Passage Excerpt from “The World Has an E-Waste Problem”
Excerpt from “The World Has an E-Waste Problem”
by Alana Semuels
As a tech-hungry nation . . . gets ready to upgrade to the next generation of lightning-fast 5G devices, there is a surprising environmental cost to be reckoned with: a fresh mountain of obsolete1 gadgets. About 6 million pounds of discarded electronics are already processed monthly at recycling giant ERI’s Fresno plant. Pallets2 of once beloved but now outdated devices . . . arrive here daily. Workers with hammers hack at the bulkiest devices, while others remove dangerous components like lithium-ion batteries. The scene is like a twisted . . . movie, with doomed gadgets riding an unrelenting conveyor belt into a machine that shreds them into piles of copper, aluminum and steel.
“In our society, we always have to have the new, best product,” said Aaron Blum, the co-founder and chief operating officer of ERI, on a tour of the facility. Americans spent $71 billion on telephone and communication equipment in 2017, nearly five times what they spent in 2010 even when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. . . . When we buy something new, we get rid of what’s old. That cycle of consumption has made electronics waste the world’s fastest-growing solid-waste stream.
That stream is expected to turn into a torrent3 as the world upgrades to 5G, the next big step in wireless technology. 5G promises faster speeds and other benefits. But experts say it will also result in a dramatic increase in e-waste, as millions of smartphones, modems and other gadgets incompatible with 5G networks are made obsolete. “I don’t think people understand the magnitude of the transition,” says ERI co-founder and executive chairman John Shegerian. “This is bigger than the change of black-and-white to color, bigger than analog to digital, by many multitudes.”
. . . Less than a quarter of all U.S. electronic waste is recycled, according to a United Nations estimate. The rest is incinerated or ends up in landfills. That’s bad news, as e-waste can contain harmful materials like mercury and beryllium that pose environmental risks.
Part of the problem is regulatory. Only 19 states have laws banning electronics from the regular trash. In states without such rules, like Nevada, electronics often end up in garbage and recycling bins, said Jeremy Walters, a community-relations manager for waste collector Republic Services. Environmental concerns aside, compacting flammable lithium-ion batteries with paper recycling can be dangerous; recycling centers have reported an uptick in fires.
Even when e-waste rules exist, it’s left up to consumers to handle their old devices properly. But recycling them can be a pain. Rather than just drop a used phone in a bin outside their homes, lots of people have to take their electronics to a store, which may pay them for it but could also charge them to get rid of it. Many consumers, paralyzed by the hassle or put off by the expense, simply throw their devices into the trash or stash them in a drawer, hoping they’ll just disappear. “We don’t necessarily have the measures to make sure people aren’t throwing it away,” Walters said.
One solution is to make electronics last as long as they once did. At ERI’s facility, Shegerian showed TIME [magazine] dozens of televisions from the 1970s and 1980s that stopped working only recently. Yet instead, technology companies are speeding the pace of obsolescence. Most smartphone batteries can’t be easily replaced when they stop holding a charge, new laptops don’t accept old cables, and software companies push upgrades that won’t run on old devices. “Our products today don’t last as long as they used to, and it’s a strategy by manufacturers to force us into shorter and shorter upgrade cycles,” said Kyle Wiens, the founder of iFixit, which publishes do-it-yourself repair guides. . . .
Some environmental groups say multibillion-dollar companies . . . should pick up the cost of recycling the devices they sell. Lawmakers in parts of Europe and Canada and in some U.S. states have passed so-called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, which require manufacturers to establish and fund systems to recycle or collect obsolete products. . . .
. . . Some companies are increasing their recycling efforts on their own, whether for the economic benefit or the public relations boost.
From “The World Has an E-Waste Problem” by Alana Semuels from TIME Magazine, June 3, 2019. Copyright © 2019 TIME USA, LLC.
Electronics such as smartphones, computers, cameras, and large appliances contain toxins like lead, chromium, zinc, nickel, mercury, beryllium, and cadmium. These substances are bioaccumulative, which means that they accumulate over time in living organisms.
1obsolete: outdated and no longer useful
2Pallets: wooden platforms used to store or transport materials in a warehouse
3torrent: an outpouring
Question
How does paragraph 2 build on what the reader learns in paragraph 1?
- AParagraph 2 explains the underlying cause of the massive amounts of recycling that are described in paragraph 1.
- BParagraph 2 discusses the past trends that have led to the technological innovation mentioned in paragraph 1.
- CParagraph 2 cites statistics that support the claim about technology that is stated at the beginning of paragraph 1.
- DParagraph 2 expresses disapproval of the consumers who throw away the products that are discussed in paragraph 1.
Show the answer
Correct answer: A
The question asks how paragraph 2 expands upon the reader’s understanding from paragraph 1.
A. CORRECT. Paragraph 1 describes massive amounts of recycling (“about 6 million pounds . . . processed monthly”). Paragraph 2 then explains the underlying reason for so much electronics recycling, using a quote from a resource: “ ‘we always have to have the new, best product,’ ” so we buy new electronic products and “get rid of what’s old.”
B. Incorrect. The trend outlined in paragraph 2 is not one of the past but rather one that is ongoing and even increasing at an alarming rate; in only seven years, American consumers quintupled their spending on “telephone and communication equipment.”
C. Incorrect. While it is true that paragraph 2 presents a statistic about American consumer patterns from 2010 to 2017, the spending on these items does not directly support any claims about waste problems. Specific statistics about waste generation, as opposed to this statistic related only to spending, would better support this type of claim.
D. Incorrect. Although paragraph 2 mentions that consumers “get rid of what’s old” once “we buy something new,” this is merely a statement of fact and not a judgment about this behavior.
Question analysis
This text-structure question on “The World Has an E-Waste Problem” asks how paragraph 2, with a recycling executive’s remark and figures on Americans’ spending on phones and communication equipment, builds on the opening scene at a recycling plant. Students must name the link between two paragraphs, and every choice points to something that really appears in one of them.
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Explaining how one paragraph builds on another is core grade 7 text-structure work. The two paragraphs are short, but students must judge the relationship between them rather than find a detail, and the magazine prose is dense with figures and quotations.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- How, not what moderate
- Every choice must be checked minor
- Evidence
- Answered from several paragraphs or stanzas
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 10, 760 words; question and choices: about grade 11, 75 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Paragraph 2 answers the question that paragraph 1 leaves open, why so many gadgets pour into ERI’s plant. The spending figures are the snag: a $71 billion total that grew nearly fivefold seems to prove the opening’s “tech-hungry nation,” and the choice built on them sounds like a fair account of the paragraph. Students who read to its end, where buying something new means getting rid of what’s old, see that its job is to explain the waste, not to back a claim.
How, not what moderate Working it out
The stem asks how paragraph 2 relates to paragraph 1, so students must name a link, the buy-new, throw-out-old cycle behind the 6 million pounds a month, rather than spot a detail both paragraphs share. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Every choice must be checked minor Choosing the answer
Each choice ties something in paragraph 2 (statistics, a trend, Blum’s remark) to something in paragraph 1 (the recycling, 5G, the opening claim), so both ends of every choice must be checked. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Strategy: Sum up each of the first two paragraphs in a few words, ask what the second adds to the first, and check that both ends of a choice match what each paragraph says.
Traps
- Half right: One half of a two-part choice is right and the other is not.
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
B Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Pairs the years 2010 and 2017 with the 5G upgrade and assumes spending led to new technology, though paragraph 2 says the cycle of buying led to waste.
C Half right (King et al., 2004; Thissen, Steinberg & Fitzpatrick, 1989)
Matches the $71 billion figure to the opening’s “tech-hungry nation,” but the claim there is that the 5G upgrade brings an environmental cost, which spending from 2010 to 2017 does not show.
D Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Hears criticism in Blum’s “we always have to have the new, best product,” though the paragraph says “we” and reports the habit of replacing devices without judging the people who do it.
Working it out, step by step
See what the question asks
This asks how two paragraphs fit together. Paragraph 2 builds on paragraph 1 when it adds something new to it. So first sum up each paragraph in a few words. Then ask what the second one adds. Both ends of a choice must match.
Sum up paragraph 1
Paragraph 1 shows a mountain of old gadgets. “About 6 million pounds of discarded electronics are already processed monthly” at one recycling plant. Discarded means thrown away. Workers break the devices apart, and a machine shreds them. So paragraph 1 shows what is happening: a flood of e-waste.
Sum up paragraph 2
Paragraph 2 tells why. Aaron Blum says, “In our society, we always have to have the new, best product.” Spending on phones and similar gear grew nearly five times from 2010 to 2017. Then comes the key line: “When we buy something new, we get rid of what’s old.” That habit, the paragraph says, made e-waste the fastest-growing kind of solid waste.
Test both ends of each choice
- A fits. The buy-new, toss-old habit causes the huge amounts of recycling in paragraph 1. An underlying cause is the deeper reason behind something.
- B does not fit. Paragraph 2 says the buying habit leads to waste. It never says what led to 5G or to any new invention.
- C does not fit. Paragraph 1 opens by claiming the 5G upgrade brings an environmental cost. Money spent from 2010 to 2017 does not show that cost. Paragraph 2 uses its numbers to show the buying habit instead.
- D does not fit. Blum says “we,” so he counts himself in. The paragraph reports a habit without blaming anyone.
Choose the answer
Watch out: C is tempting. A jump to $71 billion sounds like proof of a “tech-hungry nation.” But read paragraph 2 to its end. Its point is the cycle of buying and throwing away, which explains the waste. So the answer is A.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
C is the closest wrong choice, because paragraph 2 does have numbers. But the numbers serve a bigger point. People buy new things and toss the old ones, and that cycle fills plants like ERI’s. Paragraph 2 gives the reason behind paragraph 1’s pile of gadgets. That is a cause, which is A.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from “The World Has an E-Waste Problem”” as printed (pages 164–166)
