National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship—Accomplishments
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On America Recycles Day in November 2010, President Obama established the Interagency Task Force on Electronics Stewardship with the goal of developing a long-term strategy for managing electronics from cradle to grave. In the first update to the 2011 National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship (NSES), the Task Force outlined some facts and key accomplishments of its call to action.
According to the report, “In less than a decade the electronic landscape evolved with a speed few could have predicted with the resulting growth outpacing our ability to safely manage electronic products at the end of their useful lives.” In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that 438 million electronics were sold in the United States, about double the amount sold in 1997, including “a nine-fold increase in mobile device sales.” During that time, much of the replaced equipment was thrown in the trash, ending up in landfills, or was sent overseas to third-world countries where it created both environmental and public health problems.
But things are beginning to change. In the United States, electronic recycling rates are improving, which means not only less landfill trash but also more recovery of precious metals. In 2009, for example, the recycling rate for consumer electronics was 25 percent but increased to 29 percent by 2011. Looking at it from another perspective, by recycling we not only salvage these precious metals for reuse, we also eliminate the need to extract new metals. According to the report, “One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper compared to 1 metric ton of virgin ore mined or extracted in the U.S.” Regarding cell phones alone, for every 1 million recycled we can recover:
- 35,274 pounds (lb) of copper,
- 772 lb of silver,
- 75 lb of gold, and
- 33 lb of palladium
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In a perfect world, recycling electronics would resolve many problems but early on, unscrupulous recyclers took advantage of a market with few regulations or other oversight. As a result, the Task Force made certification of electronics recycling and refurbishing facilities a priority, and it is one that has paid off well. According to the report, in 2011, only about 100 facilities were certified under the new voluntary standards but by mid-June 2014, more than 565 facilities had obtained the certification.
To ensure the federal government continues to lead by example, in 2011, the Government Services Administration (GSA) issued a bulletin with guidance on managing used federal electronics, including using certified recyclers, and in March 2014, published a Proposed Rule that would require federal agencies to use that guidance.
But safe end-of-life electronics management is just one of the goals of the Task Force, with designing greener electronics being equally important going forward. Among the many possibilities are electronics that incorporate fewer toxic materials and more recycled materials, use less energy, have longer lives, and are more easily recycled or upgraded. To do this, the federal government is developing standards for industry, while also conducting research and incentivizing research by academia, industry, and other stakeholders.
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The federal government also requires that its own electronics purchases be registered in the Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT®), an independent rating system that identifies “greener” electronics developed according to multiple environmental standards. In 2012, 80 percent of reporting federal agencies met the 95-percent threshold for EPEAT® purchases, and since the system is available worldwide to anyone, the results are again impressive.
According to the report, in 2012, more than 114 million EPEAT®-registered products were sold worldwide in 43 countries and by governments of 8 countries, realizing the following reductions:
- Enough energy to power nearly 1 million U.S. homes for a year,
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equal to removing 1.5 million passenger cars from the road for a year,
- Solid waste equal to the amount of trash produced by 78,000 U.S. households, and
- Hazardous waste equal to the weight of 13 Empire State buildings.