Like WEEE Man from the waste

He rises high into the sky. He looks intimidating, but possibly also a little sad, when he looks to the sky with his large, round lens eyes in despair, while he seemingly climbs out of a mountain of waste with his last strength on his skeletal legs – the WEEE Man.

WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. And WEEE Man is a product of these old electrical and electronic appliances. He is 7 metres tall and weighs 3.3 tonnes. This is the quantity of electronic and electrical waste that an average British household produces over the course of a lifetime and which often goes to landfill. This waste was used to make WEEE Man: mobile phones, MP3 players, lawn mowers and other items became bones and sinews, computer mice became teeth and satellite dishes became ears. Jointly, they make up a creature that, according to the artist Paul Bonomini, its creator, should point out the monster we create with our waste.

Many electrical appliances are also disposed of in Switzerland, one household generates an average of 4.2 tonnes in a lifetime (data correct for 2012). However, most appliances are recycled. Switzerland was the first country to roll out an electronic scrap recycling system in 1991. We can return our old appliances at collection points and retailers; the recycling costs are automatically levied when purchasing the product. The devices are broken down into their components and/or shredded at the recycling facilities to recover and reuse valuable raw materials.

But despite recycling, our lifestyle nevertheless has a major impact on the environment, as it is never possible to recover all raw materials in their entirety. Population growth and a better quality of life increase demand for ever new products and, accordingly, for a larger number of devices that are being thrown away at ever faster speeds: devices whose raw materials exist only in finite quantities and whose energy-intensive production and operation are a strain on the climate. This takes us to the limits of our habitat, and we need to take these limits seriously.

In our part of the world, we have already organised the compatible handling of raw materials at a rather high level. Accordingly, we thereby benefit above all from the great availability of state-of-the-art high-tech appliances. However, this does not yet apply for many countries. This often affects such countries, in particular, from which we procure our raw materials or where we ship our discarded products, be it directly as e-waste or under the cover of the recyclability on site. In these countries, raw materials are not only often mined in a way that is very toxic to health and the environment, but the frequently hazardous waste products are not handled properly. International regulations have been unable to have the desired effect here. This means that benefits and costs are by no means spread out evenly around the globe.

We therefore need to change the way we handle resources. This means rethinking our habits, changes to mining raw materials and producing and disposing of our products. Instead of mining ever new raw materials and disposing of them after use, we should, in fact, make products that have a long working life, and which we also indeed use for as long as possible and thereby keep them in a product cycle. This not only reduces waste, but also slows down raw materials consumption. What is more, it cuts the costs incurred during mining and disposal.

To achieve this, all parties need to collaborate – producers, designers, engineers, traders, consumers. The classic “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” approach is an initial, elementary step towards reducing our raw materials consumption significantly. This approach has recently been increased by a fourth R, which stands for Refuse. This refers to the fact that you should consider whether you actually need the new product or whether you could do without it before buying it. A new kind of products is needed to make reuse and recycling as efficient as possible. These products (again) produced at a high level of quality should be designed in such a way that they

• are durable;
• can be easily dismantled and repaired;
• can be supplemented instead of replaced.
  

If this is not feasible, it should be possible

• to reuse them for the same purpose in full or in components;
• to continue to use them; or at least
• to recycle them.

Rethinking our consumption or changing the product cycle can therefore achieve a lot. But what does all this mean for our WEEE Man? Will we have to wait as with the bird phoenix for another 1,000 years before he is reborn from his ash in a more ecologically compatible manner if possible? We probably do not have so much time. But his appearance reminds me a little of my nephew’s “Transformer” (see video), where an action hero transforms into a magnificent – hopefully energy-efficient – sports car. It would be great if such a transformation process and further use were not only to take place in children’s bedrooms in the future...

Good ideas and innovations are key if we want to change something about our systems. And art can be a medium for highlighting challenges. In focusTerra, we aim to raise awareness of current raw material topics with an exhibition. We are currently preparing a special exhibition on natural resources for 2015. We want to show the route from the raw material in the soil to the reusable material in our products. The exhibition should show the visitors the complexity of the raw materials cycle and call on them, us, to consider the role that we play in the use of raw materials. Because our contribution does not end at the sales counter with the purchase of a product, that is where our responsibility starts at the very latest.