L'impact de l'électronique sur l'environnement

I will talk about the impact of electronics on the environment

First, the production of the electronics’ components causes impacts on the environment. Indeed, these components are made from silicon, which requires the exploitation of quarry to extract sand. So, this can cause problems of lands degradation.

Then, the production requires fossil fuels, like charcoal. However, the extraction and production of charcoal have an impact on the environment too. Indeed, an intensive use of charcoals can lead to deforestation.

Finally, assembling the gadgets uses huge amounts of water and energy and exposes workers to a host of toxic chemicals, like PVC, mercury, solvents, lead and chlorine. That provokes physical troubles to the workers which are exposed, like miscarriage and cancer of brain, kidney, and blood. Moreover, that causes environmental pollution. These toxic chemicals are rejected in the environment, which pollutes groundwater, watercourse, lands and products from agriculture.

Then, there is the problem of e-waste.

The e-wastes are the electronics gadget that we throw away.

Each year, we make 25 millions tons of e-waste which is not recycled, and just in the U.S, Americans throw away about 400 million electronic gadgets each year, which represent more than one per person. Among these e-wastes in US, only about 20% is collected for recycling. The rest of e-wastes, which is not recycled, go to landfills and incinerators where the toxics leach out to contaminate the air, water and communities.

Moreover, some recycler do not really recycle but export e-waste to developing nations, in Asia or Africa, where they are badly handled and the toxic inside cause significant harm, like cancer, respiratory, neurological and digestive problems or skin problems.

Indeed, in these developing countries, workers are breaking down mobile phones and laptops with rudimentary tools and practices with little to no protection.

They cook the circuit boards in a wok or over a burner to melt the solder to recover the lead, so they breathe the lead fumes.

Then, they pour acids on the circuit boards to get at the gold and other precious metals. And they burn the plastics, which emits dioxin, which is one of the worst poisons that you can breathe.

Moreover, not only are the workers being poisoned by the leaching and releasing of toxic chemicals, but so are the water and the lands around these scrap yards. So these lands became uncultivable.

To conclude, electronics causes many problems on the environment during production and because of the e-wastes which are not recycling. So we need to find solutions to act against this.

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