E-Waste: How Corporations Take Control and Deceive The Public

“E-Waste: How Corporations Take Control and Deceive The Public”

Electronic Waste or E-Waste is a type of waste that mainly includes throwing out electronics like phones and computers. These also include secondhand products that are not being sold. This type of waste contains a lot of hazardous materials including lead, mercury, and chromium. These are carcinogenic materials that can cause cancer in the human body and also could further damage the environment. This has become such a big issue in society because of planned obsolescence, greenwashing, and people's spending habits.

Planned Obsolescence is when the lifespan of a product has been intentionally made to fail over a set period. Major phone manufacturers shorten the lifespan of their devices because it makes consumers spend more money on a new phone even if the rest of their device is working properly. For example, Google has been in the news recently because they used this tactic with their Google Pixel 4a smartphone through a February 2025 software update. Google wrote in their announcement saying that “for some devices, the software update reduces available battery capacity and impacts charging performance” (“Pixel 4A Battery Performance Program - Pixel Phone Help”). Google does not comment on the reason why they have intentionally handicapped the 4a’s battery life. Some users were so disgruntled that they filed an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) complaint about this issue (McClain). Technology journalists are not sure about the new software update because “the update could mean ‘reduced charging performance’ or how [much] the phone shows battery capacity” (Davis). This is one of the many reasons why planned obsolescence is dangerous because companies are nudging people into upgrading their phones so often. Another, Windows 11 from Microsoft set a hardware limitation because of security, forcing users to upgrade their computers or deal with an insecure operating system like Windows 10 in October of 2025. There will be an increase of e-waste because of Windows 11 higher system requirements and lack of security updates for Windows 10. Canalys is a market analysis firm that wrote the “termination of Windows 10 support could prevent hundreds of millions of computers from getting second lives. These computers would be put into landfills” (Caddy & Jessop). This can lead to more planned obsolescence in the future because companies knowingly break the functionality of their own devices. Therefore, it produces more e-waste than ever before while trying to be environmentally friendly.

Greenwashing is a term that is used to describe the act of a corporation trying to conceal and obfuscate their negative environmental impact. Major manufacturers use schemes like carbon offsets, where a piece of tradable assets or certificates that are linked to lowered carbon emissions into the atmosphere. For example, Apple will buy a piece of this tradable asset and use it to “offset” their carbon emissions, like funding a cause that helps with removing carbon from the atmosphere (Gurgle). Apple has been using these schemes which led to accusations of Greenwashing by The BEUC (Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs) and claims that Apple is not being environmentally friendly and carbon neutral. This became a problem because Apple could use this to push their environmental image further while obfuscating their actual footprint. The European Union is continuing its efforts to stop misleading consumers because a lot of companies stretch the truth about their environmental footprint. In September of 2023, Apple marketed the Apple Watch Series 9 as “the first-ever carbon neutral products”. Monique Goyens, the Director-General of the BEUC mentioned that these “Carbon neutral claims are scientifically inaccurate and mislead consumers,” and “The BEUC said that by 2026 it would ban “neutrality” claims that are based on the purchase of carbon credits” (Byran). The European Union is trying to ban the use of green marketing terms like “environmentally friendly” and “natural” because the use of carbon offset schemes in conjunction with misleading advertisements can have an impact on E-Waste and the environment because of consumers thinking they are doing something good for the planet. On the other hand, companies have already made the product through research and development, then shifting the emissions to an environmentally friendly program or an NGO (Non-Governmental-Organization), and the product cycle continues every year causing more E-Waste. When marketing comes to people's spending habits and what they do with their older devices and electronics, and how it impacts others and society’s consumption habits as a whole.

When people buy something new, it leads to a good feeling. For example, a phone, car, or clothes, this is instant gratification. It affects people’s spending habits where people purchase things on a yearly or bi-yearly on new products, but they keep or throw away their own devices. This can lead to more electronic waste hurting the environment. The Canadian government created a survey on how people repair or replace their old phones and computers. Gordon Dewis analyzed that “since 2011, the proportion of households that had an unwanted cell phone that increased from 8% to 11%.” (Dewis). It demonstrates that people are holding onto their devices because of spending more money on goods that Canadians do not need. Dewis finds the same pattern in computers where "the trend of the rate at which households have reported having unwanted computers to dispose of is negative.” The inclusion of computers in this study shows that people hold onto their computers longer than their smartphones because they become more reliable as technology progresses (Dewis). In India there was a study of 1039 people that responded with a similar outlook as Canadians. Indians provided their answers and explanations about keeping their mobile devices for longer. The surveyors found out that “over 42% of the respondents said that they purchase or replace a mobile phone when the older one becomes non-functional” (Borthakur & Singh). Indians prefer to hold onto their phones longer than their Canadian counterparts due to many factors like lifestyle or economic standing. The study also finds that people from India are not as environmentally aware as Canadians because of how electronic waste is handled. The surveyors wrote about how the “Environmental awareness in India is still in its infancy where most consumers are not conscious of environmentally responsible behaviors.” It comes down to the fact that electronic waste is inherently dangerous to human health and there should be programs in place to take care of the overburden of hazardous materials, so people have a cleaner environment to live in. For example, the USEPA United States Environmental Protection Agency has an initiative for cleaning up e-waste in the Carribean. Where they clean up E-Waste from beaches and the ocean, so the Carribean ecosystem stays safe from E-Waste. (USPEA)

Take into consideration what tech companies are doing when they are committing planned obsolescence with artificially diminishing their own products, then use greenwashing that obfuscate their emissions, and sell you new products so that people spend their money on new electronics and retire older ones. This should be worrying to everyone who cares about the wellbeing of the environment because of E-Waste and how carcinogenic effects on the human body. This affects people who are in the disenfranchised countries with poor waste management, like India, China, and many other countries in Africa.

E-Waste poses an immense threat to human health and the environment as a whole because of the harmful practices that companies lean towards profit over conserving the environment. People could consider the other possibilities of keeping their devices for longer instead of replacing their phones and computers, whilst not giving into planned obsolescence, greenwashing and unneeded spending. However, there are solutions that can help mitigate these problems, including the promotion of repair culture to show that hardware hacking is a way to remove hardware restrictions, adopting eco-friendly manufacturing and holding people for their environmental impacts. This can help reduce carcinogenic electronic waste and help make sure that the developing world does not end up in a more broken environment as it still stands today.

Works Cited

Borthakur, Anwesha, and Pardeep Singh. “Understanding Consumers’ Perspectives of Electronic Waste in an Emerging Economy: A Case Study of New Delhi, India.” Energy, Ecology and Environment, 12 Feb. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40974 -022-00242-9.

Bryan, Kenza. “Apple’s “Carbon Neutral” Claims Come under Scrutiny.” Financial Times, 24 Oct. 2023, www.ft.com/content/90392004-97e0-4444-a5cd-82220fe52510.

Caddy, Ben, and Kieren Jessop. “Canalys Insights - the End of Windows 10 Support Could Turn 240 Million PCs into E-Waste.” \@Canalys, 20 Dec. 2023, www.canalys.com/insights/end-of-windows-10-support-could-turn-240-million-pcs-into-e-waste.

Davis, Wes. “Google’s New Pixel 4A Update Is Going to Lower Battery Life for Some Owners.” The Verge, 8 Jan. 2025, https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338566/google-pixel-4a-battery-stability-replacement-reduced-capacity

Dewis, Gordon. “Repair or Replace: What Are Canadians Doing with Their Old Cell Phones and Computers?” Www150.Statcan.gc.ca, 15 Feb. 2022, ww150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-002-x/2022001/article/00001-eng.htm

Gurgel, Angelo. “Carbon Offsets.” MIT Climate Portal, MIT, 11 Sept. 2020, climate.mit.edu/explainers/carbon-offsets.

McClain, Jennifer. “Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program - Google Pixel Community.”

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/317228576/pixel-4a-battery-performance-program?hl=en. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025. 6 Jan 2025

Pixel 4a Battery Program “Pixel 4A Battery Performance Program - Pixel Phone Help.”, support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15701861 Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.

US EPA. “Cleaning up Electronic Waste (E-Waste) | US EPA.” US EPA, 15 Nov. 2023, www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/cleaning-electronic-waste-e-waste.

www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338566/google-pixel-4a-battery-stability- replacement-reduced-capacity. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.