Maria Khan 

Muhammad Nafees

Sarah Ayman

Janessa Paderes

Aisha AlObaidly

ENGL 210

Dr. Mary Queen

Problem Statement Draft

Due Date: 8 Oct 2020

TEAM5-PROBLEM STATEMENT.

Problem:

E-Waste can be defined as consumer and business electronic equipment that is not working,
unwanted or has reached the end of its useful life. E Waste is a persistent and significant
issue that is prevalent in today's technologically inclined society. 

E-waste is broadly divided into three types: 

1. Cooling equipment such as fridges and freezers

2. Telecommunications and communication equipment
3. Consumer electronics devices (Phones, Laptops , Monitors, and TV’s)

Each of these categories require a personalized method of disposal due to the differences in
the materials that they constitute. In this proposal, we will highlight the types of e waste that
will be found in an educational community and what we can do to minimise it.

An educational community is a significant source of E waste as we have a prevalent need of

multiple electronic devices that are up to date and functioning properly. E-waste is not
generated only by the personal devices of each of the students but also includes the large
number of printers, fax machines, optical fibres (for wireless communication) and various
other devices that are available for use for the general public. A typical college student, in
their 4 years of undergraduate studies, have at least 2 electronic devices - smartphone and
laptop. Along with that public printers and charging wires are used. With a laptop or
smartphone, once their lifespan ends, they are typically either sold for spare parts or stay on
a shelf in the house collecting dust. But old charging cables tend to find their way to the
bottom of a dustbin where they prove to be environmentally hazardous. Looking at this
example and magnifying it to other electronic devices we use in our daily lives, we can see
how E-waste is a huge problem.

Purpose:

Subsequently, the objective of our project is to deliver a solution which successfully

minimizes E-waste produced within our specified scope -  constituting various educational
institutes- and spread awareness on the detrimental effects of E-waste, within people.
Objectives:

1.Write a final report for that effectively describes the problem statement and relates it to our
solutions.

2.Carry out a survey on a sample size of potential users presenting our solution and
analysing the responses we get. 

Previous research:

There are compelling reasons behind the need to recycle and reuse E-waste. The main
purpose is to preserve the environment and the amount of raw materials available. There are
also economic consequences since extracting, processing and transporting raw materials
costs money, energy and time. The following are some of the reasons why E-waste must be
recycled and the detrimental effects of disposing this waste improperly:  

The Environment: All e-waste contains hazardous materials which range from heavy metals
such as lead and mercury to ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons.  These chemicals are
dangerous and can cause environmental contamination even in small amounts. Most of
these toxic substances do not easily break down which means the contamination will be
present for a long period of time. They leach into the soil polluting ground water as well as
air. 

Valuable Raw Materials: Electronics and electrical contain a wide range of precious
materials, including tin, nickel, copper, plastic, etc. In Australia alone, 22 million mobile
handsets have been discarded and that number increases by no less than a million each
year. A million mobile phones contain approximately 15 to 16 tonnes copper, 340 to 350
kilograms silver and 24 to 34 kilograms gold. Most of these materials are non-renewable, so
with proper recycling, the cost and energy of mining and extracting raw material is reduced
significantly.

Reduce Landfills: Reusing old devices prevents e-waste from ending up in landfills. In 2016,
44.7 metric tonnes of e-waste were generated worldwide and only 20% of this figure was
recycled. The remaining e-waste was disposed of in landfills.

Previous solution:

On a much larger scale, the disposal of e-waste has proven to be significantly difficult, not
only because of the extensive amounts of waste present, but also due to the current
practices used to eliminate it. In addition, in terms of practicality, dealing with e-waste at a
nationwide level mainly focuses on managing where the waste goes and how it is dealt with
after.

In an article that discussed e-waste management in India, the author highlights that a large
percentage of e-waste has been taken care of informally – either by private businesses or
local scrap dealers – in which it may have been possible that the waste had just been sold
and passed on or disposed of carelessly with the use of harmful chemicals. However,
because this particular sector is financially dependent on the disposal of e-waste, the
country cannot simply exclude them from the process. In this article, the “Stepped Recycling”
method has been proposed and aims to stay within each recycling sector’s allocated budget
and its capacity to accommodate any amount of waste. It proposes to start off by collecting
wastes from the informal recycling sectors, according to their capabilities, and using cheap
methods in order to process the e-waste as shreds as these are easier to transport. In order
to provide the informal sectors with profit, the wastes would then be sold per kilogram to
larger enterprises, who would have the means to carry out the recycling process in a proper
and less-hazardous manner. Through this method, not only do the recycling facilities gain
resources for sustainable manufacturing, but the less established recycling sectors are able
to be provided with a stable job.

In addition, many articles showed that Qatar emphasized on the disposal of e-waste. In 2010
Qatar telecom (Qtel) (now known as Ooredoo/ the leading communication company in
Qatar) released the first program that was dedicated to e-waste recycling. The program was
to place ‘drop boxes’ in all Qtel shops throughout the country to collect e-waste.
Furthermore, Qatar continued the effort to create and maintain a safe environment in 2019.
During the meeting of the council of ministers the previous prime minister approved of a draft
bill regarding “the treatment & recycling of waste”. A part of the draft bill is that the minister of
municipality and environment resolve the recycle and treat e-waste. 
 
Moreover, nowadays many projects are happening that support recycling e-waste such as
Georgetown university in Qatar & Qatar foundation e-waste drop off boxes. Also (AL HAYA)
company is an approved e-waste collector in Qatar that handles collecting e-waste from
different organizations in Qatar.

Scope: 

The scope of our project is within Education City, Qatar foundation. We tend to target both
the students who come to attend university and the general public who come to use EC’s
resources i.e. Recreation Center, Oxygen Park etc. The scope could possibly be minimised
to only include TAMUQ if the team lacks time or resources. Further changes to the scope will
be made after conducting a survey and interviews. 

Needs Analysis: 

-Solution should be accessible i.e. feature multiple languages which are commonly spoken
by people in EC Eg: English, Urdu, Arabic, Hindi

-Solution must be deployed in an area that is easily accessible to all people , high traffic
areas e.g.: student centre. 

-Solution must be  accessible by people with disabilities eg: feature braille options or audio
options. 

Design Constraints:
-Design must be limited to something which can be implemented within QF Education City
(EC). It needs to be easily deployable in the partner universities that exist within EC. This
means that our solution must follow any campus rules these institutions might have.
-Our solution will deal with people from different demographics, who belong to different
ethnicities. QF housing currently accommodates residents from over 40 countries. Our
design must:
1- Educate people what e-waste is
2- Communicate effectively how our solution works
-As this is a class project, we don’t have a capital or funding. Hence, our solution must be
cost efficient and limited to resources available in TAMUQ e.g. Machine room.

REFERENCES:

https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/Campaigns/eWaste/Why-recycle-ewaste

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908467/
https://www.iberdrola.com/environment/what-is-e-waste

https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/qatar/qatar-drafts-law-on-electronic-waste-1.641398