What is E-Waste?

Australia is one of the few developed nations still allowing E-waste to be dumped in landfill, posing an environmental threat to humans and wildlife.

E-waste or electronic waste is everything from desktops, laptops, computer mice, monitors, printer, fax machines to network and memory cards, cables and disks.

The practice of dumping E-waste poses a threat because of hazardous materials used in constructing a computer. Everything from plastic parts which contain brominated fire retardants, to the wide range of hazardous metals used including lead, cadmium, arsenic, nickel, copper, zinc and selenium all pose an environmental threat if leached into the groundwater.

The proper disposal of E-waste has become a major issue due to the large number of computers Australians now buy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics show that each year Australians buy more than 2.4 million new computers, and estimates that in the next two years alone Australians will replace 9 million computers, 5 million printers and 2 million scanners.

The appropriate way to dispose of these computers is to send them to be recycled, where they are separated into its various components of metals, plastics, cables, glass circuit boards and batteries. On average a computer is 32% ferrous metals, 23% plastic, 18% non-ferrous metals, 15% glass and 12% electronic boards.

After being sorted the various components are sent to specialised companies to be further refined so they can used for other products including new computers.