原創 2017-05-15 樹屋文翻組 樹屋字幕組
關鍵詞一
生態足跡
environmental footprint
關鍵詞二
能源之星標籤
Energy Star label
關鍵詞三
EPEAT註冊
EPEAT registry
關鍵詞四
IEEE標準
IEEE standard
Where do laptops go when they die?
Ars takes a look at the current state of e-reincarnation at Dell.
筆記本電腦的最終歸宿在哪兒？
Ars(美國科技博客)探討電子產品的重生狀況——以戴爾為例
SCOTT K. JOHNSON - 10/31/2016, 5:54 PM
斯考特 K 約翰森 2016年10月31日 下午5:54
As electronics have become increasingly ubiquitous, the never-ending upgrade churn fills an ever-larger e-graveyard. If that’s where the story ends, we’re in real trouble. The several years of use a typical device sees effectively become a short conveyor belt between mines around the world and the local landfill. The only sensible and sustainable thing to do is to recycle the materials in our devices—ideally right into the next generation of tech.
隨著電子設備的普及度越來越高，永無止盡的優化升級讓“電子墓地”變得前所未有之大。如果這就是它們的最終歸宿，那麼我們將面臨真正意義上的麻煩。電子設備的壽命通常是幾年，而這實際上加快了其從世界各地工廠向當地垃圾掩埋場傳送的速度。唯一合理可持續的做法，就是回收這些設備裡的材料——最理想的情況是，它們正好可以用於下一代新技術產品的生產。
Responsible recycling operations (that don’t simply dump e-waste in developing countries) have an interesting set of challenges to work on. Recycling is always trying to catch up to—and is limited by—what manufacturers are doing. But opportunities are there for those willing to make it a priority.
可靠的回收措施（即不只是簡單地往發展中國家運輸電子垃圾）中還有一些令人興致盎然的挑戰有待我們去迎接。回收往往都是在試著跟上生產者的步伐並受其所限。但對於那些想要把回收這件事放在首位的人來說，機會就在眼前。
To learn a little about the kinds of things that can be done now and what stands in the way of doing more, Ars talked to Dell about its recycling efforts. Dell runs a take-back program for old devices in partnership with Goodwill, which sells anything worth selling and sends the rest on.
為了瞭解目前在這個領域哪些事情是力所能及，哪些是尚不能及，Ars（亞斯）和戴爾聊了聊他們在回收方面作出的努力。戴爾與商譽合作，對舊設備實行一項召回政策，把其中可再銷售的重新上架，然後把其他剩餘的部分轉手。
Closing the loop
建造閉環系統（回收－生產－購買）
In the last few years, Dell has started to move beyond just collecting e-waste for recyclers and is trying to “close the loop” by using some of the recycled material in its products—namely the plastic. Because a limited number of types of plastic get used for electronics, e-waste is a better resource to work with than your household recycling bin would be. Most of the plastic that comes in is suitable to be used in new products. But it’s not quite that simple—paints, labels, “soft-touch” coatings, and additives like flame retardants can render plastic difficult or even impossible to work with.
在過去的幾年裡，戴爾不再滿足於只是從回收商那裡收集電子垃圾，而是試著在他們的產品里加入一些可回收的材料以此來建立一個“閉環系統”——即塑料製品。因為有一部分品種的塑料可以被用在電子設備上，而相對於你家裡的回收箱而言，電子垃圾更容易操作。大多數回收的塑料製品都可以被用在新產品上。但這其實也沒有說起來的那麼簡單——圖案、標籤、啞光表漆以及其他外加的部分，例如防火塗層，會導致塑料製品更困難、甚至無法再重新利用。
“The base material is a good place to start, but there’s still a good bit of engineering work to actually get the product to the point where the recycled plastics have the equivalent or better properties of virgin plastics, which is what we have to do to meet our specification needs,” Dell Director of Environmental Affairs and Global Responsibility Scott O’Connell told Ars.
“回收基料很好上手，但還是會有相當一部分工程上的工作需要去完成好讓它們能夠真正意義上和新的塑料製品有一樣或者更好的效果，這才是我們為了滿足這種特殊需求而要去做的。”戴爾環境事務與社會責任主主管斯考特 奧康內爾這樣和Ars（亞斯）說到。
All that plastic gets processed at a recycling plant in Texas run by Wistron, a manufacturer that was already handling refurbishing before it got into the e-waste business. One approach is to just shred the whole mess and sort the pieces, but workers at this plant dismantle devices by hand to separate materials more cleanly. Plastics with disqualifying characteristics head off in other directions; the rest is sorted by chemistry and color.
所有的塑料製品都會被位於德克薩斯由緯創集團運營的回收工廠進行處理，這個生產廠家在進入電子垃圾處理產業之前一直都在從事翻新的工作。方法就是將一團糟的塑料絞碎，再進行整理，但是工廠裡的工人是手動摧毀電子設備的，這樣被拆開的材料會更加乾淨，質量不好的材料會被轉到其它地方；剩下的塑料會根據其化學性質和顏色來分門別類。
That plastic is shipped to Wistron’s operations in Kunshan, China, where a number of plastics manufacturers are located. (Unfortunately, e-waste collection efforts and manufacturing are on opposite sides of the planet.) Wistron’s plant, Senior Manager of Business Development Eric Huang explained, takes in dismantled plastic and spits out resin ready to be molded into something else.
那些塑料會隨船送往位於中國崑山的緯創業務基地，許多塑料生產商都聚集在這個地方（不幸的是，電子垃圾回收和生產分別位於地球的兩端）。緯創工廠，其商務發展部門的高級經理艾瑞克黃的解釋到，是將已經解體的塑料並射出成樹脂材料準備好放入模具以做成其他的配件。
That “something else” has so far been back panels for Dell’s monitors and all-in-ones. “We do encounter some potential for cosmetic issues and for performance issues [with pure recycled plastic],” O’Connell said. “Before we rolled this out in 2014, we had about a nine-month trial process where we actually had to do a lot of engineering work. What we found is, to get the properties right you do have to have a blend of recycled content along with virgin plastics.”
這些“其他的配件”目前是指戴爾顯示器以及一體機的背部嵌板。“我們確實偶爾會碰見一些外觀上或者功能上的問題［用純再生塑料製作的機器］，”奧康內爾這樣說道，“我們在2014年首次推出這個項目之前，經歷了大概九個月時間的試驗期，在此期間我們需要做大量工程設計上的工作。然後我們發現，如果想要產品功能完善，你需要把回收的材料和新材料混合在一起使用。”
There’s more to this recycling thing than “melt and pour,” unfortunately. Part of the recycling process involves grinding up the plastic—sometimes more than once—and this changes its properties. At every step in the processing, and even in the design of the product, there are variables that could potentially be tweaked to increase the share of recycled plastic in the blend.
比想象中不幸的是，回收這件事遠比“融完後再倒出來”要複雜。回收過程的中就包括把塑料製品絞碎——有時候還不止一次——這會導致它的性質發生改變。在處理過程中的每一步，甚至是產品的設計環節，都會有潛在的可能性使得混合物中回收塑料的比重增加。
What about the guts?
內部零件的命運
The rest of the e-waste entering Wistron’s recycling plant has a different fate. Cables go one way to have their copper recovered. Steel frames go another. Lithium-ion batteries go to dedicated lithium operations. Case fans might even be saved and reused. Any components that can be yanked off circuit boards are, and then it’s on to precious metals.
其餘的的電子垃圾在進入緯創的回收工廠後，會有不一樣的命運。電線中的銅會被重新利用。鋼架卻不能被再次利用。鋰電池被送往專門的鋰加工車間。風扇甚至可能會被留下並重新投入使用。所有能從電路板上拔出的部件都會、並將被轉變成有價值的金屬。
Smelting operations in Europe and Japan have traditionally just burned off the fiberglass and melted the metals, but Wistron’s Texas plant relies on water rather than fire. Chemicals (which can be recycled for the next batch) leach gold-plating and solder until everything just falls off the fiberglass board. Grinding and more chemistry can separate the various metals that remain.
歐洲以及日本的熔鍊企業傳統意義上都只會把玻璃纖維燒斷同時把金屬熔化，但在得克薩斯的緯創工廠卻不是用火，而是依靠水來加熱。化學物質（可被重新回收利用於下次批量生產）將鍍金層和焊料過濾出來，直到所有東西都從玻璃纖維板上脫落為止。研磨機和其他的化學制品能把剩下的各種金屬分離開來。
None of these materials is plugged directly back into electronics made by Dell or anyone else. They just hit the commodity market as another source of copper, or lithium, or gold. “I thought metals would be easy when we started working on this several years ago, but they have actually turned out to be a little more complicated than plastics,” O’Connell said.
所有的這些材料都不會被直接用在戴爾或是其他廠商生產的電器裡。它們只會以另一種形式上的銅、鋰或金製品出現在商品市場上。“在我們幾年前剛開始這項工作的時候，我以為金屬（回收）會比較簡單，但它們實際上要比塑料更復雜一點。”奧康內爾這樣說道。
For many metals, the electronics industry does not dominate demand, so it makes sense for recycled metal to simply hit the open market. There are clearly opportunities for electronics companies to use those recycled metals directly, but O’Connell thinks the open market will probably always be part of the story. There may someday be good enough tracking in the industry that you at least know how much of the metal you’re buying is recycled, but for now recycled material just slips invisibly into the stream.
對於金屬來說，電器產業並不主導它的需求，所以把回收金屬直接投入開放市場是有理可循的。顯然，電器公司可以直接採用那些回收金屬，但奧康內爾認為開放市場始終都應該在考慮範圍之內。或許到之後的某一天，這個產業會發展到你至少會知道你採購的金屬中可回收的佔比是多少，然而現在，回收金屬只是零星投放在主流市場裡。
But for all the ways recycling could be improved, the real obstacles still come from the way products are designed. There are simple things manufacturers can do to make products more easily recyclable, like skipping adhesives, minimizing the number of screws used, and maximizing the ease with which a product can be taken apart. (Apple, for example, recently highlighted a robotic disassembly process for end-of-life iPhones it is working on.) “We routinely take product designers into the recyclers themselves so they can see good design versus bad design,” O’Connell said.
但儘管在回收過程中還有很多地方仍需改進，最主要的難關仍然是產品的設計。生產商可以做幾件簡單的小事來讓產品更容易被回收，比如不採用黏合劑，最小化螺絲的使用，同時最大化產品的可分拆性（用蘋果公司來舉例，他們近期正在重點研發一條自動拆解廢棄iphone的流水線）。“我們通常會讓產品設計師自己兼任回收人員，這樣他們自己就可以辨別設計的好壞。”奧康內爾這樣說道。
Obviously, the choice of materials is the other big variable, but it’s even more complicated than just using easily recyclable materials. Minimizing the use of expensive materials can bring the cost (and environmental footprint ) of a product down but can also have unintended consequences on the economics of recycling. The precious metal content of integrated circuit chips has declined over time, for example. “Because our manufacturing techniques are so air-tight and so much more clean, there’s not as much need for precious metals in those types of materials because their innards never get exposed to oxygen,” Huang said.
顯然，材料的選擇是另外一個大的變數，但它卻比只是簡單地使用回收友好性材料要複雜得多。最大化地減少昂貴材料的使用的確可以降低產品的成本（以及生態足跡①），但也會對回收經濟產生意料之外的影響。比如貴金屬集合電路芯片的比重一直以來都在減少。“因為我們的生產方式有非常強的密封性與清潔度，所以在這些材料中不需要投入太多貴金屬，因為它們的內部結構永遠都不會暴露在氧氣環境裡。”黃經理這樣解釋道。
That’s good, but it also means it’s tougher for recyclers to turn a profit.
減少成本是好事，但這也意味著，對於回收方來說，他們更難從中獲得利潤。
Huang describes the situation as a sort of race between manufacturers and recyclers, with recyclers forever catching up to all the new things manufacturers throw at them. The growing “Internet of things” is also an “Internet of e-waste”—even light bulbs can contain circuit boards that need to be recycled. Recyclers have to figure out how to work with each of those things as they start showing up alongside the usual computers, printers, and phones.
黃經理認為生產商和回收方之間是處於一種類似競速的狀況，回收方永遠都在追趕生產商扔給他們的所有新的東西。“物聯網”的發展也是“電子垃圾網路”的發展——連電燈泡裡都會含有需要被回收的芯片板。回收人士們需要去找到處理這些產品的方法，因為它們已經開始出現在日常用的電腦、打印機以及手機中。
“In some ways, it’s gotta start on the front end, in terms of consumers wanting products that are more recyclable,” Huang said.
“從某種意義上來說，這應該從產業上游（前端）開始，就要考慮到顧客想要更加具備可回收性的產品。”黃經理說。
That’s a particularly tough sell since consumers get almost no information about how recyclable any given product is. A company may improve its image by advertising “green” programs, but there is little financial incentive beyond that to put the work into solving these problems and designing for recyclability. It’s hard enough to match competitors’ progress on all the characteristics consumers know they do want.
而這其實是很困難的，因為顧客手上幾乎沒有任何關於產品可回收性的信息。公司可以通過對“綠色”項目進行廣告宣傳來提升形象，但卻幾乎沒有什麼獎勵機制來解決這些問題、來根據可回收性做設計。僅僅是趕上競爭商家的進度，滿足顧客已知的產品需求就已經不是一件容易的事情了。
The closest thing to an Energy Star label for recyclability is the EPEAT registry, where companies can verify that their products meet an IEEE standard. (The interpretation of that standard has not always impressed, however.) This has helped large entities like the federal government follow their purchasing rules but isn’t necessarily the most useful thing for the average consumer.
在回收界和能源之星標籤②最接近的就是EPEAT註冊③了，各公司可以通過這個來確認他們的產品是否符合IEEE標準④（然而對這項標準規則的解釋並不能總是令人信服）。這樣做已經幫助大型機構，比如聯邦政府，能夠遵從他們的採購規則，但對於一般顧客而言卻不一定有很大幫助。
Consumers do, at least, control what they do with a device at the end of its useful life. You can make sure they end up in recycling programs—and hope those programs continue to improve.
然而顧客們至少可以控制他們對廢舊設備的處理方式。你可以確信這些設備最後都進入了回收項目——並且期望這些項目能夠繼續改進。
註釋：
①生態足跡：指支持每個人生命所需的生產土地與水源面積。系用以衡量人類對地球生態系與自然資源的需求的一種分析方法。此分析將人類對自然資源的消耗與地球生態涵容能力進行比較。（維基百科）
②能源之星標籤：是針對節約能源的消費產品之國際標準及計劃，於1992年由美國環保署所啟動，目的是降低能源消耗及減少發電廠所排放的溫室效應氣體。此計劃並不具強迫性，自發配合此計劃的廠商可以在其合格產品上貼上能源之星的標籤。（維基百科）
③EPEAT註冊：即電子產品環境影響評估工具，是美國推出的針對電子產品的多維環境績效標準。2006年EPEAT通過美國國家標準協會(ANSI)認定的程序，在美國綠色電子委員會（Green Electronics Council，GEC）的運作下，正式採用美國電子電器工程師協會(IEEE)第1680號標準，實施和推行EPEAT認證系統，對電子產品在其生命週期中就環境的影響進行評估認證。目前EPEAT僅適用於臺式電腦、手提電腦和電腦顯示器等產品，並正在著手製定電視產品以及影像設備產品的IEEE標準，並將逐漸擴展到白色家電產品領域。（互動百科）
④IEEE標準：電氣和電子工程師協會( IEEE，全稱是Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)是一個國際性的電子技術與信息科學工程師的協會，是目前全球最大的非營利性專業技術學會，其會員人數超過40萬人，遍佈160多個國家。IEEE致力於電氣、電子、計算機工程和與科學有關的領域的開發和研究，在太空、計算機、電信、生物醫學、電力及消費性電子產品等領域已制定了900多個行業標準，現已發展成為具有較大影響力的國際學術組織。（百度百科）
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