{"id":6893,"date":"2011-05-21T20:09:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-22T03:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ietransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=6893"},"modified":"2011-05-21T20:09:03","modified_gmt":"2011-05-22T03:09:03","slug":"are-you-taking-e-waste-seriously-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/articles\/are-you-taking-e-waste-seriously-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Taking E-Waste Seriously? Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconom.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5643\" src=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/files\/2010\/12\/iPad-2-300x183.png\" alt=\"iPad from Apple Store\" width=\"360\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2-300x183.png 300w, https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png 641w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In  my last <a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2011\/05\/19\/taking-e-waste-seriously\/\">post<\/a>, I began a discussion about e-waste versus print that I  want to continue here. The discussion is drawn from a detailed  interaction on an industry discussion board on the topic. The question  raised was how the waste from electronic products impacts the comparison  of the lifecycle analysis of print versus electronic media.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a summary of the most pertinent observations made by participants:<\/p>\n<p>Most  printed products are recyclable. Many projects are printed on recycled  paper, serve their purpose, and then are recycled back into other usable  products. E-waste can contaminate ground soil and water and live in  landfills for hundreds or years or more. By contrast, paper never has  to go to a landfill. Even if it does, it degrades quickly.<\/p>\n<p>E-waste  is shipped to Asia (one participant personally knew of a  small town  full of this type of waste). While this waste is disassembled  manually and the precious  but poisonous metal is collected, the by-products destroy the local  environment \u2014 at a profit far less than expected. &#8220;With\u00a0 electronic  devices upgraded so frequently, most  users don&#8217;t realize the  destination of their 1-3 year old  gadgets.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The following are quotes from an article by Don Carli, director of the Institute for Sustainable Communication:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;[Greenpeace   estimates] by 2020 data centers will demand more electricity that   currently demanded by France, Brazil, Canada &amp; Germany combined.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li> &#8220;Computers, cellular networks and data centers are connected to the   destruction of over 600 square miles of forest in the United States  (alone), mostly due to strip mining for coal&#8230;which means the forest  and  environmental impact are irreparable.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;America&#8217;s adoption of networked broadband digital media and cloud   based alternatives to print are driving record levels of energy   consumption.  The U.S. Department of Energy reports: electricity  consumed by data  centers in the U.S. doubled from 2000 to 2006,  reaching more than 60 billion kw hours, roughly equal to the amount of  electricity used  by 559,608 homes in one year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;That [referring to Don Carli&#8217;s stats cited above] is only looking  back  at 2006 (the era prior to iPhone, Android, e-reader and pad  arrivals). When  that study concluded, the EPA estimated &#8216;this rate of  energy  consumption by e-com could double by 2011.&#8217; Here we are in 2011,   and I&#8217;d bet even money that EPA estimate will turn out wildly  conservative.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If  we want to save forests, this means using more paper. The less paper we  use, the less demand for trees. That means conversion of forestland  into land for agriculture or development. Private landowners (more than  two-thirds of all land owned in the United States) need an incentive not  to sell off their land for other uses. Every day the forest products  industry  plants more than 1.7 million trees in the U.S.\u00a0 (www.printgrowstrees.org)<\/p>\n<p>The  print industry  uses only approximately 20% of harvested trees  (Sappi.com), so paper is only a fraction of the consumption of forest  products (furniture and fuel are others).\u00a0 Even if you want to save  trees, this is only a partial solution.<\/p>\n<p>Digital  print production is a great way for business to reduce  their carbon  footprint since they have the ability to print only what  they need \u2014 no  overruns or minimum runs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A  magazine in the United Kingdom compared the carbon footprint for  producing its paper edition  and its website a couple of years ago.  The  carbon footprint was broadly  similar.  However, it didn&#8217;t take into  account recycling after use,  which may give print the edge.&#8221; (This participant, who appeared to have been personally involved with the study, indicated that the research was proprietary so no further  details were available.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Books eventually get  recycled  after they&#8217;ve been shared and passed along free of charge. Compare this  to e-readers, which have to be constantly  re-charged before turning  into toxic e-waste.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From what I have read  to date \u2014 including  data published by both Greenpeace and the Mail  &amp; Fulfillment Service  Association (MFSA) \u2014 is that e-mail has a larger  negative impact than  direct mail.  However, every part of the supply chain has been  taken  into consideration from the acreage\/landmass usage of the  buildings  housing the servers to the construction of those buildings  to the  trucks hauling logs to the paper mills, to the partially full  USPS mail  trucks dropping mail at their Bulk Mail Centers or  other distribution  levels.   My own sense is that e-mail is more insidious as the harmful  factors  are not in plain sight, but literally hidden off-screen \u2014 and  that  allows us to have a misleading (and possibly false) sense of   eco-security,\u00a0 as well as allow for more vested interest exploitation.    It&#8217;s not just what you see that can kill you,\u00a0 but what you can see as   well.  Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide are both invisible to the   naked eye.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Talking about green buyers has to include their  real objection.  I  believe the green commitment is miles wide but  nanometers thick.   Underneath all else, consumers want price.  It&#8217;s an  emotion akin to greed.   And all purchases, in my opinion, are  emotional, then buyers start to  use research, politically correct  pronouncements and other tweets and  likes to justify their purchase.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Looking for further reading? Participants offered several suggestions:<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bit.ly\/gDh1BShttp:\/\/www.pbs.org\/mediashift\/2010\/03\/is-digital-media-worse-for-the-environment-than-print090.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Is Digital Media Worse For  The Environment Than Print?<\/a>\u201d  This article, written by Don Carli, director of the Sustainable  Institute for Communications,\u00a0 has been selected as a finalist nominee  for  a 2011 Mirror Award by the Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School  of  Public Communications.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.risiinfo.com\/techchannels\/environment\/The-environmental-impacts-of-electronic-communications.html%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Environmental Impacts of Electronic Communications<\/a>.&#8221;  Written for RISI, an information provider for the forest products  industry, it takes a brief look at some key  environmental impacts over  the lifecycle of computers and their various  accessories<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/mediashift\/2010\/06\/the-mediavores-dilemma-making-sustainable-media-choices152.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Mediavore&#8217;s Dilemma: Making Sustainable Media Choices<\/a>.&#8221;\u00a0 Also written by Don Carli and published in the MediaShift section of PBS.org.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/ipT4RG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Greening Print Marketing: A Practical Guide<\/a>.&#8221;  Although the report doesn&#8217;t attempt to quantify the footprint of either   print or e-media, it does provide detailed,60+ &#8211; page\u00a0 discussion of  print as a sustainable communications medium in contrast to e-media.<\/p>\n<p>To  wrap this up, I would add that as consumers of energy, we don&#8217;t  see  the volumes we consume, the impact of the production of the fuel  used  to produce that energy, or the impact of the disposal of the end   product. Print \u2014 especially when using environmentally certified paper \u2014   has a far smaller footprint than it used to and compares very  favorably  compared to e-media on all of these issues.<\/p>\n<p>In  fact, Rochester Institute of Technology recently did a study  that also  shows the significant investments printers have made in  monitoring and  quantifying their environmental efforts, including  adoption of formal  sustainability plans and environmental  certifications. (See related  <a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/pVZQk-1L0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IE post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my last post, I began a discussion about e-waste versus print that I want to continue here. The discussion is drawn from a detailed interaction on an industry discussion board on the topic. The question raised was how the waste from electronic products impacts the comparison of the lifecycle analysis of print versus electronic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":5643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"adace-sponsor":[],"spectra_custom_meta":{"_edit_last":["28"],"_wp_old_slug":[""],"dsq_thread_id":["310259033"],"_thumbnail_id":["5643"],"_jetpack_related_posts_cache":["a:1:{s:32:\"8f6677c9d6b0f903e98ad32ec61f8deb\";a:2:{s:7:\"expires\";i:1690106638;s:7:\"payload\";a:0:{}}}"],"rank_math_news_sitemap_robots":["index"],"rank_math_robots":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"index\";}"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:263:\".uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-desktop) !important}@media (max-width: 976px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-tablet) !important}}@media (max-width: 767px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-mobile) !important}}\n\";s:2:\"js\";s:0:\"\";s:18:\"current_block_list\";a:2:{i:0;s:14:\"core\/paragraph\";i:1;s:10:\"core\/image\";}s:8:\"uag_flag\";b:0;s:11:\"uag_version\";i:1713657651;s:6:\"gfonts\";a:0:{}s:10:\"gfonts_url\";s:0:\"\";s:12:\"gfonts_files\";a:0:{}s:14:\"uag_faq_layout\";b:0;}"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-6893.css"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",641,392,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2-300x183.png",300,183,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",641,392,false],"large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",641,392,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",641,392,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",641,392,false],"adace-sponsor":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",78,48,false],"adace-sponsor-2x":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/iPad-2.png",157,96,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Heidi Tolliver-Walker","author_link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/author\/htollvr\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"In my last post, I began a discussion about e-waste versus print that I want to continue here. The discussion is drawn from a detailed interaction on an industry discussion board on the topic. The question raised was how the waste from electronic products impacts the comparison of the lifecycle analysis of print versus electronic&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6893"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=6893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}