Dear Readers,

We saw that Green Electronics/IT has become a buzzword of late.

Mass consumption of electronics across the globe is leading to problems. Let’s look at various dimensions briefly.

Energy Dimension

To look at the impact of energy consumption, let’s look at an example of the scenario in India.

India consumes:

·    Over 125 Mi Televisions   

·    Over 5 Mi Automatic washing machines.    

·    10 Mi White goods like refrigerators, air conditioners etc

·    250+ Mi cell phones and 50 Mi land lines

·    200+ Mi other electronics

Just conserving 1W of power in the white goods and TVs, saves 140 Mi watts. Reducing the power consumption of cell phones by mere 10 mW, saves 2.5 Mi watts of power! These are not small numbers and neither is unachievable! This is equally extrapolatable to the global scene.

Energy is consumed not only by the users, as in the small example above, but in every step of the product life cycle – raw material processing to manufacturing to end of life disposal! The impact of conservation at every step is quite large as one can easily see.

The E-Waste

The amount of electronic products discarded globally has skyrocketed recently, with 20-50 million tonnes generated every year.

Electronic waste (e-waste) now makes up five percent of all municipal solid waste worldwide, nearly the same amount as all plastic packaging, but it is much more hazardous. Asia discards an estimated 12 million tonnes each year.

People are not only able to buy new electronic gadgets, but are upgrading their mobile phones, computers, televisions, audio equipment and printers more frequently than ever before. Mobile phones and computers are causing the biggest problem because they are replaced most often.

The average lifespan of computers in developed countries has dropped from six years in 1997 to just two years in 2005. Mobile phones have a lifecycle of less than two years in developed countries.

By 2010, there will be 716 million new computers in use. There will be 178 million new computer users in China, 80 million new users in India.

Proper ways to dispose of e-waste are yet to evolve. There are no governing standards across the globe. There is no uniformity. Many companies in India are not even aware of safe disposal of such wastes!

The Electronic Junk is piling up in huge quantities!

Hazardous Materials

Electronic devices are a complex mixture of several hundred materials. A mobile phone has 500 to 1000 components. Many of these contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium and beryllium and hazardous chemicals. Polluting PVC plastic is also frequently used. The effects of such chemicals on us is outlined below:

·         Some Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR), used in circuit boards and plastic casings, do not break down easily and build up in the environment.  Long-term exposure can lead to impaired learning and memory functions. They can also interfere with thyroid and estrogen hormone systems and exposure in the womb has been linked to behavioural problems. This chemical has been linked to neurotoxicity.

·         The cathode ray tubes (CRT) in monitors sold worldwide in 2002 contain approximately 10,000 tonnes of Lead. Exposure to lead can cause intellectual impairment in children and can damage the nervous, blood and reproductive systems in adults.

·         Cadmium, used in rechargeable computer batteries, contacts and switches and in older CRTs, can bio-accumulate in the environment and is highly toxic, primarily affecting the kidneys and bones.

·         Mercury, used in lighting devices for flat screen displays can damage the brain and central nervous system, particularly during early development.

·         Compounds of Hexavalent Chromium, used in the production of metal housings, are highly toxic and human carcinogens.

·         Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a plastic used in some electronics products and for insulation on wires and cables.  Chlorinated dioxins and furans are released when PVC is produced or disposed of by incineration. These chemicals are highly persistent in the environment and many are toxic even in very low concentrations.

Many manufacturing sites of semiconductor chips generate hazardous wastes and contaminate ground water. It has been estimated that, for every 2 gm of IC about 1260 gm of toxic substances including carcinogens, chemicals and materials are used!!

These dangerous substances cause serious pollution and put workers at risk of exposure when the products are produced or disposed of.

Is there any solution in sight?

Let’s look at the important ones in the next article.

Bye until then!

Paddy