Let’s Talk About E-Waste: How Can LIS Pedagogy Engage This Difficult Problem? A Presentation for the 2015 Symposium on LIS Education Champaign, IL April 11, 2015 Karin Hodgin Jones Jimi Jones

What is E-waste?

Computer Monitors

Motherboards and Circuit Boards

Drives, Cables and Disks

“Smart” devices and all of the devices in “The Internet of Things”

What’s in e-waste? Gold Beryllium Aluminum Cadmium Silver Palladium Cobalt Tin Plastics Beryllium Cadmium Chromium Hexavalent Lead Nickel Mercury Copper

Why is E-waste Important? The U.S. EPA and the United Nations have identified e-waste as the fastest growing waste stream of the 21st century. There are few regulations in wealthy nations governing the stewardship of e- waste and few to none in poorer nations. EPA and other agencies responsible for monitoring e-waste have no methodology for quantifying or establishing a volumetric assessment of current e- waste awaiting recycling. In the past 15 years, only 25 U.S. states have passed laws governing e-waste disposal and recycling, yet facilities to manage e-waste domestically are completely inadequate. It will take time to build adequate capacity to manage the existing waste awaiting disposal and longer to match the trend of new device production. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (November 2012). Statistics on the Management of Used and End-of-Life Electronics. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/ecycling/manage.htm Schwarzer, S., De Bono, Giuliani, Kluser, S., Peduzzi, P. (January 2005). E-waste, the hidden side of IT equipments manufacturing and use. Retrieved from http://www.grid.unep.ch/products/3_Reports/ew_ewaste.en.pdf

Where Does E-waste Go? Maintaining regulatory compliance with environmental and toxic waste handling policies in wealthier nations is quite costly. E-waste recycling may be prohibitively expensive or infeasible if regulatory restrictions leave companies unable to meet safety and regulatory requirements without financial losses. Materials are exported to countries that have less strict or no regulatory restrictions or safety protocols for e-waste handling. The result is unsafe workplace conditions, harmful pollutant release, few protocols for monitoring worker health and frequent use of child labor. Schwarzer, S., De Bono, Giuliani, Kluser, S., Peduzzi, P. (January 2005). E-waste, the hidden side of IT equipments manufacturing and use. Retrieved from http://www.grid.unep.ch/products/3_Reports/ew_ewaste.en.pdf United States International Trade Commission. (2013). Used Electronic Products: An Examination of U.S. Exports. Retrieved from http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4379.pdf Goutier, Nele. (August 2014). E-waste in Ghana: where death is the price of living another day. The Ecologist. Retrieved from http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis2503820ewaste_in_ghana_where_death_is_the_price_of_living_another_day.html

Where Does E-waste Go? According to the US International Trade Commission, $1.45 Billion worth of Used Electronic Products (UEP) were exported to other nations in 2011. 43% of 324,000 tons of UEPs exported were non-functional devices or e-waste. In programs designed to export computer technologies for use in developing nations, less than 1% of materials exported were designated as non-functional at the point of exportation. However, between 12% and 30% of devices were determined to be non-functional when they arrived at international reuse and recycling sites. United States International Trade Commission. (2013). Used Electronic Products: An Examination of U.S. Exports. Retrieved from http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4379.pdf

Where U.S. E-waste Goes United States International Trade Commission. (2013). Used Electronic Products: An Examination of U.S. Exports. Retrieved from http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4379.pdf

E-waste Dump in India E-waste Dump in India Source: http://www.indiastand.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2010/05/ewaste-dump.jpg

E-waste Handler Burning Plastic off of Metals Source: http://scrapnews.recycleinme.com/newsdetails-50.aspx

And Let’s Not Forget the Exploitation On the Front End… It’s worth noting that the artifacts of the digital era - hard drives, monitors and the like - are embedded in networks of exploitation not just in their afterlives but in their births. Here we see electronics assemblers in Shenzhen, China. Workers in electronics manufacture endure long hours for very little pay. Electronics Assemblers at Foxconn’s Factory in Shenzhen, China. Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/undercover-chinese-reporter-exposes-foxconn-working-conditions/

Digitization, E-waste and LIS Digital Objects have a materiality – they must live somewhere As memory institutions create digital objects, the potential for waste increases Digital audiovisual materials have large file sizes “Smart-sized digitization” of analog-sourced moving image and sound materials can minimize waste Let’s talk about our world, the world of libraries, archives and museums. As we have moved into the digital era, memory institutions require a great deal of high-tech infrastructure. One thing to impress upon library/archives students and practitioners is the physicality of digital objects - they have to live somewhere. Even in the “cloud,” digital objects have a materiality. As we create digital objects, we have the opportunity to minimize our storage needs by choosing sustainable but efficient - size-wise - formats Nowhere is this more necessary than in the AV realm where file sizes can be enormous.

Digitization is Very Tech-Intensive Digitization is very technologically-intensive. Here we see some gear, both modern and vintage, needed for digitizing videotape. Photo by Jimi Jones

HD Video File Formats Video is the most storage-space-intensive medium to digitize. At the moment there is no universally-agreed-upon target format for video digitization. The good news is this makes it so we have some lattitude about what we choose. Thanks to Karen Cariani at WGBH for this slide

A Digital Object Lesson VS Common wisdom in the audiovisual preservation realm is to digitize at the highest level of quality possible. This has obvious merit: the historical record deserves the highest possible quality for the objects we preserve and make accessible. However, high quality moving image digitization eats up storage space very quickly If we are concerned about our contribution to electronic waste, we should consider alternatives to the “best possible.” For non-broadcast, VHS-sourced video From the Digital Rebellion Video Space Calculator: http://www.digitalrebellion.com/webapps/video_calc.html

Video Formats and “Smart-sized Digitization” at WGBH This is the video digitization target format list for WGBH in Boston. This serves as a case in point: The folks at WGBH do not see a need to digitize everything to the “Cadillac” level of quality. For example, they are digitizing their low-quality consumer formats like VHS to lower - but still adequate - levels of quality. In this case they’re using the DV codec, which is commensurate in quality to the source analog VHS format This kind of “smart-sized digitization” saves server space and has the added benefit of being immediately accessible with minimal - or no - transcoding Thanks to Karen Cariani at WGBH for this slide

Challenges to Smart-sized Digitization Common wisdom is to go for the gold in digitization Engineers will balk Formats/Encodings sustainability Balancing long-term sustainability against near-term (and long- term) exploitation and environmental damage Broadcast video has more information than just sound and picture So this kind of smart-sizing makes sense, right? Unfortunately not all would agree A lot of audiovisual engineers will undoubtedly balk when they see this, as they are trained to always go for the highest fidelity Unfortunately, the highest fidelity (in the case of VHS, uncompressed video) means you write empty data that doesn’t buy you anything, quality-wise There is also the issue of formats sustainability. With something like uncompressed this isn’t a worry but with DV or some other compressed codec, there could be issues of playback in the long-term Nonetheless we have to ask the question: do we go for long-term data sustainability at the risk of contributing to this waste problem? The last bullet is very important - broadcast analog video signals contain more information than just picture and sound - using a codec like DV can discard that information. Therefore we have to acknowledge that this isn’t a “one size fits all” approach

E-Waste Conversations at GSLIS Waste policy survey LIS 502 (Libraries, Information and Society) component LIS 590UMI (Understanding Multimedia Information) component 2015 AMIA Proposal 2015 ASIS&T Proposal Here at GSLIS, we’re approaching the issue of e-waste in our pedagogy and research. Two of our doctoral students are working on a survey that will help them determine how common it is for memory institutions to have documented waste-related policies Two upcoming classes will have e-waste related discussions: one of them is our LIS 502 survey course, Libraries and Society, that all masters students have to take The second, Understanding Multimedia Information, is a hands-on audiovisual digitization and transcoding course that I will be teaching next spring. I plan to talk about “smart-sized digitization” in that class And Karin and I are both collaborating with other scholars and practitioners to propose expanded versions of our discussion today to the 2015 Association of Moving Image Archivists conference and the Association for Information Science and Technology conference.

Thank You! Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Karin Hodgin Jones khodgin2@illinois.edu Jimi Jones jjones7@illinois.edu

References United States International Trade Commission. (2013). Used Electronic Products: An Examination of U.S. Exports. Retrieved from http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4379.pdf Goutier, Nele. (August 2014). E-waste in Ghana: where death is the price of living another day. The Ecologist. Retrieved fromhttp://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2503820/ewaste_in_ghana_where_death_is_the_price_of_living_another_day.html Prakash, Siddarth., Manhart, Andreas, et. al. (2010). Informal e-waste recycling sector in Ghana: An indepth socio-economic study. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/3188038/Informal_e-waste_recycling_sector_in_Ghana_An_indepth_socio-economic_study Oteng-Ababio, Martin. (2012). When Necessity Begets Ingenuity: E-Waste Scavenging as a Livelihood Strategy in Accra, Ghana. African Studies Quarterly, 13 (1-2). Retrieved from http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v13/v13i1-2a1.pdf Rode, Sanjay. (2012). E-WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MUMBAI METROPOLITAN REGION: CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES. Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, 7 (2). Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/1535256/Ewaste_management Sakipour, Sara. (2011). Evaluation of Opportunities in E-waste Processing Facilities in Pune, India. Master’s Thesis.Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/37411/Sakipour_Sara.pdf?sequence=2 Basu, Soma. (2013). Wasted e-waste. Science and Environnment Online Down to Earth. Retrieved from http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/wasted-e- waste Trading Economics. (2015). India Unemployment Rate 1983 – 2013. Retrieved from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/unemployment-rate

Images E-waste Dump in India Source: http://www.indiastand.com/wp- content/uploads/sites/8/2010/05/ewaste-dump.jpg E-waste Handler Burning Plastic off of Metals source: Source: http://scrapnews.recycleinme.com/newsdetails-50.aspx Electronics Assemblers in Foxconn Factory in Shenzhen, China: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/undercover-chinese-reporter-exposes-foxconn-working- conditions/