Tare down

E-Waste

Task 1 essay

As newer and better technology is released and made more and more accessible, the issue of e-waste grows. In many ways I feel that this is driven by the fact new technology is often expensive, and although much of it only remains relevant for around 5 years, we grow very attached to our technology. In particular our phones and computers. As a society we are fully reliant on new technology to stay informed and function within the world. For these reasons I feel that the emotional connection we have towards our technology and the things that let us use that technology i.e. the chargers we plug them into, have created a paradox where we don’t need them, but we don’t necessarily want to throw them away. In my personal experience this has not necessarily been a major part of my household waste, however it is something that seemed true for many people which I discovered through my research into household e-waste. My definition for E-waist going into this research was; Any electronic object that used batteries or was plugged into a wall socket that no longer serves its purpose best, has been replaced, no longer has a day to day use or is broken beyond repair. This definition is important as some of the objects I consider e-waste in my life still work, however they may have been replaced by a newer or better model or device or become obsolete i.e. old iPod’s, DVD players and some connectors and cables which I have had no need for. Much of the broken e-waste in my house came in the form of old ear bud headphones and frayed wires which did still work, but were too dangerous to use. This showed me two extremes of how my household valued these products, broken old earbuds were disposable and the effort to pick them up seemed too dignifying for the object and the computer charger cost so much to replace that throwing out the old dangerous one felt uncomfortable.

In general however, almost all of the old electronics we had still worked and served some kind of a purpose in our lives. Most e-waste wasn’t kept beyond its use and anything with missing parts was generally thrown away automatically. Partly I think this was due to living in small spaces and having moved around a lot, however I think it is also due to my mother being incredibly carful with electronics. As an example of this, we have a 2008 MacBook pro that still works and is still used and she if often the one to use and find purposes for the old electronics. During my research I decided that I didn’t have enough e-waste at home to fully explore the extent to which it e-waste can be a huge problem in the house. For this reason I went to my partners place to explore the kinds of e-waste they have. During this part of my reserch I discovered that their family held onto almost everything that at some point worked. There were tubs of old headlights, cameras and cords and shelfs of thing to be disassembled or ripped up for parts. The difference, I believe was that his family owned their house and had lived there for over 20 years. To add to this, my partner has an older brother who was a teenager around 2007 – 2014 and he consumed much of the technology produced around this time. A lot of this old technology was something I hadn’t ever encountered, such as Cas Calculators from 2011. For my research posters I used different backgrounds on the items I photographed to indicate which house they were from. The use of the wood was to indicate the feeling of stability and longevity. The white background reflected my own home and the idea of newness. This felt like the simplest and most literal way to express the difference between the two worlds that this technology comes from.