Household Hazardous Waste

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/hhw.htm

Just Add Water

Cellphones. Cameras. Computers. What do these items have in common (besides all starting with the letter C)? They are all electronic devices that tend to be replaced every few years, due to the “need” to replace them with newer technology (or longevity/quality issues). According to a study by the EPA, 438 million new electronics were sold in the USA in 2009. That’s a lot of devices, many which will be replaced within a few years.



What happens to them once their “useful” life is over?

The fate of “dead” electronics is not pretty. The same study by the EPA found that only 25% of electronics end up being recycled. The rest are either put into storage, because their owners don’t know what to do with them, or are thrown out in the trash and condemned to a very long life in the land fill.

But there is good news. A team of scientists from the University of Illinois, Tufts University, and Northwestern University are working together to create biodegradable electronics technology which they call “Transient Electronic Systems”.

Transient electronic systems are made from ultra thin sheers of silicon that can dissolve when immersed in bio fluids like water. Used with soluble conductors and dielectrics, the transient electronic systems can be made into a wide range of electronic components. The transient electronic systems are then encapsulated in silk, which is responsible for the rate of dissolution of the device.

Transient electronic systems will not only have an impact on reducing electronic waste but will also be useful for the medical field and for environmental monitoring. Transient electronic systems could be used as medical implants that are eventually absorbed into the body or as environmental sensors that leave no ecological impact.

I look forward to transient electronics hitting the consumer market and seeing what innovations are attached to them.

Broken Electronics via Shutterstock

 http://blog.enn.com/?p=2782

Recycle: 80 Polar Bears Throng Village in Search of Whale

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Enough to Go Around?

Photograph courtesy Loren Holmes, Alaska Dispatch 

Polar bears dine on the severed head of a bowhead whale in Kaktovik (map), Alaska, on September 7. Left behind by traditional Inupiat hunters, whale remains this year attracted up to 80 bears a day to the village—a record, according to the Alaska Dispatch news site.

Having hunted whales annually for about 50 years in Kaktovik, Inupiat typically leave some meat specifically for the polar bears, according to the Alaska Dispatch's Loren Holmes. The predators have learned to arrive at North Slope Eskimo communities just before the hunt and whet their appetites by gnawing last year's whale bones, Holmes said.

Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bear International, said he's not surprised. Polar bears "are not dumb animals," Amstrup said. "They know the time of year that the meat starts to show up on the beach."
(See National Geographic magazine pictures of Alaska's North Slope.)
—Ker Than

 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/pictures/121001-polar-bears-whale-alaska-science-hunting-arctic-ice-warming/