E-Waste Solutions

Paul Cade, a sophomore in urban planning, scrambled to maintain order as he sorted an array of electronic waste that poured into Lincoln Hall on Saturday, February 21. The southeast entrance to the building was converted into a makeshift recycling center where local residents brought old computers and computer accessories, including monitors and printers. During the five hour period, student volunteers received more than five tons of e-waste - enough to fill a semi-truck.
The group collected old computers to be used in the upcoming Sustainable E-waste Design Competition, Cade said.

Registration for the competition opened on January 29 and will run until March 16. Teams consisting of up to five students will choose from the donated e-waste and present their re-imagined designs to be judged by a committee on April 16. The juried competition will be held on the UI quad and will be preceded by a sustainable design conference hosted by the UI Environmental Council April 8 – 10 that will be held in the Illini Union.

The Cade family is playing a key role in the production of the event. Paul’s sister, Amy Cade, a senior in industrial design, initially proposed a project using recycled e-waste to Art and Design professor William Bullock. Amy explained that her father, Willie Cade, rehabs electronic equipment and provides it to schools and civic organizations.

After learning about Willie Cade’s company, PC Rebuilders and Recyclers, professor Bullock went to see the operation and was excited to witness old electronic equipment being prepped for reuse because “in industrial design we are part of the problem,” he said.

“E-waste is a huge problem that is creeping upward and upward,” Bullock said. The end-of-life of (electronics) is not good and much of it we’re exporting overseas and, essentially, dumping our trash on foreign shores and it’s really tragic because (toxins) are leaching into the soil, air, water and affecting the environment adversely and the people who are around those things.”

And the problem of e-waste is growing. The Electronics TakeBack Coalition, citing Environmental Protection Agency data, released a report stating that in 2006 Americans generated 2.9 million tons of e-waste, of which 11 percent was recycled. Those findings were supported by Allen Hershkowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who said in a Nov. 9, 2008, interview on 60 Minutes that, “We throw out about 130,000 computers every day in the United States.”

Energized by his visit to Willie Cade’s company, Bullock helped develop ARTD 391/351, a sustainable e-waste course, he said. According to the course description, the class covers relevant topics such as history and theory of sustainable design and e-waste design techniques. Course enrollment is not mandatory in order to enter the competition and participants may attend course lectures and seminars without enrolling.

Amy Cade enrolled in the class and she and her classmates conducted research and developed a report that will be presented to the University, which will highlight how it can play a role in e-waste reduction, she said.

One of the primary goals of this effort is to stimulate support for a new research institute at UI called the I-Care Center, which will work with the University as well as electronic manufacturers to reduce e-waste, Bullock said.
“(E-waste) has become a global problem and we just wanted to take a positive step (toward) doing something about it,” Bullock said.
The Office of Sustainability helped fund ARTD 391/591 and supports the effort to develop the I-Care Center.

“We think UI could be a real leader in this area,” said Office of Sustainability Director Dick Warner.

“The collection of e-waste is a sticky issue these days. But it will be much easier come January 1, 2010,” Willie Cade said. He is referring to a new law called the Illinois Electronic Recycling & Reuse Act. The law’s key sponsors are Rep. Elaine Nekritz and Sen. Susan Garrett. According to a published description of the law, “manufacturers of televisions, computers, monitors and printers are required to set up and pay for the collection, transportation, recycling and or reuse of obsolete products.” The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will monitor compliance of the law, which also bans e-waste from landfills.

“The really good part about the Illinois law is that it gives manufacturers double credit for reusing the equipment. And that’s what we really want to focus on here is the reuse of this equipment – not just taking it and throwing it away and making (silicone sand) out of it,” Willie Cade said.

Manufacturers such as Apple also seem to be taking notice of this issue. In its latest advertising campaign, Apple is touting the new MacBook “as not only the greenest notebook Apple has produced, but the greenest family of notebooks.”

According to Apple, the new MacBooks contain “materials that are highly recyclable and free of many of the harmful substances found in other computers.”
Apple’s new advertising campaign would be welcomed by local residents like Gisela Kraus, 55, of Champaign. Krauss was one of the people who participated in the e-waste drive.

“We saw the article in the News-Gazette and I thought it was time to get rid of the broken laptop. It broke recently and I didn't want to fix it because (it would) cost more than buying a new one and it was old anyway."

The Electronics TakeBack Coalition reported that 68 percent of consumers stockpile used or unwanted computer equipment in their homes.

“There are about 100 million computers being stored in homes right now. That’s about 1 per home,” said Willie Cade.

Kraus said she held on to the broken computer for two months. “Recycling is the best thing you can do right now, isn't it? Anything you can recycle, you should recycle – plastics, paper, cardboard, cans.”

After gathering a computer and five monitors, Paul Cade headed to a first-floor room in Lincoln Hall that his team will use for the next month to develop their design idea.

“We want to make a hydroponic farm, which is a farming system that uses no dirt, just water. (We hope) the computer will be able to control the nutrients that the plants will get. Then we will use computer monitors to give the plants light.”
Cade hopes the project will benefit from the five-member team that includes students from industrial design, international studies, urban planning and architecture, he said.

Supporting e-waste recycling efforts will offer many benefits to the local community, Willie Cade said.

"Eighty percent of the energy in the life cycle of a computer is used to manufacture it. So if we could reuse the silicon (contained in it), as opposed to grinding it up, we've done a much better (job for the) environmental process,” Willie Cade said. “Also, too, we've created local jobs. The whole notion of reuse and refurbishment is educational -- it creates local jobs. It's green and it's cost effective. Those are really the highlights of this (effort)."