Sustainable Electronics Initiative Blog

With the new year comes a new focus for the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI). SEI continues to be a consortium dedicated to the development and implementation of a more sustainable system for designing, producing, remanufacturing, and recycling electronic devices. Members of the consortium include academia, non-profit organizations, government agencies, manufacturers, designers, refurbishers and recyclers. Over the next several months, our efforts will be geared more toward conducting and sponsoring research, as well as integrating principles of sustainability into the curricula and educational experiences of engineers, industrial designers, computer scientists and others involved in the design, manufacture and consumption of electronics products. We will be moving away from the previous paid membership structure to a more open network of like-minded individuals, organizations, and corporations who believe in working together to stem the tide of e-waste production through innovation and systems thinking. Bear with us over the next few months as we work to update our web site to reflect this slight shift.  Joy Scrogum, Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist for the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), will be assuming responsibilities as Education Coordinator for SEI. Nancy Holm, ISTC Sponsored Research Program Coordinator, will serve as the SEI Research Coordinator.

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), the host agency for SEI, is located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and therefore well positioned to work with the academic community to address electronic product life cycle issues and sustainability, as well as to involve students in such considerations via internships and research projects. More information on possible student opportunities will be available on the SEI web site and blog as details are finalized. UIUC students and professors interested in participating in SEI activities should contact Joy Scrogum. Professors from other colleges or universities interested in, or already incorporating sustainability into their curricula, are also encouraged to contact Ms. Scrogum regarding potential collaboration. During the Spring 2012 semester, ISTC will be hosting a few seminars on sustainable electronics and for Fall 2012, ISTC is planning a full series of seminars on this topic. We hope to offer these seminars as webinars to increase the reach of the information presented. Again, watch our site for details in the coming months. Researchers or industry representatives interested in sharing information about their sustainable electronics projects should contact Nancy Holm.

SEI and ISTC will once again be hosting the International E-Waste Design Competition in 2012, though past participants should note that the registration period has been moved from the spring semester to fall (September 1, 2012-November 1, 2012). The shift in timing is meant to allow increased outreach and promotion of the competition, and allow more professors to incorporate the competition into course syllabi for the fall. Participants are asked to explore solutions to either remediate the existing e-waste problem or prevent e-waste generation in the future. The spirit of this competition is to prompt the industrialized world to dialogue about product designs for environmentally responsible green computing and entertainment. The goals of this competition are to learn about ways to reuse e-waste for new and productive means, explore ideas for how to address e-waste problems, and contribute to the body of knowledge that advances the practice of environmentally responsible product design for current and future computing technology products. Awards, jurors, and other details for this year’s competition are still in the planning stage, but check the competition site for updates in the coming months. Prize money totaling $20,000 was awarded to six teams and three honorable mentions at the conclusion of last year’s competition, with prize money contributed by corporate sponsors including DELL and Walmart. You can view the winning videos for the 2011 competition on the competition web site or the SEI YouTube Channel. Contact Joy Scrogum for more information or with questions related to the design competition.

Those of us at SEI look forward to a year full of collaboration, innovation, and steps toward sustainable solutions for electronics manufacturing and waste management. Happy New Year!

Registration is now open for this year’s International E-Waste Design Competition. College students and recent graduates are encouraged to submit their ideas for products or services that prevent e-waste generation through life-cycle considerations (E-Waste Prevention Category) or that incorporate e-waste components into a new and useful item (E-Waste Reuse Category). See the rules posted on the competition web site for complete details regarding eligibility and descriptions of project categories. One entry per person or team is allowed. Students are not allowed to be on more than one team, but students are allowed to submit a project with one team and additionally submit one individual project.

As part of their entry, participants will upload an online “video commercial” for their project to YouTube. (See “Registration” on the competition web site for complete entry requirements.) Expert jurors from Fortune500 companies, professional organizations, government agencies, universities and non-profits will award monetary prizes  to individuals or teams in each category, for a total of six prizes. Honorary mention awards may be given at the discretion of the judges. Competition sponsors include leading manufacturers, retailers and professional organizations.

Submissions are due by 4:59 P.M. Central time on April 1, 2011. Awards will be presented at the International E-Waste Video Festival on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a date to be announced. Winning videos will be screened at the festival. Winning videos from last year’s competition are available on the competition web site. It should be noted, that the definition of “e-waste” has been refined and strictly specified for the purposes of this year’s competition to avoid confusion and to be more in line with the general idea of what e-waste entails as held in the United States.

A University of Illinois News Bureau article on the competition is available here. For more information on the competition, visit the competition site or contact Joy Scrogum at 217-333-8948.

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative has added an exciting section to our website – SEI Resources (http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/resources/index.cfm)! This page has been under construction for quite some time, and we are very happy to say that it is now running in full swing!

SEI Resources are collections of records for both online and hard copy material grouped by subject. This is much like an online filing cabinet of information related to greening the design, manufacture, reuse or recycling of electronic products. Relevant events, funding opportunities and archived questions and answers from the “Ask an Expert” service are also included. Within each broad subject are more specific, sub-categorized lists (for example, within the “Education” Resource section, you may select more specific resource lists related on “Case Studies,” “Consumer Education,” “Continuing Education,” etc.) to make browsing through the included information easier.

Each item listed within a Resource has a full record containing the item’s title, a brief abstract, a link to the item (if it is available online), date of publication, source and resource type. Price and ordering information are listed for hard copy items where available.

You may further customize your browsing experience by choosing to filter the information within each subject or sub-category by one or more “audience” types, which indicate the groups that might find a particular item of interest. For example, filtering by “Consumer Information” will pull up information on health risks, statistics, tips for prolonging the life of your electronics, how to recycle or donate used electronic products, information on greener product choices, etc. Filtering by “Manufacturing & Design” will narrow the list of results to items related to best practices, case studies, resources and research on various topics related to the manufacturing and sustainable design of electronic products. If you do not filter the items within a particular category by audience, you will see a list of all the references related to the subject. Filtering by audience is simply a way to narrow your results and make browsing through the items in our database easier.

The resources are updated with news and new resources on a regular basis, and our goal is to make this one of the most comprehensive resource sections regarding electronics design, manufacture, materials, distribution, collection, regulations, and much more. Be sure to check out the resources for recent news and reports. Happy researching!

Winners have been announced in the International E-Waste Competition.  The competition is part of the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The competition is designed to prompt the industrialized world to dialogue about product designs for environmentally responsible computing and entertainment. The goals of this competition are to learn about ways to re-use electronic waste (E-Waste) for new and productive means, explore new ideas of how to address E-Waste problems, and contribute to the body of knowledge that advances the practice of environmentally responsible product design.

The winners were announced at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), the coordinating agency for the Sustainable Electronics Initiative.  ISTC is part of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois.

The videos of the winning entrants were shown as a part of the International E-Waste Video Film Festival. The videos of the winning entries will be shown on the websites of the e-waste competition www.ewaste.illinois.edu, www.istc.illinois.edu, www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu, as well as SEI’s YouTube Channel.

Entries were judged in two categories: Technical/Geek and Artist/Designer. A total of 33 entries were submitted; 26 were in the Artist/Designer category, and 7 in the Technical/Geek category. Prizes were awarded for the top three projects within each category, along with two honorable mentions in the Artist/Designer category. The first, second, and third place winners will receive $5000, $3000, and $1000 monetary prizes, respectively. In addition, honorable mentions will receive $500. The total amount of money to be given out during the International E-Waste Competition is close to $20,000, which has been made possible through generous contributions by several sponsors, including Dell and Wal-mart.

Technical/Geek Category Winners

First Place

• Team: Port-e-garden
• Project name: Port-e-garden
• School: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Video

Second Place

• Team: Chaps
• Project name: BioGrow
• School: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Video

Third Place

• Team: CSULB Studio Group #1
• Project name: The Pure Drive Home Automation and Computing System
• School: California State University, Long Beach CA
• Video

Artist/Designer Category Winners

First Place

• Team: revOlve
• Project name: revOlve
• School: Rochester Institute of Technology, New York
• Video

Second Place

• Team: eLiminators
• Project name: E-volve
• School: California State University, Long Beach CA
• Video

Third Place

• Team: eMotion
• Project name: eMotion
• School: California State University, Long Beach CA
• Video

Honorable Mention

• Team: CSULB ID 2011
• Project name: The Personalized E-Waste Recycling Bin
• School: California State University, Long Beach CA

Honorable Mention

• Team: CSULB ID Team
• Project name: E-Responsibility
• School: California State University, Long Beach CA

The competition was started at UIUC in the fall of 2009. In 2010, the competition was expanded to an international base, where students from all over the globe were able to submit their projects and a 2-minute video online. Each project was judged on their project description and video.

The international scope of the competition was evident through students who submitted entries from various states in the US (Illinois, Minnesota, California, New York) and other countries (Cyprus, Canada, Australia, Turkey and South Korea). The jury of the competition included a variety of experts, including

• Vicky Matranga, Design Program Coordinator of International Housewares Association;
• Clive Roux, CEO of the Industrial Designers Society of America;
• Joe Jasinski, Global Senior Industrial Design Manager at Dell, Inc.;
• Steve Belletire, Design Area Head at Southern Illinois University;
• Sam Al-Basha, Engineer at the IL Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity;
• Chris Newman, Materials and Management Branch of US EPA;
• Mike Tibbs, Sr. Director of Information Systems Division Compliance at Wal-mart;
• Roger L. Franz, Engineering Manager at Motorola;
• and Will Larkin, Director of Vendor Management Office and Star Complex at Wal-mart.

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), part of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), is hosting their first electronics and sustainability symposium. The event will be he held on February 23 and 24, 2010 at the I-Hotel and Conference Center.

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Electronic waste, or “E-Waste,” generated by computers, TVs, cameras, printers, and cell phones, is a growing global issue. According to the U.S. EPA, Americans currently own nearly 3 billion electronic products and as new products are purchased, obsolete products are stored or discarded at alarming rates. About two-thirds of the electronic devices removed from service are still in working order. However, only about 15% of this material is recycled while the vast majority is disposed in landfills. The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), is pleased to announce the International E-Waste Design Competition, in which participants will explore solutions to this problem at the local level and beyond, by using e-waste components to create appealing and useful products. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), hosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), is pleased to announce the availability of its online “Ask an Expert” service for the submission of questions related to electronics and their environmental impacts.

Questions related to electronic waste, or “e-waste” issues, sustainable electronics design, improving electronics manufacturing processes and related topics can be submitted via an online form available at http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/services/askexpert.cfm. SEI staff members will provide one hour of free Internet and/or literature searching related to your sustainable electronics question. Also provided is input from ISTC staff scientists and/or referrals to external contacts for further information on technical questions. Responses can be expected within a week (usually within 1-2 business days). Citizens, organizations, government agencies, businesses, non-profit groups, and academic institutions are all invited to use this free service.

The responses obtained from the Ask an Expert service are meant for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as endorsements by SEI, ISTC or any affiliated organization. Responses are also meant to be starting points for inquirers rather than definitive answers, advice or prescriptions for action. Inquirers must draw their own conclusions based upon the information provided.

In the near future, questions and answers received via this service will be archived and searchable on the SEI web site, www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu. An extensive collection of resources is also under development for the web site, and archived Ask an Expert questions and answers will be integrated into relevant resource collections.

According to the U.S. EPA, Americans own nearly three billion electronic products and continually purchase new ones to replace those deemed “obsolete,” even though about two-thirds of the devices are still in working order. As designers, manufacturers and the general public are becoming more aware and concerned about this issue, SEI’s Ask an Expert service will be one way to address concerns and assist in more sustainable practices.

SEI is a consortium dedicated to the development and implementation of a more sustainable system for designing, producing, remanufacturing, and recycling electronic devices. Members of the consortium include academia, non-profit organizations, government agencies, manufacturers, designers, refurbishers, and recyclers. Specific elements of the SEI include programs for research, education, data management, and technical assistance. SEI conducts collaborative research; facilitates networking and information exchange among participants; promotes technology diffusion via demonstration projects; and provides forums for the discussion of policy and legislation.

For more information on SEI, visit www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu or contact Dr. Tim Lindsey, Associate Director of ISTC, at 217-333-8955 . For more information on the Ask an Expert service contact Laura Barnes, ISTC librarian at 217-333-8957.

ISTC is a unit of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

SEI welcomes new staff member Aida Williams. In this post, Aida talks about her training as an engineer, how the concept of sustainability was dealt with in her experience as a student, and ideas for how engineering programs could foster the type of thinking needed to approach sustainability issues.

Sustainability is a term used often in today’s technical professions, and it is most certainly a buzz word heard around college campuses. I am a recent graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology, shortly referred to as Georgia Tech. There, I majored in mechanical engineering, where I received a good education at a top-notch school. But how much did this education prepare me for my current line of work dealing with sustainability and e-waste?
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