Television housings, cathode ray tubes, computers, monitors, and other imported electronic waste items not salable at the Alaba Market in Lagos, Nigeria, are dumped in this nearby swamp. Credit: Basel Action Network

A policy analysis published Thursday in the journal Science calls our attention to something it's much easier to turn away from: what happens to outdated computer monitors, cell phones that aren't smart enough, cables that once powered discarded laptops, even old calculators. Much of this waste, which is largely a product of the developed world, ends up in the developing world, and the hazardous materials it contains accumulate in the food chain and in poor children's blood. In Africa, China, and India, markets for secondhand electronics are having a terrible impact. Children in Guiyu, China have high levels of lead in their blood and swamps in Nigeria overflow with discarded electronics.

So what can we do about it? The United States, one of the largest producers of electronic waste, is one of 23 member countries that has not ratified the United Nations' Basel Convention, which would regulate the movement of hazardous electronic materials across international borders. A bill in the Senate (S. 1397) would authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to award grant money for recycling research and ask the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create a database of green electronic materials. According to the authors of the Science article, the European Union and the state of California both have complex and inconsistent waste policies, but we can still learn from them:

For example, Californians are willing to pay extra for "green" electronics products (e.g., containing fewer toxic substances, capable of being economically recycled) and to drive up to 8 miles to drop-off products for environmentally sensitive recycling. In addition, political mandates and economic incentives are key tools for engaging manufacturers,who will need to assume greater responsibility for designing electronic products that contain safer materials and are easily managed after consumers no longer want them.

However, the long-term solution, the authors suggest, is to change the way electronics are made in the first place:

Bart Gordon, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, said that "we need our future engineers to understand that whatever they put together will eventually have to be taken apart."

Aneesh Chopra, President Obama's appointee for national chief technology officer, is not giving interviews until after he's confirmed. But as Virginia's technology secretary, he was known for finding creative ways to bring broadband to remote rural areas of that state. He's also a booster of electronic medical records and understands that ubiquitous broadband is needed to enable their fullest impact: Chopra was quoted in this story last year saying: "People are literally dying because they can't get the broadband they need to run the [medical] software."

With any luck the appointment of Chopra will translate into the wise expenditure of $7.2 billion set aside in the stimulus bill to promote broadband expansion. Chopra will be the national technology policy counterpart to Obama's chief information officer, Vivek Kundra, who will oversee an overhaul of the federal government's computer infrastructure. Kundra was previously CTO for Washington, DC.

Tech industry bigwigs have fallen over themselves to praise the Chopra appointment--but what else would they do? Cynicism aside, some more neutral observers share the optimism, and predict that technology is an area where Obama has the highest chance of making his mark on the nation, given that war, an economic crisis, and gridlock in Congress may hamstring him on other fronts.

In announcing the appointment in his radio and video address last Saturday, Obama said Chopra will promote technological innovation "to help achieve our most urgent priorities, from creating jobs and reducing health care costs, to keeping our nation secure."

Chopra and Kundra "will be recognized in several years as the biggest agents of 'change' Obama promised and delivered," Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference, told me. "Technology in an Obama administration will be more than just a slice of the pie. It will be the pan that supports change in all the issue areas he will address as president."

In 2006, the state of California passed landmark legislation aimed at limiting green-house gas emissions. Under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected the state's request to regulate vehicular emissions. Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced it would reconsider this ruling--most likely in order to reverse it.

Mary D. Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, will be responsible for implementing the state's climate change legislation. In a speech at the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative annual Energy Symposium yesterday, Nichols had some advice for a new presidential administration with the will to act on climate change: follow California's lead on energy efficiency because it's been an economic boon for the state. Nichols mentioned a report by Next 10 that claims cutting energy usage over the past 30 years has created 1.5 million jobs in California. (Still, in a state characterized by suburban sprawl, carbon dioxide emissions are quite high, at 11 tons per capita per year.)

Nichols said the federal government has three things to learn from California's success in curbing emissions and increasing efficiency. First, emissions policies must support a mixed bag of technologies and programs, from funding for public transportation to implementing cap and trade of carbon dioxide.

Second, Nichols strongly advocated that the fed let the states do much of the work. California and other states have been doing well, and the government should keep encouraging this while providing incentives to get other states going on clean-energy initiatives. "The states want to retain the authority to step in if the federal program doesn't work," she said.

Third, an important role for the federal government, Nichols says, will be to provide a central repository for emissions data. She points to the Clean Air Act as a successful state-federal partnership. "It's not perfect, but it has worked effectively in a way that engages local and state governments."