Trading paper for e-waste?

Phones. Desktops. Laptops. Monitors. Keyboards. Scanners. Video camera. Projector. Speaker phone. Speakers. Kindle. Software CDs. Data servers. Not to mention the extension cords! These are the gadgets a paperless office is made of.

But what happens when the office of the future needs an upgrade? With consumers constantly hungry for the newest technology, electronics are a constant source of waste. And e-waste is causing damage to the environment and people all over the world.

Much of our electronics waste ends up in developing countries where workers are exposed to dangerous chemicals while burning through old computers, cell phones and televisions to get valuable scrap metal.  Frontline investigators visited sites in Hong Kong, Ghana and China which are receptacles of e-waste from other countries. “The southern Chinese city of Guiyu has been completely built around the e-waste trade. Miles and miles of nothing but old electronics,” reported Frontline. Kids grow up surrounded by broken LCD screens and smashed dvd players while their parents constantly inhale lead from burning circuit boards.

These areas are environmental catastrophes and extreme health hazards.

Luckily some U.S. states are on the right recycling path with laws mandating electronics companies take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of products. “Since 2004, 18 states and New York City have approved laws that make manufacturers responsible for recycling electronics, and similar statutes were introduced in 13 other states this year,” reported the New York Times Tuesday. The article noted that hopefully the burden of cleanup will prompt companies to rethink the lifespan of their designs.  While this doesn’t stop the stream of e-waste to poor cities it’s a step in the right direction.

If we’re going to make our offices paperless let’s make sure we’re not just trading one problem for another less publicized problem.

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Elizabeth Ulion is a graduate student at Northwestern University. As a summer intern for SocialYell she is constantly looking for blog topics so yell ‘em out at bethulion@gmail.com!

Photo courtesy of JohnJMatlock/Flickr