HUMAN PRACTICES
Our main learning objectives in human practices are to educate and to acknowledge the public on how electronic waste can be toxic and impose a large ecological impact. We interviewed stakeholders for their opinions on our project and how we may improve our design to suit their needs better. Some records are shown below.
This is one of our interviewees. Due to the pandemic, we could not get the chance to interview environmental organizations face to face, so many of them were done through phone calls. Luckily, we had a chance to interview an electrical appliance component purchaser, Mr Chan. Mr Chan gave us some good advice on how to improve our project. Our interviewees introduced us to frequently used disposal methods of e-waste, mainly landfilling, incineration and illegal disposal. However, most of the methods are not very effective and can cause huge damage to the environment. Thus, we integrated the idea of creating a recycling method that can eliminate these disadvantages into our project.
Integrating ideas
After conducting interviews and learning about the limitations of current electronic waste disposal methods, we integrated these ideas into our project and decided to design an environmentally friendly solution to the recycling of palladium. Instead of outsourcing to the recycling industry, electronic suppliers and the automobile industry can simply adapt to our solution to recycle palladium in the form of palladium nanoparticles.
Collecting opinions
We were also able to collect opinions from different local non-profit social enterprises. From most of their responses, we understood that cost is a major concern to recycling organizations. Thus, we aimed to design a cost-effective method for recycling palladium. Compared to conventional methods such as hydrometallurgy, using peptides prevent the use of expensive and strong reducing agents. Therefore, using biological means of recycling palladium by peptide reduction is better than hydrometallurgy, and would not damage the environment as much as hydrometallurgy at the same time.
Education
We aim to spread the correct way of disposing e-waste towards more people and show them the ecological impacts of illegal disposal of e-waste. We acknowledged our interviewees’ opinions on our project, and they supported our project greatly on the basis that it is cost-effective and help the environment. Therefore, we were extremely careful and, proceeded with our research after detailed consideration of bio-ethical concerns.
We conducted a survey about e-waste, which was answered by 113 respondents. The questions and survey results are enlisted below:
From the above graphs, we can see that 54.2% of survey participants would throw away their household appliances waste instead of recycling them, and 50.5% were not familiar with or did not care about e-waste recycling. This shows that the disinterest in this area is very serious. To make matters worse, 4.7% of the participants felt that the government should not support e-waste recycling services more, and 16.8% felt that it does not matter.
However, there is still a notable portion of participants that are into e-waste recycling services. In the first graph, 45.8% of the participants recycled their e-waste, and 49.6% of the participants knew about and understood methods of e-waste recycling, the former being 36.3% and the latter being 13.3%. In the third graph, we can see that an astounding 78.5% of participants believed that the government should support e-waste recycling services.
In conclusion, it is necessary to enhance the general public's awareness of e-waste recycling and increase their enthusiasm for centralized e-waste recycling, since this is the primary task for the establishment of a complete system of e-waste recycling.
Conclusion
In conclusion, fellow netizens who participated in the survey informed us of their current recycling methods and attitude towards e-waste, and their opinions towards current government support. This inspired us to make and improve our design for e-waste recycling, as well as raise public awareness in this matter. Finally, we would like to wholeheartedly thank all of the participants for their participation in this survey, which helped us understand their stances and habits in this area.