E-Waste Management Practices in the United States

Introduction

By any measure, Americans produce more garbage than any other society on earth today. While an increasing amount of this trash is being recycled, the nation's landfills are becoming choked with discards that include a rapidly growing percentage of electrical devices and electronic components of every description. Like other types of trash that enter the universal waste stream, the flood of electrical devices and electronics embraced by Americans since the end of World War II can also be recycled, and there are ongoing efforts to identify new approaches that will improve techniques used to extract precious metals and valuable recyclable materials from these products.

In the meantime, more and more electrical devices and electronic products — such as personal computers, televisions, and cellular telephones — are still finding their way to the nation's landfills and illegal dump sites. All of these devices contain varying levels of a wide range of toxic substances, most notably high concentrations of lead. The purpose of this paper is to examine the historic trends in electronic and electrical waste management practices used in the United States in order to determine their current efficacy in managing the electrical devices and electronics that enter the universal waste stream. A discussion of these issues, drawn from relevant peer-reviewed, scholarly, and governmental literature, is followed by a summary of the research, current and future trends, and recommendations in the conclusion.

The Toxic Threat of Electronic and Electrical Waste

The past sixty years have witnessed an explosive growth in the amount of electronics and electrical devices finding their way into the waste stream. As Gebrewold (1999) reports, "Since World War II, there has been a growth in new products based on the use of plastics and chemicals. With this growth, questions have arisen concerning the manner in which hazardous waste disposal is managed or mismanaged" (p. 11). At first glance, it would seem that the United States is being buried under a flood of discarded computers, monitors, cellular telephones, and televisions — with one of the most toxic components of these devices being their lead content. Brown (2004) emphasizes that "almost all electronic devices contain lead, and such devices are proliferating — and becoming obsolete — at breathtaking speed" (p. 734).

Hosansky (2004) similarly notes, "Computers, televisions and other electronic products are producing a worrisome byproduct. Across the country, billions of tons of potentially dangerous e-waste are piling up in landfills, warehouses and homes. The problem is getting more significant every year as innovations quickly render electronic products obsolete" (p. 20). According to Schmidt (2002), "e-waste is the fastest growing component of municipal trash by a factor of three. Consumer electronics in the United States already account for 70% of the heavy metals, including 40% of the lead, found in landfills. Getting all this toxic e-junk out of the waste stream is an environmental priority" (p. 188).

Lead is among the most toxic of the materials commonly found in electronics and electrical devices. A widely cited U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report published in July 2004, based on research by Timothy G. Townsend, examined 12 different types of electronic items typically found in landfills and determined that they leached lead at concentrations exceeding the EPA threshold for characterizing a waste as hazardous. Townsend's report — entitled "RCRA Toxicity Characterization of Computer CPUs and Other Discarded Electronic Devices" — extended an earlier study concerning cathode ray tubes (CRTs) used in computer monitors and televisions. That prior study, conducted in 1999, found that color CRTs leached 18.5 milligrams of lead per liter when subjected to regulatory hazardous waste tests, far exceeding the 5 milligrams per liter regulatory threshold (Musson, Jang, Townsend, & Chung, 1999). As Brown (2004) notes, "CRTs contain an average of about four pounds of lead. There are smaller quantities in the solder used in other electronic devices" (p. 734).

In his more recent study, Townsend employed an EPA test called the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP), which determines the mobility of analytes in different waste types. He tested computer central processing units (CPUs), televisions, videocassette recorders, printers, cellular phones, remote controls, computer mice, keyboards, and smoke alarms. Following EPA protocol, Townsend crushed these waste products, mixed them with a simulated leachate fluid composed of an acetic acid base, and agitated the mixture in a drum container for 18 hours; the resulting leachate was then examined for metal concentrations (Brown, 2004). Every device tested leached lead concentrations above the 5 milligrams per liter hazardous threshold under at least one set of conditions. In addition, virtually all electronics waste contains a wide range of other potentially toxic chemicals, including mercury, chromium, and brominated flame retardants (Brown, 2004). The editors of the Journal of Environmental Health concurred, noting that "desktop computers are built with materials that contain toxic chemicals and are regarded as hazardous waste. Color monitors routinely fail toxicity characteristic leachate procedure (TCLP) tests, and testing in progress for other electronics indicates that CPUs, servers, and cell phones are unlikely to pass TCLP tests" (The importance of recycling computers, 2003, p. 51).

Taken together, these findings paint a troubling picture — yet a number of significant initiatives have been making a meaningful difference in how these products are handled at the end of their useful lifespans, in many cases preventing them from entering the waste stream at all.

In response to findings about the toxicity of discarded electronics and electrical devices, a number of federal and state governmental as well as private industry initiatives have been implemented to help reverse or mitigate these trends. As early as 1965, the EPA implemented the Solid Waste Disposal Act to help reduce the amount of hazardous waste — including electronics and electrical devices — reaching the nation's landfills (Introduction to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 2005). This legislation was followed in succession by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, the Federal Facilities Compliance Act of 1992, and the Land Disposal Program Flexibility Act of 1996 (Introduction to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 2005).

Federal Legislative and Regulatory Responses

The EPA also launched its own targeted initiatives to address e-waste. In 1989, it established the Waste Reduction Innovative Technology Evaluation (WRITE) program to develop performance and cost data that could be used for pollution prevention in electronics manufacturing (Rappaport, 1999). The WRITE initiative drew upon industry, state and local governments, and the EPA's Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory, with the overall goal of helping the electronics manufacturing industry develop a "cradle-to-grave" approach to product management (Rappaport, 1999).

In more recent years, increasingly rigorous laws and regulations have begun to make a major difference in recovering toxic substances before they enter the waste stream. Pursuant to the RCRA, it is now illegal for companies in the United States to discard hazardous waste — including electronics and electrical devices — in ordinary trash receptacles (The importance of recycling computers, 2003). As Gaba (2008) explains, "The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) establishes the so-called 'cradle to grave' program for the management of hazardous waste. Under Subtitle C of RCRA, hazardous 'solid waste,' as defined by the EPA, is subject to extensive controls on its storage, transportation, and disposal" (p. 1053). Electronics manufacturers are also required to secure a waste management permit under the RCRA, enabling the EPA to better monitor disposal practices (Sullivan, Agardy, & Traub, 2001). The EPA identifies the main goals of the RCRA as follows:

1. To protect human health and the environment from the potential hazards of waste disposal;
2. To conserve energy and natural resources;
3. To reduce the amount of waste generated; and
4. To ensure that wastes are managed in an environmentally sound manner (Introduction to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 2005).

Despite these measures, many computers, televisions, and other electronics continue to be discarded in landfills or waste-to-energy facilities. It is estimated that more than 20 million PCs become obsolete yearly in the United States, representing hundreds of thousands of tons of lead, mercury, chromium, silver, and battery acids from nickel-cadmium, lithium, or sealed lead-acid batteries (The importance of recycling computers, 2003). Robert Tonetti, senior environmental scientist with the EPA's Office of Solid Waste, has stated that obsolete electronics are not officially classified as "waste" until a decision is made that they are incapable of being reused in any meaningful way — reflecting the EPA's official preference for recycling and reuse over disposal (Tonetti, 2007).

Large-volume waste streams in the United States that meet the technical definition of hazardous waste have historically been disposed of in municipal landfills not typically designed to manage such materials (Korenstein, 2005). In an effort to address this gap, the U.S. EPA proposed new streamlined hazardous waste management regulations on February 11, 1993, applicable to these materials — regulations now known as the Universal Waste Rule (Standards for Universal Waste Management, 1995). The EPA recognized at the time that applying full RCRA hazardous waste regulations to these materials would adversely affect collection and recycling initiatives (Korenstein, 2005). The goals of the Universal Waste Rule were twofold: