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Can e-waste stream be slowed?
November 1, 2007

Should you fix or ditch broken electronic products? As I reported earlier, it’s often impossible to get portable consumer electronics gadgets repaired. But in today’s Wall Street Journal, Suzanne Barlyn reports some surprising success in avoiding having to buy new DVD players, cameras, games, and MP3 players when the old ones went kaput. The goal, she said, was not only to save money but to cut down on the 2.6 million tons of electronic goods, or e-waste, that Americans discard in a year. Unfortunately, however, in many of the cases she describes, the manufacturers simply sent her a replacement—not the repaired original device—thereby doing nothing to ameliorate the e-waste stream.

Posted by Rick Nelson on November 1, 2007 | Comments (0)