5.2 Environmental Issues Flashcards
What are hard disks made out of?
Aluminium
Steel
Fibreglass
Plastic
What are gaming controllers made out of?
Plasric
Rubber
Lithium
What are usb cables made out of?
Copper
Plastic
What are CPU’s made out of?
Fibreglass
Aluminium
Gold
What are heat sinks made out of?
Aluminium
What are RAM’s made out of?
Fibreglass
Gold
List all the components on a motherboard
Power connector Northbridge Southbridge RAM slots PCI Express slots PS/2 slots VGA/HDMI Network socket NVME SATA
Give the lifecycle of a smartphone
Mining for raw material Manufacture Purchase and Use Recycling centre Reprocessing plant
What environmental damage doesna phone’s life cycle cause?
Contamination and erosion directly caused by digging machines
Un-recycled plastic from phones damage environment
Gas and coal are needed to power factories for electricity for batteries and machinery
Give some non renewable materials
Plastic Steel Gold Aluminium Fibreglass Diesel
Give some renewable resoueces
Water
Trees
What problems can lithium batteries cause when recycling?
They can catch fire and be hard to recover
Why is sealing batteries into devices a problem for the environment?
Batteries degrade over time and this means they can’t be replaced easily decreasing the performance of the phone causing people to buy new phones discarding their old phones.
How much waste in the UK is thrown each year?
1.6 million tonnes
What is the percentage of electronics thrown away that are still working or have minor issues?
23
How much gold does each mobile phone contain?
24mg
Worldwide throwaway for gold silver and steel
300 tons of gold (9 billion quid)
1000 tons of silver (400 million quid)
16 million tons of steel (6.5 billion)
What is fairphone?
A modular phone design which is designed so that the user can replace the parts inside it
What are the benefits of fairphone?
Phone lasts longer and creates less waste
What are some changeable parts of fairphones?
Battery, vibration mechanism, rear camera
Give some impacts of e-waste on the environment
Very harmful to humans and the environment if not processed correctly
Lithium batteries can catch fire and may be hard to recover
If components cost too much to recover they go to landfill
Mining materials damages the environment
Give some ways to reduce the impact of e-waste?
Make devices that can be fixed with modular components
Use removable batteries
Use modern recycling facilities
