Figure Out How to Track E-Waste, Win $10,000
…Just not from us. Can you figure out how to track electronic waste as it moves downstream, from electronics recyclers to its final location in waste sites, scrap markets, or remanufacturing plants? Popular Science and InnoCentive‘s latest Innovation Challenge offers a reward of up to $10,000 for the best scalable system to track electronic waste.
The call for proposals explains:
This Challenge seeks ideas for a scalable system (may include processes, devices, etc.) that will allow EMC to follow e-waste to final destination. [...] How can the disposal chain be tracked most efficiently, so that various pieces and sizes of waste can be tracked from collection to their final destination?
The ideal solution, they say, will be safe, effective around the world, and inexpensive. Of course, that’s a rather tall order. E-waste streams are notoriously messy and complicated. Anything that involves extra electronic components is likely to be disassembled along with the e-waste itself; anything that involves humans scanning or recording information won’t scale well.
I’m not sure even $10,000 is going to be enough of an incentive to tackle a problem of this magnitude. After all, Netflix offered a million dollars to get a matrix that better predicted movie preferences. But hey, at least the challenge will get smart people talking about it.
Submissions are due by June 06, 2012.
Comments
minute amounts of beta radiation from sodium chrolide and stay under 250 millerems, well below safety levels. cant be used too widely but could be used to track packages/parcels of waste and could be measured via a simple gieger counter.
different doses could be used to identify packages.
I know, I know : no scanning, no humans etc.
But lets try this anyway:
- Start a new Association for E-Waste Tracking. Similar to EnergyStar, Tüf and so on.
-Manufacturers will have to put an RFID Chip in every Product, in order to get certified for the new Standard.
- Transport will need to be trackable, Logistics companies will be willing to do this in order to attract big contracts with the manufacturers.
If only one Big manufacturer and one big Transport company start this, anyone else will join in, if the customers demand this standard.
Fair Trade Recycling (WR3A) already has thousands and thousands of used devices completely tracked, including the residue from incidental breakage. We also found ways to track non-members. So are we going for the 10K? Not when we realixed EMC gets the data. They are an active member of AGMA – the anti grey market alliance http://www.agmaglobal.org/about/members.shtml
Which is the planned obsolescence and patent extention lobby… 10k is not worth selling out the reuse market, in my opinion.
Comments are closed