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

这个生物复杂性在环境/材料使用：科学，工程和社会项目的目标是开发一个良好的综合模型，解决消费者，政策，工业和环境问题与电子废物管理，特别关注的产品，如手机。该研究项目将采取综合方法，将选择性材料的使用与社会约束相结合，包括实现可持续电子废物管理目标所需的消费者行为和政府政策考虑。该项目的广泛影响是重大的，因为在这个电子时代，人们依赖多种电子设备来科普现代社会的步伐，家庭拥有多种手机、电脑、相机、视频游戏机、便携式音乐录音机、计算器和个人数字助理。 这些电子产品可能含有许多有害物质，如有毒金属和溴化阻燃剂，最终可能损害环境和人类健康。社会面临越来越多的电子废物问题。设计电子废物管理战略已被证明是一项极其复杂和多方面的挑战。自上而下的政策，如欧盟和日本的政策的有效性是值得怀疑的，因为环境法最多只具有区域影响力，而电子产品市场是全球性的。 该项目采用全面的自下而上的方法，由工程师，材料科学家，环境健康和政策科学家，经济学家和学生学员组成的多学科研究团队将开发指导环境友好型电子产品开发所需的定量建模工具。 以手机为例，我们的研究重点是优化三个因素的融合（1）识别不影响产品可靠性的具有成本效益的非危险材料组件（2）评估消费者对回收的偏好和为环保电子产品付费的意愿，以及（3）关于电子产品工程和电子废物管理中材料使用的跨越州和国家边界的有效监管政策的比较分析。该大学与当地科学博物馆Explorit之间的一项新合作将专注于为K-12学生创建项目，展示游戏，手机和其他消费电子产品目前如何影响废物流，并将让学生参与创建可持续的电子废物项目。

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.