VIRTUOUS CIRCLE

As director of the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, mechanical engineer Michael Pecht devotes a portion of his time to investigating an emerging global epidemic: electronic waste, or e-waste. Last year, his group placed GPS tracking tags on old computers abou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inASEE prism Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 20 - 25
Main Author Grose, Thomas K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington American Society for Engineering Education 01.11.2020
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Subjects
Cellular telephones
Computer industry
Computers
Consumers
Design
Developing countries
Electronic Equipment
Electronic waste
Engineering
Engineering research
Engineers
FEATURES
Landfill
LDCs
Lie detectors
Life cycle engineering
Magnets
Mechanical engineers
Metals
Recycling
Remanufacturing
Research funding
Roadsides
Sanitation
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Summary:As director of the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, mechanical engineer Michael Pecht devotes a portion of his time to investigating an emerging global epidemic: electronic waste, or e-waste. Last year, his group placed GPS tracking tags on old computers about to be picked up for recycling, None ever made it to the facility, Some were shipped to Spain, others to Florida, The little lie detectors even revealed one load that got dumped on the roadside near a truck stop. Pecht laments that making money on e-waste recycling is so difficult that many operators just ship the junk somewhere else and hope the problem gets resolved. They just try to not get it into local landfills to avoid detection.
ISSN:1056-8077
1930-6148