Microsoft ended its support for Windows 10 on Oct. 14, making an estimated 240 million devices obsolete and destined to contribute to what the Environmental Protection Agency notes as the fastest-growing component of the municipal waste stream in the United States — electronic waste, commonly called e-waste.
When disposed of improperly, the hazardous materials many devices contain pollute the environment by releasing up to 1,000 different chemical substances, including known neurotoxicants, according to the World Health Organization. These substances can contaminate air, soil, dust and water — an impact stretching well beyond an original dumpsite.
Patrick Riley, the environmental programs manager in the Land Protection Division of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, said anything that can be plugged in or recharged falls into the category of e-waste.
“When I talk about e-waste, I say it’s unique, and it’s for a couple reasons. It’s unique because it has potential for harm,” Riley said. “It has potential for that opportunity because of the metals and things that are in it. It has valuable metals like gold and palladium, platinum, and things like that that have a lot of value. But it also has toxic metals in it, like lead, cadmium, nickel, things that. If it gets into the environment, it can be a detriment.”
Mike Foley is director of operations for CDR Global, at an e-waste recycling facility located at 401 N. Portland Ave. in Oklahoma City. He elaborated on the dangers of improper e-waste disposal.
“There’s energy in batteries, and nearly every device has a battery nowadays,” Foley said. “If you throw [a device] into your trash can, it’s going to go into a compactor somewhere, and it’s going to have a small explosion if there’s still energy in that. (…) There is a little motherboard in there, it has heavy metals and toxic chemicals and stuff that you don’t want to go into the groundwater.”
Nov. 15 e-recycling event
From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 15, Oklahomans can recycle e-waste with United Electronic Recycling LLC, a north-Texas company partnering with the City of Norman for the event.
Numerous types of items can be taken to the parking lot of the Westwood Aquatic Center, 1007 Fairway Court in Norman.
Foley estimated CDR Global handles e-waste for 50 percent of big companies in Oklahoma, including schools, health care institutions, cities and banks. CDR aims to reuse as many devices and as much material as possible.
“If it doesn’t work, then, yeah, it’s going to get recycled. But if it does work, the idea is to get back into a reuse channel, whether that be to another person in the U.S. or in another country,” Foley said. “In developing countries, two-, three-year-old devices are still new, and they still have use.”
However, devices created with planned obsolescence often lose resale value.
“Windows 10 no longer being supported is one thing that affects us, especially on that retail side, because we’re no longer allowed to list devices that don’t support Windows 11 on any of our sales,” said Mitchel Randolph, the warehouse manager at CDR Global.
Such devices, and many others, are no longer able to receive security updates or technical support, which leaves users pressured to purchase new devices — in turn increasing consumption and waste — or vulnerable to cyber crimes if they continue using the outdated devices.
Paul Hoyos, the marketing specialist for CDR Global, said secure data wiping is an important process within e-waste disposal.
“As we go in time and we use any type of device, data is growing. So data is everywhere, on your phone — it might be in your kitchen soon,” Hoyos said. “We make sure data is taken (care of) properly, so our clients know that they’re safe.”
‘You’ve got to deal with all the junk’
CDR Global is certified by SERI, the leading nonprofit dedicated to “minimizing the environmental and health risks posed by used and end-of-life electronics, while also maximizing the social and economic value presented by this equipment.”
While CDR Global cannot end the life cycle for every electronic, Foley said they only work with other companies that have “responsible recycling” certifications from SERI. To obtain those certifications, companies must adhere to SERI requirements like prioritizing reuse, handling data properly and ensuring facilities meet industry standards. SERI performs a full audit of its certified companies every three years.
One device CDR Global outsources is printers. An estimated 60,000 pounds of printers were piled in its warehouse Oct. 30, waiting to be packed and sent to another facility to be shredded.
“It takes us probably two weeks to three weeks to fill up a whole printer truck,” Randolph said.
Hoyos described the impact print cartridges can have if disposed of improperly.
“Ink and toner cartridges often contain heavy metals as well as volatile organic compounds, both of which can be harmful to the environment,” Hoyos said. “When you throw printers or ink cartridges in the trash instead of recycling them, toxic substances like chromium can gradually leach into the soil and water. Other toxic metals like lead are also extremely harmful to the environment. If these materials are dumped or burned, they can contaminate the soil, water and even the air we breathe.”
Foley explained the chain of accountability that SERI’s “responsible recycling” certifications provide.
“We also know where they send [devices CDR cannot break down], so we have full downstream (tracking) all the way to a raw commodity,” Foley said. “Not everyone’s going to do lithium harvesting out of a lithium battery, but we know who they send it to to get it done, and it’s vetted all the way down the chain.”
Vetting recycling companies aims to decrease illegal dumping and trading of expired devices, which has become an environmental concern around the globe.
“On the news, you’ll see (a) random river over in, like, India or something. The kids are playing in the river where there’s the old computers and stuff in there,” Foley said. “That’s heavy metals, hazardous materials seeping into all those places. I mean, it’s real. It happens, and we’re here to make sure it doesn’t happen to the little segment of that we deal with.”
CDR accepts e-waste from the public between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Older CRT monitors are accepted with a fee owing to the toxic chemicals in them.
Tulsa also has an e-waste recycling facility, Natural Evolution, where residents can drop off devices or have them picked up. In Edmond, residents can have e-waste picked up from their home through a company called Republic Services.
Oklahoma City has hosted e-waste recycling events through its Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center, though those services are typically only available to residents who can show water bills as proof of eligibility. Norman hosted a free e-waste disposal event in May that required no proof of residence, and another event is scheduled in north Norman on Saturday.
Riley said e-waste recycling poses a major challenge in rural areas, where illegal dumping is an even bigger issue.
RELATED
‘Economic opportunity’: Brownfields grant seeks greener pastures in northeast OKC by Matt Patterson
“One of the biggest expenses to any recycling program is transportation,” Riley said. “So the metropolitan areas have a better opportunity to recycle, just because there’s more density there and you don’t have to transfer material a long way to get it where it needs to go. So the rural areas are a little bit of a disadvantage because of that.”
Foley said illegal dumping — like the kind exposed by 60 Minutes when an American company was sending tons of e-waste to a “wasteland” in China — can give the e-waste industry a “bad rap.”
“There’s a lot of money to be had, and that means there’s a lot of people that jump into the business and want to make a quick buck on, you know, gold and silver and that kind of thing,” Foley said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to deal with all the junk, too. You’ve got to deal with all the stuff no one wants to deal with.”
Riley said recycling and reusing devices is the best option for the environment.
“It’s an opportunity for manufacturers to get cheaper materials,” he said. “I mean, think about the cost of metal and refining and getting the metal that you would use to make products. It’s a lot easier to do it if it’s already there and can be recovered from an old device.”
Foley said age is the biggest criteria for judging a device’s reuse potential.
“If you have a 20-year-old device, you know, it’s probably not going to update. It’s probably not going to be supported by any of the newer softwares. And then, separate from that, condition. If someone dropped their phone and ran it over with a car, it’s probably going to get recycled right now,” Foley said. “Let’s just say an iPhone updates the current iOS, gets all the security updates still, but it’s scratched. Well, that stuff’s fixable.”
