BE/MUSES: Engineering Environmentally-Benign Electronics: Convergent Optimization of Materials Use, Consumer Participation, and Government Regulation

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The objective of this Biocomplexity in the Environment /Materials Uses: Science, Engineering and Society project is to develop a well-integrated model that addresses consumer, policy, industrial, and environmental issues associated with electronic waste management, with specific concern for products such as cell phones. This research project will take the comprehensive approach of integrating selective material use with societal constraints that include consumer behavior and government policy considerations necessary to achieve the goal of sustainable e-waste management. The broader impacts of this project are significant, given that in that this electronic age people depend on several electronic devices to cope with the pace of modern society, households own multiple cell phones, computers, cameras, video game players, portable music recorders, calculators, and personal digital assistants. These electronic products can contain many hazardous materials such as toxic metals and brominated flame-retardants that may ultimately impair the environment and human health. Society faces growing problems with electronic waste (e-waste). Designing strategies to manage e-waste has proven to be an extremely complex and multifaceted challenge. The effectiveness of top-down policies such as those in the EU and Japan is questionable because environmental laws have at best a regional influence whereas electronic product markets are global. This project takes a comprehensive bottom-up approach where the multidisciplinary research team of engineers, material scientists, environmental health and policy scientists, economists, and student trainees will develop quantitative modeling tools needed to guide the development of environmentally-benign electronic products. Using the cell phone as an example, our research focuses on optimizing the convergence of three factors (1) Identification of cost-effective non-hazardous material components that do not compromise product reliability (2) Assessment of consumer preferences for recycling and willingness to pay for environmentally-benign electronics, and (3) Comparative analysis of effective regulatory policies that transcend state and national boundaries regarding materials use in electronic product engineering and e-waste management. A new collaboration between the university and the local science museum, Explorit, will focus on creating programs for K-12 students that demonstrate how the games, cell phones and other consumer electronics currently impact the waste-stream and will engage students in creating sustainable e-waste projects.