Wasted Opportunity
Blogger: Wellington’s E-waste coordinator Mike Ennis
If I had my way, dumping electronic-waste would almost be as unsexy as smoking. It’d draw furrow brows, pursed lips and derisory snorts from onlookers.
There's gold in 'em landfills
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Around 80,000 tonnes of e-waste gets dumped every year in our landfills, and with the rage that is flat-screen TV, we’re likely to see 2 million TVs being biffed into our landfills in the next 5-6 years.
Most people unknowingly dump their electronic waste blissfully unaware that their computer contains toxic elements such as mercury to lead, but also highly valuable metals such as gold*, copper & silver that can be recycled.
And given that most high value minerals are found in such low concentrations these days no doubt a forested mountainside (or top conservation areas?) has been desecrated to extract these metals.
For those ‘in the know’, a trip to the landfill to dump e-waste causes anything from faint pangs of remorse to paroxysms of guilt.
But, I hear you mutter – ‘what about recycling?’ – surely that will offer an escape from the emotional bargaining that goes on at the landfills around the country.
Well, yes in part. For New Zealanders it’s not so simple.
You can wait for the annual e-waste days and dream easy knowing that your computer’s bits are being re-used in new computer products, and the precious metals will take on a second life as a fork, a ring or an integral part of building.
Unfortunately though it won’t offer a complete emotional salve, because NZ’s electronic waste is processed in another faraway country (i,e in South Korea, or Singapore), so it carries with it a rather large carbon footprint.
In short, there’s nothing that we can do to change that. We are a small island with a dispersed population. The maths just don’t add up – at the moment, it costs $12 to recycle a computer, if it was done here, it’d cost a lot more.
One thing we can do though is push the government to partially subsidise the scheme and work towards getting e-consumers to pay for the recycling of their waste at the till.
This has worked successfully in EU, so it should work here.
Our e-day is now three years old, and although it gathers together a bumper crop of computers (last year topped 900 tonnes) the volunteer-run programme lurches from year to year with no guaranteed funding.
Volunteers, community groups & the local government in NZ are shouldering the responsibility, when it should be carried by Central Government and the businesses that make a profit from selling electronic equipment.
Encouraging our government to become truly ‘clean and green’ by subsidising e-recycling and getting corporates to stump up the rest will not only take the load off our landfills, but it will also help to prevent the unnecessary desecration of landscape from mining.
· The average computer contains 0.25 grams of gold.
