IT and the Environment, Part 2 — Confronting the three Rs

The three Rs — reduce, reuse and recycle — have become one of the mantras of environmental responsibility. IT is making progress, but the real work is just beginning.

By Jacob Stoller

Over the past few years, IT’s “dirty little secret” gradually became public knowledge. The practice in question is the shipping of huge containers of spent electronic gear — e-waste, as it’s called — to third world companies for recycling. At their destination, poorly paid workers, often children, salvage metals and other materials by crude methods such as burning wire, melting down circuit boards, and breaking open CRT monitors.

Sweatshops aside, e-waste is highly toxic. The cadmium in batteries, the lead in circuit boards and CRT monitors, and the brominated fire retardants in casings and cables are just a few of the harmful substances found in your average computer. Cut-rate recycling in third world countries can poison drinking water, expose workers, nearby residents, and wildlife to airborne toxins, and create unsightly garbage dumps.

Environmentally sustainable processing of e-waste, on the other hand, is highly sophisticated, and materials need to be disassembled, sorted, and shipped to a host of specialized secondary facilities. The overall process needs to be carefully managed to prevent abuse. The bottom line — responsible recycling of e-waste costs money.

Finding a workable solution

Governments are now working to define and regulate e-waste. The most progressive is the Province of Alberta, which began charging an environmental levy in October 2004. “The environmental fee is charged on the purchase of new computers and televisions in Alberta,” explains Kristina Dembinski, spokesperson for Electronic Recycling Alberta, “and that environmental fee goes towards the recycling of that electronic item at the end of its life.” A number of other provinces are moving to adopt similar programs.

Much of the expertise for recycling program design comes from the computer manufacturers. Industry participation is channeled through Electronics Product Stewardship Canada (EPS Canada), an industry-funded association that promotes sustainable environmental practices. A number of computer manufacturers, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Apple, also run their own recycling programs. “I think what we’re seeing now is a shift to a recognition that companies have to take responsibility at end of life,” says David Betts, EPS Canada’s president and CEO, “and I think companies have recognized that, have stepped up to that and are saying ‘yes, we certainly do.’”

A key focus of EPS Canada is ensuring a workable solution for all of Canada. “Our principle goal,” explains Betts, “is to make sure we don’t have different programs in every province. Every regulation is going to be slightly different, but we’re looking for harmonization across Canada, and that’s our principle objective.”

The industry doesn’t oppose regulation. “Without some sort of regulatory background,” explains Betts, “we can’t do it on a voluntary basis. We can’t stand up and say, ‘we think this is so important that we’re going to just volunteer to take back all of our products and manage them.’ There are costs associated with doing that. Everybody’s gotta do it. So what we want to do is work with government to make sure that the playing field is level.”

The value of re-use

While the consensus on recycling is encouraging, recycling in itself does little to reduce the impact that the manufacture of new electronic equipment has on the environment. In his 2004 book “Computers and the Environment,” scientist Eric Williams cites some alarming statistics — the manufacture of the average desktop computer uses 23 kg of chemicals, 240 kg of fossil fuels, and 1,500 kg of water.

Within this context, the very act of disposing of a computer, no matter how environmentally correctly, is a problem. “For every tonne you throw out, there’s 71 tonnes upstream,” explains Rod Muir, waste diversion campaigner for the Sierra Club of Canada. “A big portion of that is in the primary extraction. Cutting down a tree, digging up some gold, or pumping up some oil.”

Re-use can extend the working life of computers, delaying the disposal process, and reducing the number of machines that have to be manufactured. A strong proponent of re-use is Renewed Computer Technology (RCT), a not-for-profit that provides re-furbished computers to schools and charities. “We’re the largest re-user of technology in North America,” says Shauna McCaffery, RCT’s executive director.

RCT covers all aspects of the re-use process, including refurbishing the hardware, loading the operating system (RCT is a licensed Microsoft refurbisher), and providing tax receipts to organizations that donate their used computers.

They also make sure that whatever has to be recycled is handled properly. “A lot of people will claim recycling,” says McCaffery, “but you have to really be careful about where it’s going. You can’t just audit the primary recycler. You have to audit downstream, consider who they are dealing with, and do they ensure the protection of human health to their workers? There are a lot of factors, and a lot of organizations don’t have the time to do that either. It requires quite a bit of expertise in that area.”

Accommodating re-use

In spite of these efforts, re-use isn’t getting the respect it deserves. “I’m not sure a lot of people think of that first,” says McCaffery, citing awareness as the major challenge. While the 40,000 computers donated through RCT’s efforts is significant, it represents less than one per cent of the millions of computers that were sold in Canada last year.

The Sierra Club’s Muir believes a lot more should be done. Re-use could become the norm, he argues, and in many cases, a computer could be re-used more than once. “I’m pretty confident that I’m at least two generations, and probably three behind,” explains Muir, “and I’m also pretty confident that there’s somebody out there changing stuff once a year. So there could have even been somebody in there between me and those guys, if we started work now on making sure that that stuff gets reused.”

Existing supply chains could be adapted to accommodate re-use. “What you need for this is a system of re-delivery, if you will,” says Muir, “but I don’t see it as all that complicated. There are delivery systems in place now for this material.”

Less gear?

Reduce is the first of the three Rs, but the least talked about in IT circles. With our hunger for more and better technology, who would think of buying less electronic gear? Furthermore, businesses and individuals use technology to reduce consumption in other environmentally taxing areas, such as travel and the building of ‘bricks and mortar’ facilities.

Nevertheless, keeping machines longer can reduce resource demand significantly. Let’s look at just the energy picture. According to RCT’s corporate brochure, 81% of the energy consumed in the lifetime of a typical desktop is used in its manufacturing process. Therefore, extending the life of your desktops from three years to four will save energy. In fact, if you do the math, the reduction is equivalent to operating the desktops on zero power!

Many businesses are considering new machines to accommodate Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system. As is the case with a growing number of decisions, the environmental impact should be considered. Consumer Reports points out that many of Vista’s functional advantages can be obtained by downloading programs such as Internet Explorer 7, Windows Defender, and Google Desktop, all of which run on XP. While the visual aspects of Vista are compelling, they require significant hardware resources, and consequently, aren’t environmentally neutral. The same goes for HDTVs, iPods, cell phones, and the many electronic amenities we enjoy today.

Jacob Stoller (jacob@stollerstrategies.com) is a Toronto-based independent writer and researcher. 

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