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from Natural Life Magazine, January/February
2010 by Wendy Priesnitz Q: My family of two adults and three teenagers recently moved to a new home. As we were cleaning out closets and packing boxes, we collected a total of nine cell phones that we are no longer using. I just threw them in the trash as they surfaced. But the other day, someone in my office told me that was a terrible thing to do and said we should have recycled them. I recall that, at the time, I briefly wondered about how to do that but, in the chaos of moving, it was just one more thing I didn’t have time for. Did I commit an “environmental sin”? A: Yes, you should most definitely have taken the time to recycle those cell phones. The potential human health and environmental impacts of cell phone waste are grim. Cell phones are considered hazardous waste because they contain lead, copper, mercury, cadmium and arsenic. If they are thrown in the trash and sent to incinerators or landfills, environmental contamination can occur from combustion and leaching into soil and groundwater. Many of the materials found in cell phones are also on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) list of persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs). Because PBTs accumulate in fatty tissue of humans and animals, the toxins are gradually concentrated, putting those at the top of the food chain at the greatest risk, especially children. According to the EPA, “PBTs are associated with a range of adverse human health effects, including damage to the nervous system, reproductive and developmental problems, cancer and genetic impacts.” And, since it’s estimated that there is now one cell phone for every two persons on Earth, that’s a lot of danger! Because cell phones have crossed the divide between rich and poor, as well as all national and ethnic barriers, their impact on the environment is global. In some countries, it is commonplace to . . . To read the rest of this article and thousands of others in Natural Life, subscribe to Natural Life Magazine's digital edition. Wendy Priesnitz is Natural Life's editor and a journalist with 33 years of experience. |
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