Category: Waste Reduction

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Updated Impact Stats and Fall 2018

Welcome back to campus, Illini–or just welcome to those of you who are just beginning your University of Illinois experience! And thanks to those of you from the broader Champaign-Urbana community who stopped to chat and learn about our project at the Taste of Champaign last weekend. It was great to hear positive comments on the idea of collaborative repair (i.e. we help you help yourself through “do-it-together” rather than “do-it-yourself” repair and we don’t just fix things for you–that’s what makes this an educational project for everyone involved!). We’ve already had some folks set up appointments for assistance, so kudos to everyone who has decided to try the “repair rather than replace” option we espouse.

A quick update on our impacts–see the recently revised infographic at https://drive.google.com/file/d/11XV_2jO3KNf7437oQ3IlXoc4HtIjGNZ_/view.

Our all time total for pounds of materials diverted through repair assistance and collections of special materials for recycling (e.g. batteries and CDs/DVDs and their cases) is 740.88 lbs!

How much is that, really? According to the web site “The Measure of Things” presented by Bluebulb Projects, that’s three-fourths as heavy as a grand piano, or about two-thirds as heavy as a polar or grizzly bear. See https://www.bluebulbprojects.com/MeasureOfThings/results.php?amt=740.88&comp=weight&unit=lbs&searchTerm=740.88+lbs.  Great job everyone! Let’s keep growing that number!

Maybe by the end of the semester, we can have a whole polar bear–we could call him the Repair Bear! 🙂 Or maybe instead we’ll just look at this cute, non-dangerous picture of a polar bear and reflect on how cool repair, reuse, and recycling makes us feel.

Image of polar bear floating on back in a pool of water, holding a black ball.
Photo by Cburnett, CC BY-SA 3.0

We’ll continue to operate by appointment in Fall 2018; send us an email, Facebook message or give us a call at 217-300-5629. You can also fill out our diagnostic form with some basic info on the device and issue you’re facing and one of our staff or volunteers will be in touch. We’ll also have pop-up repair clinics in various locations on campus and off (we’ll shoot for at least one on and one off each month) to help you fit troubleshooting and repair into your busy schedule. And we’re planning some educational workshops to help you learn relevant skills like soldering, how to maintain your device, the basics of how electronics work, etc. Again, keep your eye on this web site, our calendar, and Facebook for details!

Want to get involved? Send us an email to learn more about volunteer opportunities. No prior repair experience necessary, nor any particular academic background, just a desire to learn, to try new things, and help other people. Come join the Illini Gadget Crew and be part of the Fixing Illini! Can’t donate your time? Consider a small monetary donation to help support continued, free-to-the-public programming, like battery collections or pop-ups throughout the community. You can donate online at http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/SEIdonation.html. Thanks for your support!

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The Retro Revive

20170914_112947After getting removed from a parent’s basement, my friend showed me the bag of retro games and consoles her parents had returned to her after years of sitting dormant. In my excitement of holding an original Game Boy, I flipped the device on only to have nothing happen. Batteries must be dead, was my natural assumption. I opened the battery compartment to find the batteries had leaked and corrosion EVERYWHERE.

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Alkaline Battery Corrosion! The HORROR!

A younger me would have said, “Well, nothing we can do with it now. We’ll have to get rid of it.” And if time travel were a thing, I might go back and give my younger self a rough shake and an education on when to declare an electronic dead.

Battery “Acid”

My younger self was told to never touch exploded batteries; “it’s acid and it will burn”. Well, it was a half-truth from my parents to keep me from playing with something potentially dangerous. Alkaline batteries don’t leak acid, they actually leak a material that registers as a base on the pH scale: potassium hydroxide.  Potassium hydroxide is a conductive solution used in alkaline batteries that can be harmful to us if the proper precautions are not taken in handling it. It’s a corrosive and can cause an itchy/burning sensation if it comes into contact with your skin, eyes, or if inhaled, so be sure to use gloves, safety glasses, and work in a well-ventilated area. Also, I wish it could go without saying, but DO NOT INGEST and wash your hands and work area after any contact with it, gloves or no.

Cleaning Alkaline Corrosion

(Please make sure you’re working with alkaline batteries before performing this cleaning method.)

When cleaning alkaline battery leaks, you want to use an acid like vinegar or lemon juice to take on the base corrosion. What you don’t want to use are other base materials to clean it like baking soda, ammonia, or bleach, you may just make things worse this way. If you’re concerned that the acid may be too strong for cleaning your device, feel free to use a 50/50 mix (equal parts) of distilled water and vinegar or distilled water and lemon juice instead.

Use a Q-tip or small brush (soft bristle toothbrushes work just fine, just don’t use it for teeth cleaning afterwards) dipped in your chosen cleaning acid to scrub off/eat away the corrosion. Wipe with a dry cloth to remove any lingering corrosive particles. Repeat as necessary and let it dry completely before trying to put new batteries in. (Recycle old batteries.)

Some devices are caked in corrosion and require a more thorough cleaning which involves taking the device apart and soaking the contacts as I had to do for this poor Game Boy.

20170914_112841
Taking the Game Boy apart to remove the contacts
corrosion on contacts: before and after
Before and after soaking the contacts to remove the corrosion

 

What if I can’t save it?

Corrosion is the eventual fate of all metals, whether they are corroded irreparably depends on the type of metal and the type of corrosive as well as the amount of corrosive it’s been exposed to and how long it’s been there. I don’t know how long the batteries in this device have been leaking exactly, but the corrosion had eaten through enough of the top layers of metal to pockmark it. Fortunately, it was not enough to cause it to be irreparable for this project, a good scrub allowed us to get this device up and running again.

Should the damage to your device be irreparable and replacement parts unable to be found, recycling your device is the best course of action to take. Since Illinois state law has a ban on electronics like these in landfills, you can find local recyclers that can take your devices. Nintendo also offers repair of their products and take back programs which will allow you to send your old Nintendo devices (and sometimes other companies devices) in for recycling for free. Sony also offers a version of recycling as well.

What if it’s not Alkaline Battery Corrosion?

In regards to other types of corrosion, the cleaning methods vary. Different corrosives require different techniques. Isopropyl alcohol (90% and higher) is frequently used to clean/rinse motherboards as it dries quickly, but you could also soak/rinse a board (only the board, no power source or hard drive, etc.) in distilled or de-ionized water. It’s not the water itself that causes the corrosion, but the impurities and chemicals found in the water (like fluoride and chlorine). We don’t recommend submerging the boards although it can be done, we find it a bit risky and wasteful of resources, instead we use Qtips to apply cleaner/remove corrosion and soft bristle toothbrushes for some extra scrubbing power when needed.

 

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Death by Design Screening, August 22 at Champaign Public Library

On Tuesday, August 22, the Illini Gadget Garage will be hosting a screening of the documentary Death by Design at the Champaign Public Library. Doors will open at 6:30 PM and the film will begin at 7:00. The film duration is 73 minutes.

The Illini Gadget Garage is a repair center that helps consumers with “do-it-together” troubleshooting and repair of minor damage and performance issues of electronics and small appliances. The project promotes repair as a means to keep products in service and out of the waste stream.

Death by Design explores the environmental and human costs of electronics, particularly considering their impacts in the design and manufacture stages, bearing in mind that many electronic devices are not built to be durable products that we use for many years. Cell phones, for example, are items that consumers change frequently, sometimes using for less than 2 years before replacing with a new model. When we analyze the effort put into, and potential negative impacts of, obtaining materials for devices through efforts like mining, the exposure to potentially harmful substances endured by laborers in manufacturing plants, and the environmental degradation and human health risks associated with informal electronics recycling practices in various parts of the word, the idea that we might see these pieces of technology as “disposable” in any way becomes particularly poignant. For more information on the film, including reviews, see http://deathbydesignfilm.com/about/ and http://bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/dbd.html. You can also check out the trailer at the end of this post.

After the film, there will be a brief discussion and Q&A session facilitated by Joy Scrogum, Sustainability Specialist from the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) and project coordinator for the Illini Gadget Garage. UI Industrial Design Professor William Bullock will also participate in the panel discussion; other panelists will be announced as they are confirmed. Professor Bullock is also an adviser for the Illini Gadget Garage project; see more about IGG advisers at http://wp.istc.illinois.edu/ilgadgetgarage/meet-the-advisers/.  Check the IGG web site calendar and Facebook page for room details and panelist announcements.

Admission to this public screening is FREE, but donations are suggested and appreciated to support future outreach and educational efforts of the Illini Gadget Garage. See http://wp.istc.illinois.edu/ilgadgetgarage/donate/donation-form/ to make an online donation and http://wp.istc.illinois.edu/ilgadgetgarage/ for more information on the project.

Bullfrog Films presents…DEATH BY DESIGN from Bullfrog Films on Vimeo.

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Greenpeace and iFixit Assign Reparability Grades, Advocate for Durable Electronics

iFixit, the self-proclaimed “free repair guide for everything, written by everyone,” and Greenpeace, the environmental organization which has in the past published a “Guide to Greener Electronics,” have teamed up to assess how easy or difficult it may be to repair over 40 popular electronic devices. The assessments, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops launched between 2015 and 2017, can be found online at https://www.rethink-it.org/.

As electronic devices become smaller and sleeker, it’s sometimes the case that decisions are made at the industrial design stage, that, while making the product lighter and more aesthetically pleasing, can adversely impact the ability to repair it, or to dismantle it for recycling and material recovery at its end-of-life. Perhaps a battery will be glued in to avoid inclusion of a structure to hold the battery in place. Or perhaps the device will be unable to be opened without a special tool that most consumers or even many independent repair shops wouldn’t have. iFixit has been giving electronics “repairability scores” for years, based on criteria such as these, as well as considerations of how quickly a device can be dismantled, whether parts are modular and durable, whether components such as memory are upgradeable, whether repair manuals for the product are readily available, etc. Scores are on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most easily repaired item. The trend toward devices that are harder to repair or upgrade has resulted in a proliferation of electronic waste. When something goes wrong with a gadget these days, it’s not uncommon to simply replace it without giving repair a second thought.

The scores in the joint iFixit/Greenpeace list are also on a scale of 1-10, but are based on a simpler list of criteria: battery replaceability, display replaceability, whether special tools are needed, and whether spare parts are available. This latest round of repairability scores is all part of a joint campaign called “RethinkIT.” The campaign is focused on encouraging consumers to be more aware of how manufacturers contribute to waste generation through poor design and planned obsolescence–and how such design decisions can actually benefit the manufacturers. After all, they WANT to sell electronics, so if you’re more likely to replace something than repair it, that’s a form of success from their perspective. The “RethinkIT” campaign ties the list of repairability scores to a petition consumers can sign, expressing their desire for manufacturers to create products that are meant to last.

At the Illini Gadget Garage, consumers can observe first hand how design decisions impact the repairability of their personal devices, as they work with our staff and volunteers to troubleshoot and repair them. It can be an eye-opening experience, which may end up influencing future decisions on device purchases.

Read more about the RethinkIT campaign here: Greenpeace and iFixit slam smartphone companies over e-waste. 

Example of score from the iFixit/Greenpeace list, showing the Fairphone 2 with a 10 out of 10 possible points.

Note: Organizations, products, or links included here are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute endorsement by the Illini Gadget Garage, the University of Illinois, or associated departments and projects.

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Local (Champaign-Urbana) Repair Guide

Note: This post was written by Illini Gadget Garage staff member Jarrett Zook.

We know that even “do-it-together” repair can be intimidating for some people, or maybe you just don’t have the time in your busy schedule currently to come in and participate in the repair of your device. We understand, but want you to still consider repair before replacement of your device. Also, there are times when a client comes in for assistance and we find that the problem with their device is beyond our abilities at the Illini Gadget Garage, but we still believe the item in question can be repaired. For these types of instances, we have composed a list of local repair shops, and posted it on our website under the “Repair” tab. You can either access a spreadsheet that list addresses, contact information, hours, and the types of devices serviced, or a map that shows their physical locations.

Be aware that you will not find chains like Best Buy or Dick Van Dyke listed. This is because they mainly specialize in servicing products that were bought on their premises–plus we know you’re probably already aware of those options for service. If your merchandise is currently covered by a warranty policy, we fully encourage you to take it the location from where it was purchased. We just want you to know that the main focus of the resources we provide is to guide you to shops that specialize in repair no matter where or how long ago an item was purchased.

We also want to be clear–the Illini Gadget Garage does NOT endorse any of the listed businesses. This list is provided for information purposes only, to help those who come to us for assistance to find additional services they require. We do not refer clients to specific businesses; we merely provide the names of companies that can service the device in question. The decision as to which, if any, of the local shops you go to, is yours as a consumer.

What if your device can’t be repaired? Don’t worry–we can help you with that too. Check out our “Recycle” page at http://wp.istc.illinois.edu/ilgadgetgarage/recycle/. That page includes a link to the Champaign County Electronics Recycling guide, which lists local electronics recyclers, and provides links to the Illinois EPA Service Locator page and other relevant information on the electronics landfill ban in Illinois.

Have other questions? Have a suggestion for a local repair shop to add to our list? Send us a note at illinigadgetgarage@gmail.com.

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Pop Ups!

Note: This post was written by Illini Gadget Garage staff member Jarrett Zook.

Are you interested in learning about how to become a more empowered consumer and are you interested in technology? Would you like to learn tinkering skills that will serve you well throughout life?  If so, the Illini Gadget Garage is looking to mobilize its services and can come directly to you. Host a pop-up clinic–we can tailor our demonstrations and assistance to the needs of your organization.  At a pop-up clinic we can troubleshoot cell phone repair, laptop teardowns, solve software issues, or demonstrate how to solve a wide array of other issues. There is no need to worry about having the right tools or equipment, we are well stocked and all you need to do is show up.

In addition, we are open to helping all groups of people and you need not feel like you have to have prior experience with sustainability related topics. For example, on March 14th we set up a pop-up during Teenspace, an after school program for local middle and high school students. Our interactions with the adolescents helped foster a fun learning experience. Students not only worked with tools, but also learned about the accessibility of technology and the right to repair. Some students even stated that the experience made them, “want to work with technology one day.” There are many people around campus who have yet to decide on a career path and as technology is an emergent field, someone may find that they are naturally inclined towards it.

Our pop-up clinic service is free for on-campus entities thanks to funding from the Student Sustainability Committee.

Fill out the “Host a Pop-Up Clinic” online form to indicate your interest and to provide some basic information about your situation. We’ll be in touch for scheduling!

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Splash! When Liquid Meets Laptop.

coffee spill
Coffee Spill

‘Tis the season when the weather starts to turn warmer and people find themselves craving iced tea and lemonade or perhaps the increased necessity of caffeine to fuel us through the workday (or school day) as deadlines approach. Whatever the reason, we frequently find ourselves with a beverage in hand as we interact with our personal electronics, so what do you do when… WHOOPS… happens?

*Sirens in the distance*

Liquid spills are a gamble of time and no small portion of luck. When it happens, you’ll want to react as quickly as possible. So here are a few steps to keep in mind to help prevent damage to your laptop – and yourself – due to a spill.

  1. Turn it off
    • Don’t bother with the start menu shut down command. Do a hard shutdown. Hold your finger down on the power button until the laptop turns off.
    • Liquids and electricity DO NOT MIX and when they do it can be dangerous to both you and your laptop.
  2. Kill the power
    • If you’re plugged in to power your laptop, unplug immediately.
    • If you have a removable battery, remove it.
  3. Unplug anything else
    • If you have any cables, devices, or drives (mice, USBs, flash drives, etc.) attached, unplug them. If your laptop shorts, it can short them as well.
  4. Flip it over
    • Help keep the liquid from traveling further into your laptop’s components by not letting it sift through it.
    • When you flip it, try to do so in a way that you keep the liquid from traveling towards the screen.
    • Do not shake the laptop in order to try and get the liquid out. It may cause further damage to internal components as it wiggles around your laptop finding new crevasses to hide in.
  5. Clean up the spill
    • Fingers crossed it was just a tiny spill, but if it wasn’t, you’ll want to be sure to blot the spill with a lint free paper towel or cloth
    • Pat, blot, but don’t wipe. Wiping may push the liquid onto other areas of the keyboard causing further possibilities for damage.

By this point, you’ve done most of what you can to save it. Now it’s just a waiting game. Try not to turn your laptop back on for at least 24 hours so that the internal components can dry out thoroughly. If you are able and willing, it may be a good idea to open your laptop and remove some components to help speed up the drying process and check for damage.

Now, the next thing to consider is what kind of beverage was spilled on it. The great majority of liquids will require some cleaning of your keyboard and likely some of the internal components as well, especially those that contain sugar. Sticky laptops are no fun. Aside from shorting out components, the biggest problem with liquids invading your laptop is that the particles in the liquid can cause corrosion. Many times, if you notice some small quirks of your computer like a few keys don’t work after your laptop has been turned back on after a spill, this is due to corrosion and it can get worse over time.

corroded motherboard
Corroded motherboard

corroded connector
Corroded connector

Please keep in mind, these steps are not guaranteed to save your laptop; they are just best practices for minimizing the damage. So save early, save often, and always try to have important projects, files, and folders saved somewhere else. Just in case.

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Introducing Right to Repair and its Roots in the Automotive Industry

Note: This post was written by Illini Gadget Garage staff member Jarrett Zook.

Extending the shelf life of products that use modern technology is a large part of the equation when it comes to the electronic sustainability movement. Unfortunately, this area is often found to be a source of trouble for consumers and independent repair shops. This is because many manufacturers make it impossible for consumers or independent repair technicians to fix their products. Sometimes this is done purposely and in other circumstances it is inadvertent. Regardless, this leaves consumers with few options and they are often forced to buy new or pay the monopolistic prices that select dealer or manufacturers have at their facilities. Fortunately, legislatures at the federal level and in many states have heard the voice of their constituents and right to repair bills have been introduced nationwide.

The root of the right of the repair movement can be traced to developments that have occurred within the automotive industry. In modern vehicles computers have come to control virtually every aspect of automobile’s vital systems. Therefore, vehicle repair has become a high-tech operation and computer diagnostic tools have in many ways have replaced traditional mechanical experience.[1] Currently, manufacturers serve as a door-keeper of repair information and only dispense this information to the selected dealers they do business with or at their own manufacturing facilities.[2]By 2001, this trend was well underway and in response the first Right to Repair bill was introduced in the United States. The stated goal of this bill was to end the unfair level of control that car manufacturers exercised over repair information.[2] In turn, the vehicle owner or independent repair facility would have the information necessary to diagnose, service, or repair their own vehicle.

While Right to Repair bills stagnated at the federal level, they have gained traction in many states. The biggest victory for the movement occurred in Massachusetts in 2012. The Massachusetts “Right to Repair” Initiative appeared on the general election and passed with 86% support from the state’s voters.[3] The Massachusetts law forced car manufacturers to provide independent repair shops with the same diagnostic tools they give authorized repairers. Consequently, by 2014 it had become obvious to the automotive industry that other states would pass similar legislation and they agreed to make the same data available nationwide by 2018.[4] Undoubtedly, this was a momentous shift in the automotive industry, but how does that impact the gadget repair industry? What if tech companies were forced to provide the same information?

[1]  Sturgis, Scott (January 26, 2007). “A Mechanic’s Laptop Makes Manual All But Obsolete”. The New York Times. Retrieved March 5, 2009.

[2] “Automotive Group Testifies Against Right to Repair Act Bill”. Autoparts Report.

[3] “Right to Repair Question 1 – 2012 Massachusetts Election Results”. Boston Globe. November 8, 2012.

[4] http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-agree-to-right-to-repair-deal

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Illini Gadget Garage Closing Physical Location for Renovations, Hosting Pop-Up Clinics

This post originally appeared on the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) Blog.

The Illini Gadget Garage, a collaborative repair center for student and staff owned electronic devices, will be closing its physical location (INHS Storage Building 3) for the summer on Monday, July 11, to allow for renovations associated with making the site compliant with ADA requirements. Renovations should be complete prior to the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester, and there will be a grand opening of the site at that time. Be sure to check the new Illini Gadget Garage web site, as well as its Twitter and Facebook accounts for details of the grand opening later in the summer.

We appreciate the ‘test pilots” who have come in this summer to work with us on their devices! To continue to serve the campus community during the renovation process, we will host pop-up clinics at various locations until the physical location is open for the public. Pop-up clinics will continue, even after the physical location is open, to make it more convenient for the campus community to practice sustainability through electronic product stewardship.

Two pop-up clinics are scheduled at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC; 1 Hazelwood Drive in Champaign), in the Stephen J. Warner Conference room:

  • Monday, July 11, from noon to 5 pm
  • Monday, July 18, from noon to 5 pm (Note: a Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium meeting will occur in the conference room from 1:30-2:30 PM; feel free to come early or stay after the meeting to work on your devices!)

If you plan to come to either of these clinics, we suggest you fill out our online diagnostic form ahead of time. This will allow volunteers to do some preliminary research on the problem you’re facing, and make use of your one-on-one time more efficient.

If your department, residence hall, or student organization would like to host a pop-up repair clinic, please fill out the “Host a Pop-Up Clinic” form to express your interest. We’ll be in touch to work out the details.

Students, faculty, and staff with any degree of technical skill–including none whatsoever–are invited to sign up as Illini Gadget Garage volunteers. We want to empower everyone to feel comfortable with the idea of troubleshooting and repairing the electronics they own, to keep them in service longer and thus, out of the waste stream. Even if you’ve never fixed anything before, you can be part of our process of coming together to solve problems. We also could use help with marketing, social media, arranging pop-up clinics, developing educational programs, and other tasks, so if this project intrigues you, come be part of it! Stop by one of the pop-up clinics, or fill out our contact form and we’ll be in touch.

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Ethical Electronic Consumerism

This is an edited copy of the original article posted by Dr. Martin Wolske, a senior research scientist at the iSchool at the University of Illinois, published on August 15, 2013.

A few resources for ethical electronic consumerism:

There are a number of ethical implications surrounding our purchase and use of electronics. Much of this is beyond our direct control, but not all. And of those things that we cannot directly control, there is an increasing awareness that our spending can be leveraged to promote greater ethical choices by industry. The activities around reduction and reuse in the old adage “reduce, reuse, and recycle” take on new meaning as we begin to do deeper research on ethical electronic consumerism.

But to become a more ethical consumer, we first need to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the underlying issues. We need to move beyond reacting to dramatic news stories of human rights or environmental tragedies towards understanding the environmental and social responsibility culture of the companies that manage some portion of the life-cycle of electronic products. The resources linked above can be useful in considering how transparent a company is, what their governance is like, what their policies are relating to these issues, and how they work with their supply chains to assure these policies extend beyond the immediate corporate entity.

I use the term ethical electronic consumerism as opposed to green electronics to indicate there are both environmental and human rights issues to be considered. In considering these, it is also helpful to consider the different aspects of the lifecycle of electronics, from initial mining of resources, to the production of the electronics, to their use, and eventually to the trashing or recycling of the products. For instance, we might consider:

  • What are the environmental and human health impacts of mining the raw materials? Within the U.S., a long fight was needed to drive the coal industry to provide much needed safety equipment to counter the health impacts of mining such as black lung disease.  But major tragedies strike and we find the policies are either insufficient or ignored.  Fracking has raised awareness for some within the U.S. of the environmental costs, with contaminated drinking supplies and rapidly emptying fresh water aquifers. These issues can be magnified many times over in the international mining of raw material for electronics.
  • What is the human rights cost of mining and producing electronics? The Apple/Foxconn case garnered considerable attention of the severe working conditions and low pay for Chinese workers producing parts for Apple products. More recently, news regarding a Brazilian lawsuit against Samsung for labor rights violations has been making news. But not much is spoken today in the U.S. about the extreme violence in the eastern Congolese as factions fight to control the mining of raw materials there. The violence bleeds over to the civilian farmers in the region, with murder, rape, forced labor and recruitment of child soldiers a common experience.
  • What is the environmental impact of electronics use? It is interesting to note that the savings in electricity resulting from the move to energy efficient appliances and homes over the last decades has been almost directly offset by the expansion in the number and hours of use of electronic devices within households. This is where we can have the most direct impact by choosing energy-efficient options, powering off and, when possible, unplugging unused devices, and limiting the number of devices we own and use.
  • What is the environmental and human rights impact of electronic waste disposal? Many devices end up in landfills where the toxins contained within the electronic devices begins to run off into the surrounding area. Those that are recycled, though, often are instead eventually shipped overseas where workers work in hazardous conditions with little or no protective equipment to extract the valuable raw materials that are then reused to produce new electronic equipment. We can have a direct impact here, too. First, we should carefully consider whether we need to replace an existing technology in the first place. Second, if we do need to upgrade, is it possible for the device to see reuse by someone else? Either way, we can keep that device out of the hands of a recycling and decrease the environmental impact of producing a new item for a bit longer. The cost of recycling along with the cost of producing a new item may very well be greater than the cost of continuing to use an electronic device even if it is less energy efficient than newer products.

Choosing to live completely off-grid is rarely possible or even advisable. But I am increasingly hearing a strong case made that we can be even more effective if we use our purchasing dollars to leverage change within the various industries. Technologies exist that minimize the use of toxic chemicals and blood minerals within electronics, but aren’t being widely used yet because there’s not a clear economic incentive. Large industries subcontract with many smaller companies to produce components and have demonstrated in several cases that they can leverage their purchasing power to require those smaller companies to follow basic human rights practices, but those larger companies only tend to do so if they have an economic incentive. Indeed, sometimes they may find the expedient thing is to minimize bad press and abandon the small companies. But they can have the greatest impact sometimes by staying and working with the small company to bring about change. While a slower and potentially less popular path, it is a path that has some of the greatest potential for change.

If we consumers, individually and on behalf of the organizations for which we recommend or make purchases, begin using some of the resources available (some are linked below) to understand the issues involved and how companies are performing in these various domains, then we can begin using our dollars to push for change. But we need to do so in a way that recognizes the complexities involved and that builds towards the long arc of justice and not just quick, feel-good fixes that may ultimately have long-term negative consequences for those who are out of site but most directly impacted by such changes. For instance, perhaps we should look towards supporting with our purchases a company that stays with certain supply companies and works with them over a period of months and years to reform worker rights and environmental impact at the company and in the region even if in the short term they appear to be supporting a corporately unethical supplier.

History can be such a great teacher. East St. Louis, IL, along with the surrounding small municipalities, provide an example of industrial suburbs – a place that owes it’s existence largely to one or a few manufacturers that crossed just over state lines to create a municipal government focused on maximizing profits when in the mid-1800’s large city governments began to crack down on the environmental and human rights impacts of those companies. One of those companies, American Zinc, produced materials that were instrumental in the early electronics industry. Like many industrial suburbs, the years of production created a toxic health environment for both workers and nearby residents. Further, when the industries left in the mid-1960’s, they left behind sites and whole neighborhoods with environmental contamination. But while this region provided the materials critical to the development of modern electronics, sadly the region remains significantly underserved by the digital age, with no or poor broadband service, many households without computers, and often low digital literacies.

Today the industrial suburbs no longer are created across state lines, but instead industries do much of their dirty work farther out of site. We speak of addressing the divide between those who have technology and those who do not. But in becoming ethical consumers, we can take a more proactive stance in working to stop the creation of communities that will face long-term consequences because of the environmental and human rights violations occurring today. If we are willing to do the work required to become informed and to act upon that information.

A few stories about the environmental and human rights impact of electronics:

Thanks to Colin Rhinesmith for introducing me to these issues and compiling these stories for the Introduction to Networked Systems course we co-taught Spring 2013. The lecture he recorded can be found at:

http://cmediachange.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/lis451_environmental_impacts.mov