Local users are now the main source of electronic waste in Africa, but illegal imports of old computers, televisions, and other electronics devices from Europe, Asia, and North America still make their way there. That's the finding of Where Are WEEE in Africa?, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report about waste electronic and electrical A large portion of these imports are of ...

Personal computers contribute significantly to the growing problem of electronic waste. Every computer, when finished with, must be stored, dumped, recycled, or somehow re-used. Most are dumped, at a huge cost to health and the environment, as their owners succumb to the desire to keep up with the ever-increasing power of new computers. Supercomputers and computer clusters provide more power th...

E-waste contains high amount of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) which are toxic, bioaccumulative and recalcitrant. In the present study, an effective and environmental-friendly process using solvothermal treatment to extract tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a typical BFR from waste computer housing plastic was developed. After the solvothermal process, TBBPA were transferred into a special sol...

We used macro-economic data and aggregated waste data to estimate that, in 2011, New Zealand households generated over 224,000 tonnes of food waste, and New Zealand industry generated over 103,000 tonnes of food waste. We split New Zealand’s food waste into 14 food-waste categories and found that 7% is related to “fresh” produce, and 93% “processed” food waste. The value of New Zealand’s food w...

This chapter discusses the problem of Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) as one of the largest growing waste streams globally, the influence of the product complexity and liberation in separation, and the basics of electrostatic separation. A very short review of mechanical separation processes is given and research conducted on one fraction of CRT TV set is presented. A CRT TV set ...

Many people claim that e-learning is a waste of time. High dropout rates from e-learning courses, low learner satisfaction, ambiguous performance, seem to justify their opinion. But to the other extreme knowledge is recognized as a critical resource (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995), (Wiig 1993), (Hahn and Subramani 2000), time and place limitations are abolished through e-learning technologies. So th...

Africa is quickly becoming a destination for information technology in the form of tons of used computers, fax machines, cell phones, and other electronics. Although many of these machines can be repaired and resold, up to 75% of the electronics shipped to Africa is junk. This equipment, when dumped, may leach lead, mercury, and cadmium into the environment; when burned, it may release carcinog...

Electronics equipment waste ("e-waste") includes discarded computers, computer monitors, television sets, and cell phones. Less than 10% of e-waste is currently recycled. The United States and other developed countries export e-waste primarily to Asia, knowing it carries a real harm to the poor communities where it will be discarded. A 2006 directive bans the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexa...

Urgent transformation is required in Ireland to divert biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfill and prevent increases in overall waste generation. When BMW is optimally managed, it becomes a resource with value instead of an unwanted by-product requiring disposal. An analysis of survey responses from commercial and residential sectors for the Dublin region in previous research by the a...

The concentration, distribution, profile and possible source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil were studied in Guiyu, an electronic waste (E-waste) recycling center, using primitive technologies in Southeast China. Sixteen USEPA priority PAHs were analyzed in 49 soil samples (0-10 cm layer) in terms of individual and total concentrations, together with soil organic matter (SOM)...