Technology today shows us horizons that were never even thought to be possible. Gadgets, gizmos and appliances have evolved to phenomenal forms of technology and as they evolve, so does their adoption rate. The faster people adopt newer technology, the faster they discard old tech. Man today is completely oblivious as to what happens to the dilapidated and done to death technologies. Television sets that contained cathode ray tubes, computer CPUs that contain toxic elements such as lead, beryllium, mercury; what of them?
The situation in reality is grave. Most of the local garbage pickups outright reject varying kinds of e-waste. To put things in perspective, Australians themselves are amongst the leading bunch in terms of use of modern technology. E-waste is one of the biggest concerns in the country, growing 3 times more rapidly as compared to general waste.
It is estimated that Australia purchases close to 3 million computers a year, less than 10% of which are recycled. More than 17 million television sets were routed through landfill procedure in a year alone, with the number steadily rising as people opt for newer and better. But those are still family appliances. It has recently come to notice that more than 23 million old mobile phones await recycling procedures along with the batteries and acids within them as well as their accessories, with most ending up being used as landfill. Every passing day, it has been found that more than 12,000 phones remain sitting idly around home rather than being recycled.
Such e-waste has global disastrous consequences. If the television sets, monitors, microwave ovens and the other horde of electronics aren’t appropriately recycled, the areas surrounding the landfill become severely contaminated. They become hazardous for human habitation and an improper mannerism of disposing e-waste may result in respiratory illness, skin infections, stomach diseases and even complications in the nervous system.
The condition in Guiyu, a township in China is indeed in need of being highlighted. E-waste illegally exported to such developing economies that include shores of Africa and other parts of Asia see economically backward residents pluck out system boards and circuits with their bare hands, following no procedure or donning any safety equipment. They scavenge precious materials found in such circuit boards such as little amounts of gold or in rare cases, platinum amongst other common elements.
All this has led to in Guiyu, local rivers and even the water in lakes turning brown and unfit for drinking. This includes contamination of groundwater as well. In Yandang, 80% wells have been contaminated trees have whitened and crops rarely grow uncontaminated owing to the chemical procedures used to extract precious metals from electronics and misuse of e-waste in landfills.
Thanks to various awareness programs and public-private alliances, the situation can still be bought under control. If the 23 million stagnant mobile phones were to be appropriately recycled, it would directly result in lessening efforts to mine over 140ktonnes of precious metal ore, recover and recycle more than 400 tonnes of plastic and possess the environmental impact that is can be equated to planting more than 100 thousand trees.
Recycling just 75% of television sets in Australia, the recovery is simply astounding. We are talking about figures such as 520 megaliters of water, 400,000 gigajoules of energy, 160,000 cubic meters of landfill and a colossal 23,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions that are well equivalent to having 5,300 cars off the streets for an entire year.
A great way to assist the cause would be to rely on professionals for the task of recycling. E-waste is not limited just to the household but to offices, institutes, corporates and even production factories. Everything rubbish is an organization that stands as a professionalSydney rubbish removal service provider in the e-waste recycling sector.Learn more by visiting the specific electronic rubbish removal services section for e-waste at http://www.everythingrubbish.com.au/waste-removal/electronic-rubbish-removal.
