Contents

* Introduction * Impacts of E-Waste Exports * Concerns About Domestic E-Waste Disposal * E-Waste Management Requirements * Relevant Waste Disposal Requirements * Factors Influencing E-Waste Exporting * Costly and Complex Domestic Recycling * Conclusions

Introduction Electronic waste (e-waste) is a term that is used loosely to refer to obsolete, broken, or irreparable electronic devices like televisions, computer central processing units (CPUs), computer monitors (flat screen and cathode ray tubes), laptops, printers, scanners, and associated wiring. Rapid technology changes have led to increasingly large e-waste surpluses. Electronic devices, particularly older units in use today or in storage, contain a host of hazardous constituents such as lead, mercury, or chromium, as well as plastics treated with brominated flame retardants. The presence of these constituents has led to end-of-life (EOL) management concerns from state and federal environmental agencies, environmental organizations, and some Members of Congress. E-waste is essentially unregulated at the federal level—meaning it can be disposed of with common household garbage in municipal solid waste landfills (the primary disposal method) or incinerators. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that landfill disposal of ewaste is safe. However, EPA’s preferred method of EOL management is reuse or recycling. Further, state and local waste management agencies have expressed concerns regarding the potential cumulative impact to human health and the environment of landfilling millions of pounds of e-waste. As a result, individual states have begun to enact their own e-waste management requirements. To date, 23 states and New York City have enacted some form of e-waste management law. Those laws include provisions such as restrictions on landfill disposal of certain e-wastes and the establishment of mandatory recycling programs, generally paid for by electronics manufacturers. In the coming years, it is likely that more states will enact similar laws. New state requirements, mixed with increased consumer awareness regarding potential problems with landfilling e-waste, have led to an increase in recycling. With that increase have come new questions about e-waste EOL management. Instead of questions only about the potential impacts associated with e-waste disposal, questions have arisen regarding the potential danger associated with e-waste recycling.

Because e-waste recycling is largely unregulated, virtually no data are available to track its fate. Accurate data regarding how much is generated, how it is managed, and where it is processed (either domestically or abroad) are largely unavailable. What is known is that e-waste recycling may involve costly, complex processes and that there is an insufficient, though growing, national recycling infrastructure to enable the United States to fully manage its own e-waste. It also is known that markets for e-waste (either for reuse or recycling for scrap) are largely overseas. As aresult, the majority of e-waste collected for recycling appears to be exported for processing.Although it is difficult to know exactly how much e-waste collected for recycling is exported, it appears that India or developing countries in Asia or Africa are most likely to receive it. Thosecountries are more likely to have electronics manufacturing plants that can cheaply repair orrefurbish e-waste for reuse. Also, developing countries are more likely to value e-waste morehighly than developed countries for its potential to recycle for scrap.

Impacts of E-Waste Exports
It is difficult to determine how much e-waste is exported from the United States to developing countries. It is further difficult to determine how much of the waste that is exported is sent to facilities that will manage it safely as opposed to those that use disassembly and disposal methods that will expose workers to toxic chemicals with little, if any, protection. It is also difficult to determine how much e-waste may be sent to countries that have a limited regulatory framework to protect the local environment—potentially exposing the surrounding communities to resulting contamination.

What is becoming easier to document is the impact that e-waste exports are having on less developed nations. With increased exports have come increased media attention on the improper handling of e-waste in those areas and its resulting impacts.7 Various reports have graphically documented health and safety threats to workers and environmental contamination from e-waste recovery practices in developing countries. It is difficult to document all e-waste recycling hubs, but popular destinations for e-waste exported from the United States (and other developed countries) are waste processing operations in Guiyu in the Shantou region of China, Delhi and Bangalore in India, and the Agbogbloshie site near Accra, Ghana.

Multiple studies have documented environmental and health effects of uncontrolled waste processing activities. Environmental impacts include contamination of all local environmental media—soil, air, surface water, and ground water. For example, a June 2009 study8 found that the primary hazardous recycling operations in Guiyu involve

metal recovery that involves open burning of wires to obtain steel and copper, cathode ray tube (CRT) cracking to obtain copper-laden yokes, desoldering and burning of circuit boards to remove solder and chips, and acid stripping chips for gold;
plastic recycling through chipping and melting; anddumping of materials that cannot be further processed (such as leaded CRT glass and burned circuit boards) and residues from recycling operations (such as ashesfrom open burn operations, spent acid baths, and sludges).

Concerns About Domestic E-Waste Disposal
To understand why e-waste is exported, it is helpful to understand why landfill disposal has become a concern to certain stakeholders in the United States. Those concerns center largely around the waste’s increasing volume and the hazardous constituents, such as lead and mercury, it likely contains (particularly in older electronic devices). Increased awareness has encouraged state waste management and water resources agencies to consider the potential impacts to human health and the environment associated with e-waste and has led to increased efforts to divert ewaste from landfill disposal.

Waste Volume
The proliferation of and increasingly rapid technological advances in electronics mean that the volume of e-waste generated in the United States is large and growing. Data regarding electronic products sold, stored, recycled, and disposed of are limited. However, in 2008, EPA completed a study that attempted to gather more current data.10 According to that study, in 2007, of the 2.25 million tons of televisions, cell phones and computer products ready for end-of-life (EOL) management, 18% (414,000 tons) were collected for recycling and 82% (1.84 million tons) were disposed of, primarily in landfills. Further, EPA estimated that approximately 235 million units sold between 1980 and 2007 were obsolete and in storage, awaiting some method of EOL management.

Although EPA estimates that e-waste comprises about 2% of the municipal solid waste stream, it is anticipated that this percentage will grow as consumers continue to replace old and outdated electronic equipment and discard equipment in storage.

Hazardous Constituents
Electronic devices may contain any of a host of hazardous constituents. Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) found in televisions and computer monitors and printed circuit boards (PCBs, also referred to as printed wire boards, or PWBs), often contain significant amounts of lead. CRTs contain an average of four pounds of lead but may contain more, depending on the size, age, and make of the device.

Although high lead levels in CRTs and PWBs often get the most attention from federal and state waste regulators, electronic devices such as personal and laptop computers, keyboards, and computer mice may contain toxic constituents such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, or mercury. In addition to potentially toxic constituents, plastics used in electronic devices often contain brominated flame retardants (BFRs). BFRs are widely used in plastic cases and cables for fire retardancy.Plastics containing BFRs cannot be recycled as easily as plastics such as those used in plastic bottles or other containers.

E-Waste Management Requirements
Broadly speaking, discarded e-waste has two potential fates—it may be disposed of (most likely in a landfill) or it may be recycled. Once the device is in the hands of the recycler, it may be resold and reused “as is” or it may undergo some degree of refurbishing. Products that cannot be reused or refurbished are either dismantled or shredded, with the resulting material separated into secondary material streams and at least partially recovered. The resale of electronic devices for reuse or material recovery may occur domestically or abroad.

Regardless of whether an electronic device is disposed of or recycled, there are virtually no federal environmental regulatory requirements applicable to its management. Factors specific to e-waste that affect the lack of regulation are useful in understanding the challenges associated with addressing e-waste management issues.
Relevant Waste Disposal Requirements
Federal standards regarding waste management are specified under provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA, 42 U.S.C. §6901 et seq.).15 RCRA establishes criteria for managing both “solid” and “hazardous” waste. All regulatory requirements arising from the act stem from the initial determination of whether an item is actually a “waste” and, further, if that waste is “hazardous.”

Solid waste is defined under the law as “any garbage, refuse ... or other discarded material.” Subtitle D of RCRA establishes state and local governments as the primary planning, regulating, and implementing entities for the management of nonhazardous solid waste, such as household garbage and nonhazardous industrial solid waste. Landfills that collect household garbage are predominately regulated by state and local governments. EPA has, however, established minimumcriteria that certain types of landfills must meet in order to stay open.16 Also under Subtitle D, states are encouraged (but not required by regulation) to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial solid waste and municipal solid waste.

Under Subtitle C of RCRA, EPA has established regulations on the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of “hazardous wastes.” For a material to meet the regulatory definition of hazardous waste, it must first meet the definition of “solid waste.” Further, for waste to be considered hazardous, it must either be listed specifically or exhibit any of four hazardous characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. E-waste would most likely exhibit toxicit characteristics, meaning it would be harmful or fatal when ingested or absorbed (because it contains toxic substances such as mercury or lead). When toxic wastes are disposed of on land, contaminated liquid may drain (leach) from the waste and pollute ground water. A common test method to determine the toxicity level of a waste is the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP). The TCLP test is intended to simulate conditions that would likely occur in a landfill, and measures the potential for toxic constituents to seep or “leach” into groundwater. EPA has determined that CRTs and printed circuit boards meet the regulatory definition of hazardous waste, but has not determined if other electronic devices and components would consistently fail TCLP (i.e., exceed toxicity limits). Studies have determined that devices such as personal computer central processing units (CPUs), laptop computers, printers, computer mice, and keyboards have the potential to exceed toxicity limits, but it has not been determined that entire classes of electronic devices will always be toxic.18 Toxicity levels would likely vary by manufacturer, make, and model.

Even if a device meets the definition of hazardous waste, that does not necessarily mean that the device must be disposed of in accordance with RCRA’s hazardous waste regulations. EPA regulations have established many exclusions and exemptions to its hazardous waste disposal requirements Implementing exclusions or exemptions is often used as a mechanism to facilitate recycling. Examples of e-wastes that are excluded or exempt from the definition of hazardous waste are:

Any electronic devices discarded by household consumers.
Devices that can be reused.
Scrap metal, processed scrap metal, precious metals, whole circuit boards, shredded circuit boards, processed CRT glass, intact CRTs, and partially processed CRTs sent for recycling.

RCRA establishes certain minimum waste management standards that states must meet, but states have the option to implement requirements that are more stringent than those specified under RCRA. To date, 23 states and New York City have opted to regulate e-waste more strictly. Although the specific requirements vary somewhat from state to state, all have the same goal—to avoid landfill disposal and incineration of certain types of e-waste. Most state laws have certain broad elements in common, such as specifying the electronic devices covered under the law; how a collection and recycling program will be financed; collection and recycling criteria that must be met to minimize the impact to human health and the environment; and restrictions or requirements that products must meet to be sold in the state.

Factors Influencing E-Waste Exporting
Since e-waste recycling is largely unregulated, accurate data regarding the end markets, both domestic and abroad, are not publicly available. Therefore, it is difficult to know how much e-waste that is collected for recycling is actually exported for processing. However, in a 2008 report, EPA consulted an industry expert to develop a “best estimate” of the end markets for CRT-containing devices (televisions and computer monitors). According to that estimate, between 77% and 89% of those end markets were outside the United States.26 EPA acknowledged that such data are fluid—market conditions change rapidly. Also, since this estimate only applies only to CRTs, it is not possible to apply those estimates to all e-waste. Still, it can be estimated that the majority of e-waste collected for recycling is processed, at least to some extent, abroad. There are various reasons why recyclers export e-waste instead of recycling it domestically. Most reasons relate to the high costs of processing the waste domestically and the lower costs and higher demand for the material abroad.

Costly and Complex Domestic Recycling Processes
E-waste collected for recycling may be reused or processed for parts or components. Before it can be determined which of those two fates it may meet, the device will require a certain level ofsorting, inspection, and testing. If a product is ultimately processed for parts or components, it would have to go through various processing activities. Unlike recyclable products that contain essentially a single component, like plastic bottles or newspaper, electronic devices contain a host of mixed materials that may not be easily separated or extracted. Before the device can be recycled it may go through any of a number of steps, including some or all of the following:

Demanufacturing into subassemblies and components—involves a worker manually disassembling a device or component to recover value from working and nonworking components (e.g., video cards, circuit boards, cables, wiring, plastic or metal housing).

Depollution—the removal and separation of certain materials to allow them to be handled separately to minimize impacts to human health and the environment (e.g., batteries, fluorescent lamps, CRTs, or plastics embedded with brominated flame retardants).

Materials separation—manually separating and preparing material for further processing. At this stage, materials that have already been disassembled would be sorted into material categories.

Mechanical processing of similar materials—generally involves processing compatible plastic resins, metals, or CRT glass to generate market-grade commodities.

Many of the processes described above must be done by hand and can be labor intensive. This can be a costly operation. Depending on the value of the commodities being extracted, among other factors, a recycler may find it more profitable simply to send all of the e-waste it collects abroad, where labor is less costly but health and safety practices may not be implemented when extracting hazardous materials or precious metals. If an e-waste collector or recycler offers its services for free, it likely ships whole units abroad.
Conclusions
An unintended consequence of avoiding potential negative impacts of domestic e-waste disposal has been a contribution to actual environmental contamination and human health impacts to some communities in developing countries. If environmentally preferable management of e-waste is the goal, is recycling it preferable to landfill disposal if recycling means exporting the waste to developing countries? Determining how to address this issue—that is, take into consideration concerns regarding domestic e-waste disposal and the negative impacts of recycling abroad— involves many factors.

One significant factor is the lack of timely, accurate data needed to help fully understand the scope of the potential problem. It is almost impossible to know exactly how much e-waste is generated, to what extent it is processed domestically (e.g., to what degree it is sorted or disassembled by domestic recyclers), how much is exported, and, of the waste that is exported, how much is actually reusable or sent to a facility that will manage it properly. That is not to say that all or even the majority of e-waste that is exported is managed improperly. It is simply impossible to know using existing data.

Electronics manufacturers are currently driven by various forces to make their products more easily recyclable and with fewer hazardous constituents.34 Any future changes to electronic devices have no impact, however, on the hundreds of millions of devices currently in use or obsolete devices currently in storage. Eventually those devices will make their way to the disposal or recycling markets.