Trashy Side of Industrial Revolution 4.0
Advances in digital technology development have pushed consumption of electronics and electrical goods, which has in turn increased electronic waste. However, the attention of relevant parties regarding environmental damage from such waste remains minimal.
The discourse on the utilization of digital technology has thus far neglected the dark side of the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0, namely electronic waste.
Advances in digital technology development have pushed consumption of electronics and electrical goods, which has in turn increased electronic waste. However, the attention of relevant parties regarding environmental damage from such waste remains minimal.
Electronic waste
Electronic waste comprises electronics and electrical goods, including all assembly components, which are no longer usable, as they are either damaged or outdated. Electronic waste includes televisions, radios, washing machines, AC units, various lamps (incandescent, halogen, neon and LED) and information and communications technology, such as computers and cellphones.
Global E-Waste Monitor 2017 showed that the world had 44.7 million tons of electronic waste in 2016, equal to 4,500 Eiffel towers or 6.1 kilograms of e-waste per capita. With a growth rate of 4-5 percent, the amount of e-waste is estimated to reach 49.8 million tons in 2018 and 52.2 million tons (6.8 kg per capita) in 2021. Indonesia was the ninth-largest e-waste contributor in 2016, with a total e-waste of 1.3 million tons, around 4.9 kg per capita.
Indonesia can only gather 75 percent of the e-waste it produces. Used electronics are often discarded without being separated from other waste. Trash collectors usually sort out reusable e-waste and just discard the rest. The discarded e-waste often piles up or is burnt at landfills, leading to environmental pollution. Heavy metals in e-waste, including mercury, cadmium, tin, americium, chrome, iron, lead, silver, sulfur and copper, are hazardous and will have far-ranging effects if exposed to water, soil or air.
Sorted e-waste is usually manually processed to obtain valuable materials or dissolved to produce composite materials. Workers in e-waste collection and processing are often exposed to hazardous materials with adverse health effects that can lead to diseases like anemia, kidney damage and cancer. Reckless e-waste management may be financially costly, if we take tackling workers’ health problems into consideration.
Government Regulation (PP) No. 101/2014 on the management of hazardous and toxic materials lists e-waste as hazardous material. However, the regulation has yet to specifically regulate proper systems to reduce, store, collect, transport, use and process e-waste.
Extension of responsibility
The main principle of e-waste management is to regulate the parties responsible throughout the electronics supply chain. The responsibilities of producers or distributors are usually limited to delivering products to consumers. A traditional sense of responsibility only requires producers to sell their products, without any consideration for managing them past their expiration dates. Extended producer responsibility needs to encompass the products’ life cycle, from production to expiration, including recall, recycle and final disposal procedures.
Extended responsibility must not be shouldered by the producers alone. It should be a collective responsibility that also involves consumers. The e-waste management cost can be included in the sales price and producers’ budgets. Extended responsibility also involves e-waste fund management bodies that get their revenue from producers and consumers seeking to dispose of their e-waste.
After finding that producers and informal businesses are reluctant to participate in e-waste collection and processing, the Indian government fixed its e-waste regulation based on extended producer responsibility in September 2016. These fixes include establishing targets based on the number of products sold and audits on the products’ lifetime, collection, transportation and storage.
All producers and importers are required to arrange plans for extended producer responsibility on the basis of their sales. These plans must be approved by the authorities. The government can revoke the licenses of producers who fail to obtain approval before certain time limits.
Integrated management
Two schemes are available to speed up e-waste management in Indonesia. First is extended producer responsibility on physical supply chain, including in funding. Second is e-waste management in government agencies and regional administrations based on the life cycle of electronic assets.
The government is responsible for issuing regulations that require producers and factories of electronic goods to manage their e-waste in order to prevent environmental pollution. Producers of electronic goods are required to collect their e-waste and are incentivized to produce environmentally-friendly products and to reduce the environmental impact of e-waste disposal. The public can dispense their e-waste at official collection points available in regions. A transparent mechanism facilitates e-waste collection from government offices, industries and households.
The government must also assign an agency to develop a system and database of e-waste movement, including products that are no longer used and will be waste. The adoption of large-scale e-waste processing technology will push the establishment of business units that mine e-waste for reusable materials, which will create jobs in cities.
Regulations must also be formulated on the creation of an e-waste fund management body, which collects funds from producers to support e-waste collection and processing. If such a task is delegated to a state-owned enterprise, this may boost state revenue in line with Law No. 18/2008 on waste management.
The government’s commitment to create integrated e-waste management can begin in implementing proper ICT asset management in the e-governance system (SPBE) on central and local government bodies. Asset management, including their destruction, will help manage non-productive assets and reduce asset management and storage costs.
E-governance is not only about advancing business procedures, sharing data between agencies and using ICT applications. It also involves integrated asset management. The government can assign a state-owned enterprise to manage e-waste in the SPBE implementation. An e-waste management program in the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 is a manifestation of the government’s responsibility in preserving the environment and protecting it from hazardous and toxic materials.
Togar M. Simatupang, Professor, Bandung Institute of Technology; Rector, Del Institute of Technology