What can be done to reduce the negative impact of mining and processing mineral resources and concerns over resource scarcity?
Interactive Study Guide
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Guiding Question 19.5
What can be done to reduce the negative impact of mining and processing mineral resources and concerns over resource scarcity?
Why You Should Care
Metals and minerals are vital parts of life today. Any hope of decreasing the impact of mining and processing must incorporate recycling, redesign, and reducing demand. Industry creates products using these metals, and redesigning how much material goes into them (lighter, thinner products use less raw material) has financial incentives (costs less to make). Government can also create regulations that include best practices to minimize waste and pollution during mining, refining, and smelting.
Depending on the final use, recycling can be easy (steel, iron, and aluminum) or difficult (separating rare earth metals from e-wastes). Recycling and reducing demand both rely on consumers for action and that requires attention and value by the public at large. As mineral resources become rarer, cost should go upward and this should spur recycling and decrease demand. But any recycling decreases the social and environmental impacts of mining. In the meantime, educating consumers about the potential value of the metals that are landfilled may be the best bet.
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Aluminum recycling is so efficient that recycling will return a can to the store in how long?
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Which production steps does aluminum recycling skip?
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Which environmental costs are NOT avoided by recycling?
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4.
Which of the following represents new “best practices” for mining?
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Which of the following is TRUE about e-waste recycling?
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Keeping consumers from upgrading electronics would be which of the "3R"s?
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Which of the following are NOT examples of redesigning products to use new materials?
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Which of the following products CANNOT be recycled?
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9.
What challenges would an e-cycling program have in your state?
Educating consumers about what can and cannot be recycled would be the first challenge. Next would be finding incentives to recycle rather than just throw away the electronics. Finally, your program would want to combat the tendency to recycle as an excuse to upgrade—that would defeat the point of using less metal!
Short-Answer Questions
Most retailers that sell electronics advertise programs to recycle electronic waste when consumers upgrade to a newer model. EPA statistics list that, when the time came to dispose of them, only 8% of mobile devices, 17% of televisions, and 38% of computers were recycled in 2009. According to Greenpeace International, some 50–80% of those that were recycled were sent overseas to Africa, India, and East Asia. Once there, the e-waste is often piled and picked over by low-wage laborers (including children) that often lack safety protection and are paid by the pound of metals that are recovered.
Exporting hazardous waste (like the heavy metals in e-waste) is prohibited by the Basel Convention of 1989, an international treaty that prohibits exporting listed materials and metals from developed to developing countries. The United States is one of only three nations (Haiti and Afghanistan are the other two nations) that have not ratified the treaty. The primary reason against ratification was the legal view that the export ban would be too restrictive—the product of two decades of lobbying by waste groups and the State Department.
1) As the nation with the largest consumption and disposal of e-waste, which makes more sense: sending e-waste to developing countries to keep it out of landfills in our country, OR keeping the e-waste in our country in stockpiles until national recycling arises?
2) If your town’s e-waste program sent e-waste to a developing country, would you recommend that the program be discontinued until e-waste exports end? Or is it more important to foster good recycling behavior by residents?
3) Imagine that the United States ratifies the Basel Convention tomorrow and the large-scale recycling of e-wastes in the United States is now required. What would a successful advertising campaign have to do in order to convince people to recycle all of their electronics?
1) It is a question of the weight of the greatest good versus greatest harm. From a human-health standpoint, banning exports benefits the most people by removing a health threat in developing countries. From a metal-recycling standpoint, it makes sense to get the e-waste out of the landfills. Since most of these metals are not in critically short supply, human health probably has the greater value over any significant recycling.
2) This is a difficult question— consumer participation in recycling makes the concept of recycling your old electronics rather than landfilling very valuable indeed. Raising the issue of e-waste recycling being done in other countries under unsafe conditions could generate enough political issues that the ratification of the Basel Convention could become important enough to finally happen. Perhaps the best middle ground would be the programs being put on hold for the short term, and waste stockpiled until safer conditions could be arranged.
3) There are lessons learned from other recycling campaigns that would be helpful here. The first step has to be educating the consumer that recycling is part of the process of purchasing any new electronic. Setting up the habit of recycling when upgrading would be key as well, perhaps with a deposit on new purchases (like new tires, car batteries, and glass bottles in some states). The second step could be advertising the location of and ease of getting to a recycling center or drop-off. The easiest location may be at the point of purchase or when an appliance is dropped off at the home. Finally, consumers could be educated by promoting success stories and demonstrating the positive effects of recycling on people today—both here and abroad.
