Technology Affects on Economy Essay

Submitted By AngelRVAZQUEZ
Words: 441
Pages: 2

Jose Morales
ENGL101C-50
Dr. Logan
April 07, 2013
How Electronics Affect our Lives and Environment
Having the latest electronic technologies can be fun, necessary, or both. Our addiction to having them comes at a high cost to ourselves and our planet. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, “The average American household spends about $1,380 on electronics a year.” Enormous amounts of raw, often limited, resources are used to make these devices such as HDTVs , cellphones, video game consoles, computers, portable music devices, and blu-ray players. In spite of being in a recession, this $165 billion a year industry continues to advance globally. Designing, assembling, packaging, shipping, and delivering electronic products require a lot of work and energy. Eager for something better, millions of consumers replace devices up to three times per year, resulting in the large amounts of hazardous materials often irresponsibly thrown away in the trash. Burning of electronics cause toxic fumes to be emitted into the atmosphere causing our o-zone layer to deplete. Electronics that aren’t recycled correctly spill toxic chemicals into the ground polluting our ground water and food supply. That’s why it is essential for us to recycle electronics properly. These are some statistics about consumer electronic waste in the United States: * “In 2007, artist Chris Jordan created a 60”x100” work of art called “Cellphones,” which depicted 426,000 cellphones equal to the number of cellular devices retired each day that year.. That’s over 155million cell phones per year either thrown away or recycled. * In 2009, 29.4 million computers were disposed of, but only 18 million were recycled properly. Leaving millions of tons of lead, mercury, and cadmium to poison our