Every year, millions of tons of electronic wastes are dumped into landfills or vaporized in incinerators. Televisions, consumer electronics and computers compose the majority of this electronic waste, and have a significant impact on the environment. Other types of electronic waste that fill landfills include telecommunication equipment, IT equipments and lighting equipment. These personal electronics release a potpourri of toxic chemicals which includes lead, mercury, cadmium and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers. Eventually, these chemicals can leach into the earth and the ground water, and cause significant damage to the environment.
The non-discriminate disposal of these products are beginning to come to an end, however, thanks to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (otherwise known as WEEE). WEEE is a recycling directive that become became a standard in European communities in 2003, and became a law in the United Kingdom in 2007.
Under WEEE Recycling, manufacturers are required to collect and dispose of electronic waste in a way that is environmentally friendly. Manufacturers accomplish this task in a variety of ways, but mainly concentrate their efforts on repurposing, recycling, or reusing the electronic waste for other purposes. This directive not only has an impact on how manufacturers deal with electronic waste, but also has an impact on how consumers can deal with their electronic waste. This directive allows consumers to return their obsolete electronics to the manufacturer free of charge. Consumers are also entitled to have a full explanation of how to do this upon sale of the electronics.
Before WEEE Recycling was placed into effect, electronic waste was either disposed of in an incinerators or in landfills. Both of these solutions have distinct disadvantages. Electronics that were incinerated release unacceptable levels of mercury into the atmosphere, and the toxic ash that is a by-product of the process was then dumped into landfills, where they could contaminate the ground water. Electronics that were dumped into landfills eventually leaked these toxic chemicals into the water table, which eventually made its way into the food-chain. This had a significant impact on human health and resulted in higher incidents of asthma, birth defects and fertility problems among the general public.
WEEE Recycling protects the environment by diverting this electronic waste away from these traditional methods of disposal and into more sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions. This directive also prevents electronics from being used for a short time and then discarded. It also allows industry to recover valuable metals such as copper, iron, steel and aluminum from these products. The recovery and reuse of the metals found in electronics greatly reduces the amount of new raw metals that need to be extracted from the earth to make new products. This helps reduce mining efforts, and thus reduce the impact these efforts have on the environment.
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