Recycling end-of-life electronics is an important and growing issue facing the electronics industry. Public awareness of the issue is rising, largely because it continues to draw significant media attention and is the subject of increased local, state, federal and international regulation.

The use of electronic devices for both business and personal use has increased dramatically in recent years. Environmental concerns with electronics are associated with the dramatic increase in the volume of E-waste – a waste stream estimated to be growing approximately three times as fast as the rest of the municipal waste streams. The national volume of E-waste is estimated at over 2 million tons per year, and approximately 90 percent of this waste may be ultimately disposed at municipal solid waste landfills.

This estimate includes approximately 50 million computers becoming obsolete each year, with over 300 million obsolete computers estimated by 2005. The problem with E-waste is not just the volume of waste generated, but also the volume of hazardous chemicals associated with E-waste.

Most electronic devices contain a printed wiring board and battery, and these and other components may contain hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, beryllium, nickel, zinc, copper, cadmium and flame retardants. Each CRT (cathode ray tube) contains approximately 4 to 8 pounds of lead, which correlates to 300 million pounds of lead from the 50 million computers estimated to become obsolete each year. Approximately 70 percent of the heavy metals in municipal solid waste landfills are estimated to come from electronics discards. Heavy metals such as lead and mercury are highly toxic substances that can cause well documented adverse health effects, particularly to children and developing fetuses.

Regulation of E-Waste by RCRA
E-waste is not explicitly regulated as hazardous waste at the national level. However, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle C was established to ensure that hazardous waste is managed in a manner that is protective of human health and the environment. Accordingly, hazardous waste disposed in a landfill must be disposed at designated hazardous waste landfills with additional regulatory controls, rather than municipal solid waste landfills.

However, hazardous waste from households and businesses generating hazardous waste below the defined regulatory threshold may dispose of their waste at municipal solid waste landfills. One way in which hazardous wastes may be defined under RCRA is their potential for leaching of hazardous chemicals. Among E-waste chemicals that have been tested, lead has been shown to exceed the leachate levels for cathode ray tubes, and OSW is currently finalizing a rule to define acceptable management standards for these devices. OSW is currently investigating which other types of E-waste, such as LCDs, computers and keyboards, could present hazardous characteristics.

The Hazards of Recycling Computer Junk
Recycling of hazardous products has little environmental benefit – it simply moves the hazards into secondary products that eventually have to be disposed of. Unless the goal is to re-design the product to use non-hazardous materials, such recycling is a false solution.

The list of e-toxic components in computers includes:

- Computer circuit boards containing heavy metals like lead & cadmium
  - Computer batteries containing cadmium
  - Cathode ray tubes with lead oxide & barium
  - Brominated flame-retardants used on printed circuit boards, cables and plastic casing
  - Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) coated copper cables and plastic computer casings that release highly      toxic dioxins & furans when burnt     to recover valuable metals
  - Mercury switches
  - Mercury in flat screens
  - Poly Chlorinated Biphenyl’s (PCB’s) present in older capacitors & transformers

The E-waste issue has moved into prominence in the last few years, in part because the environmentalists have been able to gain major media attention to the issue. As of September 2003, there were a record 52 electronics bills in 26 state legislatures, and 65 mercury-related restriction bills, 10 of which affect electronics.

Recycling of computer parts and accessories will become increasingly regulated as environmental groups and lawmakers bring more pressure on this issue. Re-use, rather than recycling, will become one of the few methods to dispose of IT Assets safely and without fear of regulatory action.