Read the full story in Waste & Recycling News.
When researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied trash and where it ended up in 2009, one particular waste stream stood out to them: electronic waste.
“E-waste turned out to be very different in its disposal and process,” said MIT project leader Dietmar Offenhuber. “E-waste had much longer distances [to travel for disposal] than all other waste types that we looked at.”
So the researchers recently embarked on a follow-up to the original study. They found 500 volunteers in the Seattle area and tracked their e-waste from initial disposal. Participants were able to dispose of their e-waste in any fashion they sought fit.
However, the tracking devices implanted onto the e-waste had limited-battery life and the signal was relayed back to Boston from a cell phone, so items that left the country were unable to be tracked much farther than the United States border.