Printers And Their Contribution to Electronic Waste

We are all very dependent on electronic products both at home and in the workplace. Just a few years ago, we were using typewriters instead of pens, and then it became printers instead of typewriters. Electronics are a normal part of our lives today. Years ago, we would have said that these contraptions would never replace normal handwriting, but today, millions of people use these contraptions for both personal and for business.

New products come out very quickly too due to these new technology manufacturing companies producing more and more of these new “breakthrough” discoveries, which also means they will want you to throw away your old “Last Year’s Model” printer and purchase that new and improved Laser Ink Jet 1000 printer that they recently just invented!

Now the ones who are guilty of wasting the most printers are businesses and organizations. In the workplace, once the printer starts malfunctioning, if the cost to repair it is just a little bit less than the cost of buying a new printer, then it is out with the old and in with the new!

Now let’s see… what usually happens to trash once we throw them away? The normal cases are that they are landfilled in a far away place where you don’t see or smell, or they are incinerated… oftentimes, these wastes do not even end up in your own country.

Did you know that approximately 80% of e-Waste generated in some developed countries end up exported to Asia? Despite some laws, which is called “anti dumping law”, in some countries that ban these “importation” activities, many people still sneak in these waste from overseas. A report from Toxic Trade News says that more than 50 containers filled with electronic “waste” travel everyday to Hong Kong, which is Asia’s port of entry. This is because the cost of disposing of these wastes is cheaper in less developed countries.

To show you how dire the situation of our environment is, on March 2013, Japan’s sky became yellow due to China’s sand and pollution flying all the way across the sea to the former’s country. How much longer do we have to wait to take action against e-waste disposal? Do we have to wait until the e-waste that we have accumulated is enough to affect us directly? Let’s do our part for the environment now, or else, one way or another, it will come back to haunt us in the future.