have electrons shooting out of an electron gun, you need to give them a target. In an X-Ray machine the target is a chunk of metal which stops the electrons and forces them to give up their energy as X-Rays.  In a CRT, the electrons strike a phosphorescent powder, causing it to glow.  Electromagnets sweep the electron beam back and forth over the screen, painting a picture.

In a color CRT, three electron beams pass through a metal shadow mask, full of holes which direct the beams to red, green and blue phosphor dots.

There is Nothing Wrong With Your Television Set

During our TV repair years, my brother and I would occasionally find one with bad horizontal and vertical oscillator tubes.  This disabled the beam steering magnets which left an extremely bright dot shining in the center of the screen.  ESLs don’t use a shadow mask or beam steering magnets but they do have an electron gun and a bright phosphor screen.  Vu1 has taken advantage of advancements in phosphor chemistry and small, high voltage power supplies to make what appears to be an ecologically friendly light..

What about X-Rays?

One of the first things I thought of when I heard about ESLs was, I thought we were trying to get rid of CRTs.  My second thought was, What about X-Rays? In 1967 a General Electric manufacturing defect resulted in TVs which emitted 10-100,000 times the X radiation considered safe.  Most TVs gave off some X-Rays, color ones more so, because the electron accelerating voltage was higher, at about 25,000 volts.  The shadow mask stopped some electrons, converting their energy to X rays.  To filter these, old TV screens were made of thick leaded glass.

ESL’s lack of a shadow mask and relatively low accelerating voltage of 5000V means they are unlikely to emit many more X-rays than a typical CFL bulb and nowhere near as much as the sun.)  ESL lights have passed Underwriter’s Laboratory X-Ray testing in the U.S.

Throw Them in the Trash? You must be joking!

A child with old cathode ray tubes in New Delhi

There is an old joke that fluorescent lights don’t give off light, they suck up dark and the tube gets black when it’s full of dark.  But they’re actually mercury vapor discharge lights.  A tiny heater boils a little bit of mercury, then 100-1000 volt ‘spark’ is sent through the vapor.  The resulting light has some orange, a lot of green and a strongly ultraviolet component.  A fluorescent phosphor coating converts the UV to white light.  The mercury in CFLs does create a disposal problem which, along with previously mentioned advantages seems to give ESLs the edge.

But I wonder why we didn’t worry about long tube fluorescents which had much more mercury and sometimes even a little bit of radioactive Krypton in their starters. One reason may be that we weren’t as environmentally aware, another is that those lights seemed to last forever.  When they flickered, someone would replace the ballast transformer and they’d continue to shine.  I suspect most of my CFL duds have a perfectly good tube and a failure somewhere in the ballast or equivalent electronic components.  The bare mercury tube and electronics have independent failure modes so why are they not independently replaceable?

From Cradle to Where?

So which is more dangerous, phosphor dust or mercury?  Shards of glass imploding through a high vacuum or radioactive Krypton?  I don’t know.  But it bothers me that anyone is suggesting that a new technology is “trash bin safe.”  The Wall Street Journal estimates that there are about 12 billion light bulbs in the world.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation based on 8 hours of light/day and a typical lifespan of 6000 hours gives a replacement interval of 750 days.  ESLs are longer and heavier than CFL or incandescent bulbs.  They weigh about a pound so that would come to 16 million pounds of e-waste per day.  Some jurisdictions forbid disposing of CRTs and if Canada’s $0.25 per pound e-waste charge is typical, ESL disposal could cost the world millions of dollars per day.

I Take My Europium, Shaken, Not Stirred, and Very Very Rare

Vu1’s SEC filing says that their blue and green phosphors are zinc based and that the red phosphor, necessary for ESL’s warm reddish-yellow light, is based on the rare-earth element Europium (Eu).

Grab a magnifying glass and have a close look at your computer’s LCD screen here:    . . . . . . . . . . . .

Those tiny red squares glow with the light of Europium.  Grab a Euro note and you have some Europium.  But if you’d invested in Europium rather than Euros, you’d be up about 1000%, the price of this rare-earth has soared to over $3000/kg.  Pure europium costs upwards of $1,300,000/kilogram.

The thing about rare-earths is that they’re– well, rare.  There are only about 150,000 tons of europium in the world. If that sounds like a lot, consider this.  If ESLs were made of pure europium, we could throw away the entire world’s supply in 18 days.  If container ships burned europium instead of oil, a single ship could use up the global supply in less than two years.

So you really don’t want to be throwing europium in the trash can.  In fact the two best places to mine rare-earths are China and waste electronics heaps.  It would be much better if ESLs were designed for repair.  Most of the parts in dad’s old TV were replaceable.  When the picture tubed dimmed, you would take it to be rejuvenated.

A high voltage would shake the dust from the cathode and it was as good as Frankenstein’s monster after a lightning bolt.  Years later when the tube failed again, you might have the electron gun rebuilt.  As long as fluorescent tube-wielding teenagers like me didn’t go near it, TVs could be repaired indefinitely. In fact a few 1940s televisions continue to operate today.

ESLs are an amazing technology and I can hardly wait until they become widely available in Europe and the Middle East.  I’d like to see them replace most kinds of compact fluorescent bulbs, but I hope the manufacturer rethinks the end-game.

They’re too amazing to end up in the trash can.

Photo credits: Admiral TV photo by puuikibeach via Flickr.
Compact Fluorescent spectrum photo by Brian Nitz
CRT image created by Søren Peo Pedersen via Wikipedia
Photo of  child with old CRTs by Thousandways via Wikimedia CC-BY-SA-2.5

The post Are ESLs A Mercury-Free Replacement for CFL Lights? appeared first on Green Prophet.

]]> https://www.greenprophet.com/2012/03/esl-cfl-mercury-lights/feed/ 14 https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/cairo%e2%80%99s-fixers-repairers-that-are-helping-heal-the-planet/ https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/cairo%e2%80%99s-fixers-repairers-that-are-helping-heal-the-planet/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:32:51 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=58025 Superior repair skills in developing nations mean that broken electronics can be mended and reused – a much greener alternative to recycling A couple of months ago, I wrote about the death of my laptop and my predicament over what to do with it. I had become wary of sending broken electronics to developing countries […]

The post Cairo’s Fixers: Repairers That Are Helping Heal The Planet appeared first on Green Prophet.

]]> Superior repair skills in developing nations mean that broken electronics can be mended and reused – a much greener alternative to recycling

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the death of my laptop and my predicament over what to do with it. I had become wary of sending broken electronics to developing countries after news emerged that they were being pulled apart by poor children in unsafe conditions.  As such, recycling appeared to be my only option.

However, one reader got in touch to point out that poorer nations tend to have superior skills in mending electronics so rather than just recycling them, they would be able to repair them which is the more eco thing to do. He also noted that the image of poor children working with toxic electronics was unrepresentative of many professional and skilled repair workers in the developing world who are helping divert electronics away from landfills.

For example, Cairo has a thriving repair industry that is helping fix electronics and provide cheaper computers for the locals. Kyle Weins, the CEO of iFixit which provides free online repair manuals and guides, is currently touring Africa and Asia speaking to those repairing broken hardware as part of a documentary on fixers. He was recently filming in Cairo where he encountered some highly skilled mobile phone repairers and mechanics.

Indeed what Wiens found went beyond the stereotype of young African children stripped electronics to their core (and toxic) materials: “I’ve definitely seen children mining e-waste for raw metals…but the repair industry isn’t like that at all. Fixing things is a skill, and it takes time to get good. Conditions are quite safe because people need a predictable, safe working environment to do repairs.”

Yet over the last couple of years, shock reports looking into the dangers of toxic electronics shipped to developing nations has encouraged nations to embrace a total ban on e-waste exports. Weins however, is critical of whether this would actually help. “Mechanics in Cairo are some of the most imaginative people in the world. They need raw material to work with, and attempts to cut them off from their supply chain will harm the Egyptian economy in the long run.”

Weins also explained that laws banning the trade of electronics across international borders haven’t been particularly effective in stemming the tide. He insists that the root of the problem is the West’s throwaway culture and that must be tackled as part of the solution. “The crux of the issue is that we’re manufacturing devices that we only use for a few years. What we need to do is reduce consumption and extend the lifespan of devices. It’s a critical and often overlooked component of environmental sustainability.”

: For more information on Weins’ short documentary, ‘Fixers- A Film About Repair’ go to their website ifixit.org.

: Top image via Swamibu/flickr.

For more on e-waste issues in the Middle East see:

Mountains of Toxi E-Waste In Pakistan Are A Goldmine

The (Imminent) Death of My Laptop: E-Waste and The Middle East

Turksih Government Gets Ready To Deal With Electronic Waste

The post Cairo’s Fixers: Repairers That Are Helping Heal The Planet appeared first on Green Prophet.

]]> https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/cairo%e2%80%99s-fixers-repairers-that-are-helping-heal-the-planet/feed/ 4 https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/10/pakistan-e-waste-goldmine/ https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/10/pakistan-e-waste-goldmine/#comments Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:12:32 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=56465 Thousands of tons of electronic waste are dumped in Pakistan each year, creating a hazard, and a mountain of opportunities for recyclers. Nobody knows for sure how much electronic waste is dumped in Pakistan, but it’s easily in the thousands of tons every year. Some of it is generated internally but most is imported from […]

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]]> Thousands of tons of electronic waste are dumped in Pakistan each year, creating a hazard, and a mountain of opportunities for recyclers.

Nobody knows for sure how much electronic waste is dumped in Pakistan, but it’s easily in the thousands of tons every year. Some of it is generated internally but most is imported from developed countries. It’s not legal under the Basel Convention – to which Pakistan is a party – to import E-waste  into the country, and legislation calls for proper handling of what does exist to minimize lead, cadmium, beryllium, and brominated flame retardant contamination, but these laws are not well enforced.

In just two years, between 2005 and 2007, cell phone ownership in Pakistan increased from 1.277 million people to 100 million. In time these phones will be added to Karachi landfills, where they will leach harmful toxins into the soil that will eventually make their way into the Arabian Gulf. The country’s Environmental Ministry acknowledges the country’s Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) challenges and presented potential solutions at a conference in Japan this past July. It turns out, these toxic heaps represent a potential goldmine for investors and industrious business people.

WEEE

There are several kinds of E-waste. Zaigham Abbas, a technical officer from Pakistan’s Ministry of Environment broke it down thusly at the WEEE workshop in Osaka:

• Electrical Waste – switches, relays, connectors, and related scrap material;
• Telecommunication Waste – mobile phones, telephones, telephone exchanges, wireless equipment cables, and related scrap material;
• Electronic Waste – metal waste, printed circuit boards, e-equipment and machinery, IC, sockets, and connectors;
• Cable Waste – PVC, pre-insulated copper, and aluminum cable waste;
• Chemical Waste – chemical sludge and residue.

Regulatory environment

The National Environment Policy of 2005 and the Import Policy Order 2009 are designed to regulate how E-waste is managed in Pakistan, but informal recycling centers – particularly in Karachi – continue to proliferate. Often teenagers are among those who separate out the various materials that can be re-used, which can be dangerous.

Dangers vary depending on the nature of waste being handled. For example, the radioactive source in smoke alarms, Americium, is a known carcinogenic. Sulphur in batteries can cause liver damage, kidney damage, heart damage, eye and throat irritation.

E-waste is shipped to Pakistan, India, China, and many African countries because labor is cheap and environmental standards are lax, making it easier to avoid costly dismantling procedures mandated by laws in developed countries. Lacking such strong environmental oversight, informal recycling centers in Pakistan often throw their E-waste onto a massive bonfire in order to melt down plastics and expose valuable metals that can then be re-used.

Pollutants

This releases harmful pollutants into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and black soot, all of which exacerbate respiratory problems.

Abbas admits that Pakistan lacks formal mechanisms to manage E-waste at the national level and that very little funding has been applied to research and development of suitable recycling technologies. He further emphasizes that the country lacks an inventory of e-waste and that the government has not paid sufficient attention to this issue.

Incentives for change

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP warns of  problems that will arise if e-waste recycling is “left to the vagaries of the informal sector,” according to an article in Science Daily. He adds that establishing proper recycling facilities can have enormous benefits.

In addition to curbing health problems, boosting developing country e-waste recycling rates can have the potential to generate decent employment, cut greenhouse gas emissions and recover a wide range of valuable metals including silver, gold, palladium, copper and indium — by acting now and planning forward many countries can turn an e-challenge into an e-opportunity.

The Basel Action Network is one of the few international organizations committed to rooting out injustices associated with the global trade of E-waste. Despite the absence of national mechanisms, Nokia and Unilever both launched Take Back programs whereby customers are invited to return any brand of phone in exchange for a gift hamper. Radio FM 91, Ary Music, and United Media are among other organizations that have teamed up to make this venture a success.

Opportunity in the heaps

Zaigham Abbas from the Environmental Ministry lists a handful of opportunities that exist in the private sector:

• Pakistan can introduce initiatives for collection and transportation of E-waste under the take back system;
• Public private partnership for the development of E-waste Recycling facilities;
• Create public awareness for benefits of E-waste;
• Investment opportunity for financing in E-waste management under the take-back system.

The bottom line

Although it is true that E-waste in Pakistan is mounting, each new heap also represents a pile of opportunities. Those thousands of tons of dumped computers and phones contain valuable raw materials that can be re-used, obviating the need for additional mining. And if done safely, formal recycling facilities can offer scores of job opportunities. A successful recycling program starts with attractive incentives, which in turns greater government participation.

More on Pakistan’s environmental situation:

Meet the Miss Pakistan of Renewable Energy

Landmark Wind Tower to be Built in Pakistan

World Bank Supports Turkey-Built Wind Plant in Pakistan

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]]> https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/10/pakistan-e-waste-goldmine/feed/ 4 https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/06/e-waste-middle-east/ https://www.greenprophet.com/2011/06/e-waste-middle-east/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:57:32 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=49577 It was like a scene from those rubbish action/comedy films when someone drops a precious vase. You know – everything moves in slow motion and the actor reaches out, eyes wide to catch the vase and at the very last moment it lands in his/her arms after which they let out a sigh of relief. […]

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It was like a scene from those rubbish action/comedy films when someone drops a precious vase. You know – everything moves in slow motion and the actor reaches out, eyes wide to catch the vase and at the very last moment it lands in his/her arms after which they let out a sigh of relief. Well, when I dropped my laptop it was exactly like that except I failed to catch the laptop which hit the ground with a dutiful ‘crack’ and I said … well, let’s not go there. The point is that my laptop is on its very last legs and I have to think about a) disposing of it and b) replacing it.

All this got me thinking about e-waste: electrical products we throw away and replace. Where do they go? Why do we have to replace our products so often? What is the scale of the problem and what impact is it having on our planet?

I have to confess that my laptop has had its fair share of scrapes, bangs and bumps. The right hand side of the screen is cracked and the swivelly bit that holds the screen to the main body has snapped so the screen now just hangs limply like a flap. There are wires exposed where there shouldn’t be and my screen flickers when it’s charging inducing serious eye fuzziness. Don’t get me wrong, I have been careful but I guess there comes a time (around three years and two months for my laptop) when we have to replace our electrical goods. So where do they go?

A Devastating Deluge of Electronic Waste

Well, on a global scale e-waste has become a serious problem over the last couple of decades and part of the problem is that we’re not 100% sure where our waste goes to. It seems that there is so much of it that countries who can afford to, pay for other countries (read: not so strict and usually developing nations) to just bury it. Worldwide, three billion electronic units end up landfills and it’s estimated that by 2015, over 70 million metric tonnes of e-waste are likely to be generated. Only around 15-20 of e-waste from developed countries is believed to be recycled with the rest making its way to landfills.

In the US alone, around 30 million computers are thrown away every year and worldwide 50 million mobiles are replaced every month. Whilst the Middle East is a relative newcomer to highly disposable electrical products such as mobiles and computers, the last decade has seen the consumption of electronic goods shoot up, especially in the Gulf nations, Egypt and Israel.

E-Waste= A Toxic Cocktail of Heavy Metals

The Middle East currently recycles just 5% of all e-waste produced (and most of that recycling occurs outside the region) which means that the majority goes to landfills. In Israel, over 20,000 tonnes of e-waste are sent to regular landfills each year yet this is extremely problematic as e-waste contains lots of harmful toxins. A UN report, ‘Recycling – From E-Waste to Resources‘ warned that the world is heading for a potentially devastating deluge of electronic waste which could create intractable problems for people’s health and environment due to the toxic nature of e-waste.

A lot of e-waste contains heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury which can contaminate land and groundwater when dumped into ordinary landfills once the metals begin to deteriorate and seep out. Furthermore, whilst e-waste makes up a small proportion of normal waste it makes up a large chunk of all toxic waste. For example, in the US e-waste represent just 2% of landfill waste but makes up 70% of toxic waste and in Israel e-waste it makes up 75% of the heavy metals found in landfills.

Stemming The Flow of E-Waste

The only solution to e-waste is recycling. We can’t toss out our mobiles and laptops with our ordinary rubbish due to their toxicity but the reality is that the appropriate recycling facilities are far and few between. So as well as pushing for more local recycling services we need force companies that are selling the toxic TV sets and telephones to take them back as part of their ‘corporate social responsibility’ and recycle them.

We also need to be questioning the increasingly short ‘buy-consume-dispose’ cycle of many electrical products. Why is it so much cheaper to replace our goods rather than get them fixed? Why do they break down so quickly? Some commentators state that companies purposely make their products so that they break down quickly or become obsolete to keep us buying (and consequently, making them money). As such, finding a solution to e-waste shouldn’t just be about recycling but also needs to be about challenging the way that these products are sold to us in the first place.

::Image via SBaker/Flickr.

For more on E-waste and electronics news see:

Re-Routing Deadly Electronic Waste

Turkish Government Gets Ready to Deal with Electronic Waste

Tweets, Shares, And Dirty Searches That Destroy Earth

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