Culture
Photographing the Hazardous Resting Places of Obsolete Electronics
An exhibit at the New School asks how designers can help combat the e-waste crisis.
Massive billboard advertisements shill cell phones and other gadgets as sleek and glossy. But there’s a staggering disconnect between the pristine look of a item just out of the box and how the thing looks at the end of its life, with a smashed screen and cockeyed keys, tossed into a heap with other busted-up, obsolete gizmos.
Consumers unload an astounding amount of electronic debris each year. The EPA estimated that Americans discarded more than 2.3 million tons of e-waste in 2009 alone—everything from fax machines to phones and computers. Only about a quarter of this debris was recycled.