591 words Humanity’s insatiable appetite for energy created the climate-change crisis. The same appetite is now impelling us into an energy transition which carries its own tremendous costs. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables is an improvement, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s necessary, but not sufficient as a solution. To create a truly sustainable … Read more
426 words One morning in October of 1971, a six-year-old girl named Simone Langenhoff was riding her bike down a road in the southern Netherlands. Suddenly, a careless driver whipped around a blind corner and crashed into her. In an instant, Simone became one of some 450 children killed by automobiles in the Netherlands that … Read more
676 words Manufacturers argued that their restrictions were necessary to safeguard trade secrets and to protect people from hurting themselves by messing with their machines. “Apple told Nebraska lawmakers that the bill would turn the state into a ‘Mecca for bad actors,’ predicting that hackers and other nefarious figures would flock to the state to … Read more
497 words What’s good for consumers and the planet is not always good for corporations, of course. Apple makes money if you buy a new iPhone; it makes nothing if you get your old iPhone fixed at an independent repair shop. That’s why companies of all sorts have, for decades, discouraged repair and encouraged customers … Read more
355 words Sooner or later, all electronic products will stop working. Some part will get fried. Some internal system will slip out of whack. Entropy will inevitably collect its due. What do you do then? If the product in question is a car, no one would answer, “Recycle it and get a new one.” Recycling … Read more
554 words Li-Cycle’s original Kingston operation is relatively small, but it encompasses much of the battery recycling process. On the day of my visit, a truckload of consumer batteries from laptops, cell phones, and power tools has come in, delivered by a “recycling” company that picked them up from a big hardware store. It all … Read more
674 words Abubakar buys and sells all manner of e-waste, but he specializes in mobile phones. It’s a solid twenty-first-century business. All over the developing world, mobile phones have become as common as T-shirts. There is just shy of one registered mobile account for every single one of Nigeria’s 220 million people. “Everybody has a … Read more
332 words Digital e-waste is a uniquely troublesome form of trash, because if you just dump those gizmos in a landfill, toxic chemicals can leach out of them into the soil and water. In rich countries, most people have no easy way to recycle their old Samsung Galaxy phones, Xbox controllers, and other devices, so … Read more
243 words Most businesses that call themselves metal recyclers don’t actually turn old junk into new metal. They are primarily collectors, aggregators. They process the junk, to varying degrees, and sort it into piles big enough to sell on down the chain to someone who can take it to the next stage. This is exactly … Read more
377 words. The reverse supply chain is like a bizarro mirror version. The raw materials at the start of this backward chain are finished products: hot water heaters, car bodies, coffee makers, computers. That’s why metal recycling is sometimes called “urban mining.” Like ore, those products contain valuable metals that are mixed with, bonded to, … Read more
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