Every now and then the public rises up to make an industry clean up its environmental act. As a result, car companies now offer hybrids, electrics and alternative-fuel cars. Beverage companies are making their bottles with a lot less plastic. New laws have reduced the chemicals that cause acid rain by 76 percent since 1980. And so on.

One industry in particular, however, continues to leave a disastrous eco-wake, because no such public pressure exists: consumer electronics.

You know those one billion cell phones we buy every year? Those 100 million cameras? That infinitude of laptops, Game Boys, TV sets and music players? Most of the ones we replace go to the dump. The Environmental Protection Agency calculated that in 2007, we threw away 2.25 million tons of electronics—82 percent of it into the landfill. That’s a lot of toxic chemicals and nasty metals that you really, really don’t want leaching into the water supply.

So where’s the public outcry? Where are the public service announcements, the lobbyists, the national consciousness-raising? It doesn’t exist, for one simple reason: the disposability at the heart of the industry’s business model is too attractive to all concerned.

It’s fairly easy to give away or sell your old car, clothing, baby gear or furniture; those things may still have value after you finish with them. But electronics? Not so much. Who would want your four-year-old cell phone, your black-and-white iPod, your two-megapixel camera?

Verizon’s free-phone-upgrade program was called New Every Two. That program recently ended, but it is a good-enough description of our national obsession with owning the coolest and newest electronics. Most people would start to feel self-conscious wielding a three-year-old phone, camera, music player or laptop. They observe that the latest gadgets are sleeker, faster and cooler-looking. And presto: it’s time to upgrade.

That is the industry’s business model, and it works spectacularly well. Neither we nor the manufacturers have any incentive to change. They’re not going to try to sell fewer products, and we wouldn’t want them to. Will there ever be a rally where people chant, “Stop improving the gadgets” and “Slow down the pace of progress”?

Apple does that. Its environmental report-card page (www.apple.com/environment/reports) tracks the greenhouse impact of every product not just while you own it but even during its manufacture and recycling. Apple also touts its compact packaging, recycling-valuable materials (such as aluminum) and nontoxic chemicals. There is no reason other com­panies’ environmental practices can’t be sales points, too.

Second, we consumers should recycle our gadgets when we finish with them. If the gizmos are fairly new, you can sell them—either on eBay or to “re­com­merce” sites such as Gazelle.com. They send you a shipping box for your old gear, pay you for it, and then resell or recycle it.

If your junk is too old to resell, you can drop it off at Best Buy, Target or Radio Shack. All three accept and recycle old computers, GPS units, TVs, printers, monitors, cables, cell phones, remotes, headphones, and so on. The store even rewards you with an instant discount on a new purchase or a gift card.

Nobody buys a new fridge or alarm clock every other year, because the feature sets of those product categories are mature. Maybe that will happen to our phones and cameras, too; already people are keeping their PCs longer than they did a decade ago.

In the meantime, we can make things better right now, without making anyone sacrifice much. Pressure the manufacturers to boast about their own eco-efforts—and pressure yourself to dump your old gear at Best Buy or Radio Shack. Doing a good deed for the world couldn’t get much easier.No, the most realistic solution is to leave the business model alone—but to fight its wasteful consequences on two fronts. First, we can pressure the electronics companies to make the products less damaging. Factors that nobody used to care about (hormones in milk, fuel efficiency in cars) have become important marketing points. Why couldn’t electronics companies tout energy efficiency, nontoxic components and minimal packaging in their advertising?

6 Comments

1. 1. dhrosier 01:55 PM 4/23/11

   Scientific American would attract a lot more traffic to their web site if they add a feature with references to disposal sites for electronics, batteries, CDs and DVDs, etc. One link on the home page to a page where we could search by zip code and type of item. It would take quite a bit of work but it is likely SciAm fans would help by sending locations they know.

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2. 2. okwhen 12:31 AM 4/24/11

   I just posted a comment regarding E-waste on “http://gizmodo.com/#!5794806/the-story-of-e+waste-what-happens-to-tech-once-its-trash” titled The Story of E-Waste: What Happens to Tech Once It’s Trash.
   
   As I have stated hundreds of times thru out my life, recovering recyclable items is easy. We only need to review products that have had return deposits, such as soda bottles. Either place the burden on the manufactures or third parties.
   
   All manufactures require a deposit at the time of sale. Once the customer returned the product they recover the deposit or apply it to another device. Third parties are contracted to perform this service for the manufactures. Corporations Know this and have no plans of incorporating this into their business model because it adds additional cost to their customers purchase and requires additional cost to responsibly dispose of the products. Corporations a.k.a. the US Government are dirty parasitic scoundrels willing to sacrifice themselves, love ones and children all for the mighty power of the dollar. Remember, we all breathe the same air regardless of our wealth.

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3. 3. Timdoyle8 01:37 PM 4/27/11

   Dear Mr. Pogue,
   
   I think you might be missing something. You say, "the disposability at the heart of the industry’s business model is too attractive to all concerned."
   
   But, industry just challenged itself to responsibly recycle one billion pounds of electronics annually by 2016. That's more than a threefold increase from last year (300 million pounds). This commitment shows consumer electronics manufacturers are integrating recycling into their business models.
   
   Details here: http://ecyclingleadershipinitiative.com/media-center.html
   
   Thanks,
   Tim Doyle
   Senior Manager, Environmental Communications
   Consumer Electronics Association
   tdoyle@ce.org
   

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4. 4. eco-steve 10:28 AM 5/15/11

   One easy way to get people to recyle more is to impose heavy fines on the throw-away gadget slobs. This could be acheived because most gadgets contain chips which identify the owners.
   In Britain, the campaign 'Don't be a litter lout' worked wonderfully using heavy fines. Before, people just threw there wastes onto the pavements. Now the streets are clean. Same effect with dog's mess!

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5. 5. bruder 10:06 PM 5/27/11

   The wireless providers should be required to separate the financing of the purchase of a phone from the cost for connectivity. The reason why do many cell phones end up in the garbage is that we end up paying for a new phone every two years whether we elect to get one or not. The model punishes consumers who are happy to use their phone for more than two years.

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6. 6. SellYourCell Guy 11:26 AM 6/27/11

   It is so easy to recycle cell phones and iPads that there is no excuse not to. At www.SellYourCell.com we have been buying and recycling used cell phones for about 10 years. Most people have no idea that they can easily sell their old cell phones for good money if they are fairly recent models. iPhones and Blackberries especially retain their value and if you bought it on contract for a low price you may actually be able to sell the phone for more than you bought it for.
   
   Is it a waste to get a new cell phone every 18 months which is the average ownership period for cell phones these days? Maybe but if you sell your old cell then it can be resold to someone else that couldn't otherwise afford a new high-end cell phone. So you are promoting re-use which is a good thing.
   
   In any case, we need to raise awareness that if you are getting a new cell phone, you can sell or recycle your old phone easily. Only 10% of people do this today.

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