Attitude and Habits

Towards E-waste

Saraf, N. 2015, THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR INSATIABLE TECHNOLOGY

APPETITES, Rethinking Prosperity, viewed on 26th October 2015,
< http://rethinkingprosperity.org/the-consequences-of-our-insatiable-technologyappetites/ >

Introduction
The ongoing development and rapid advancement of technology in the world has
lead to a serious global issue of e-waste (Ni et al 2010). The rapidly increasing ewaste contains not only a large quantity of toxic and hazardous materials but ewaste also contains valuable substances (Wang et all 2012). E-waste is posing a
challenge in most developed world and it is alarmingly bad in developing world
(Premalatha et al 2014). This report uses the survey, Rubbish Concerned which was
designed to gain knowledge and know about Insearch students behaviour and
attitudes towards E-waste problem.

Secondary Research
Lewis (2012) claims that electronic waste or otherwise known as E-waste is usually
made up of television, computers and printers, mobile phones which contain toxic
elements. He highlights that e-waste concerns only emerged from 2009, which
resulted in awareness in people about health and environmental concern that lead to
allocation of E-waste disposal sites, from which 80%of devices were found working
but the technology was outdated. He also states that that high consumer demand for
latest technology is leading to a cheap mass production of electronic goods which is
causing a significant amount of electronic waste in the environment. Premalatha et al
(2014) discussed that only a few developed countries are recycling the e-waste they
generate in a scientific way, whereas in other developed countries the e-waste is
sent to landfills or are exported to other developing countries where it is recycled or
dumped without any concerns to environment or human health. Although various

government, non-government and even citizen group are coming together to tackle
the issues of e-waste, only few of their measure have been successful in developed
countries.

Purpose and design of Survey

The purpose of the survey Rubbish Concerned was to get knowledge and analyse
the research question: What are the attitude and habits of Insearch students towards
e-waste and their ways of disposing the e-waste? Survey Monkey, an online survey
instrument was used to collect data and information for the research purpose. A
range of ten question was used for data collection. The question was designed for
the students to: identify their age group and their nationality, get their personal
opinions on the ways to dispose their e-waste, identifying their habits on the
changing electronic devices, awareness about e-waste dumping sites, opinions on
specified dumping sites, rank in the order of preference on way to dispose their old
phones, attitudes towards companies being responsible for e-waste and their
attitudes on e-waste (refer to Appendix A). On reflection, it would be have been a
much better to include a question that if they were given a choice to recycle their ewaste, would they be ready to recycle it, this question would help to analysis their
attitude on e-waste. The survey link was email to all the foundation students of
academic communication.

Results
The survey was responded by 22 people, out of which 78% were from the age group
of 16-19 years, 16% were from 20-30 years and 12% were from 30+ age group

Although we had varieties of respondent from different parts of the world, there were
a number of respondents from China. This report will analyse significant data from
the survey questions as a primary research.
In question 3, respondents were asked about their acceptable opinions for disposing
their mobile phones, to which most of them answered throwing it in a generic
recycling can. In question 4, when how often do respondents generate mobile phone
e-waste, the survey shows that 35% generate e-waste every year by switching to
new mobile. In question 5, respondents replied that they did not know about any ewaste dumping site. In question6, respondents replied that they think it is necessary
to dump e-waste on e-waste dumping sites. In question 7, 7 respondents skipped the
question and only 15 responded, most people preferred to put their old phones away
at the back of their drawers. In question 8, respondent thought it is companies
should be held responsible for its products e-waste, out of which 60% strongly agree
and rest agree to this. In question 9, 60% of respondents responded that they should
continue with using their old devices if they can still use it. In question 10,
respondents responded gave their opinion and views towards e-waste which was
positive.

Discussion
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Reference
Lewis, R. 2012, The waste you simply can't walk away from - OPINION &
ANALYSIS, Newcastle Herald (Australia), viewed on 19th October 2015,

<
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/resources/doc/nb/news/13E34B
DD90FFDA38?p=AUNB >

M. Premalatha, Tabassum-Abbasi, Tasneem Abbasi & S. A. Abbasi, 2014, The

Generation, Impact, and Management of E-Waste: State of the Art,
Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, viewed on 13th
November 2015,
<
http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/10643389.2013.7
82171 >
Ni. G et al, 2010, Environmental and human exposure to persistent halogenated
compounds derived from e-waste in China, Environmental Toxicology and
Chemistry, viewed on 12th November 2015,
< http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/doi/10.1002/etc.160/full >

Wang. F et all, 2012, The Best-of-2-Worlds philosophy: Developing local dismantling

and global infrastructure network for sustainable e-waste treatment in emerging
economies, Science direct, vol 32, no 11, viewed on 12 November 2015,
<
http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0956053X12
001407 >