Electronic Waste Disposal at the University of California, Irvine电子废物处置在加利福尼亚大学，Irvine.ppt

Those unwanted electronics more often than not end up in landfills. That’s 80-85% of those 2.2 million tons going into landfills while only 15 – 20% is being recycled. Now that we have a sense of how much e-waste is discarded, what is doing other than just lying around in landfills? * Exporting electronic waste has also become a form of disposal in this country despite the consensus against such practice. When Greenpeace visited several dumping grounds, they found workers burning cables with candles and disassembling computers with hammers. Meanwhile, the near-by rivers ran black and villagers resorted to getting drinking water from elsewhere. * * So why is improper disposal of electronic waste so bad? Hazardous incineration processes and growing landfills both emit chemical toxins into the air and groundwater. It gets into the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the foods we eat and it’s embedded in our tissue and bloodstream. * And to think that there are people who sit i * Our current knowledge about university practices is limited to a few options available on campus. UC Berkeley’s GreenCitizen, for example, provides drop-off locations, community programs, and lectures for its students to utilize in proper disposal of their electronics. Their program also offers incentives for businesses that would to explore co-marketing with GreenCitizen, and also incentives for the community in the form of sponsorships and joint advertising. At UCI, electronic waste activities are sponsored by Environmental Health Safety (EHS). Bins are set around campus for students to drop off their unwanted electronics or students have the option of submitting a Universal Waste Collection request online for EHS to pick up the products in 1-3 days. There are currently recycling bins located at Arroyo Vista, UCI Bookstore, Campus Village, Engineering Gateway, Reines Hall, and McGaugh Hall. All collections are taken to a recycling company that has won the bid to provide bins on campus