Electricity or electronics?

Many different appliances, from dryers to vacuum cleaners, use electricity as an energy source. These electrical devices transform the electrical current they receive through a wall outlet and convert it into another form of energy. For example, your toaster converts electricity into heat. Your lamp turns electricity into light. Your vacuum cleaner converts electricity into a motion that drives a vacuum motor. But electronic devices do more. Instead of transforming electricity into heat, light, or motion, they actually manipulate the current itself. In this way, electronic devices can add significant information to the current itself. Thus, electric current can be controlled for audio, video or data transmission.  

It is becoming apparent that now devices are both electric and electronic. For example, your brand new toaster can convert electricity into heat and control the current using a thermostat that maintains a certain temperature. Similarly, your cell phone needs a battery to power it, but it also manages electricity to transmit sound and images. 

When you hear the master’s verdict that you will have to pay a large sum for the handling of a faulty device, the owner only has to weigh it – to handle it or, to add a new device to the repair price? According to the masters of computer and household appliances, there are more and more cases when the customer is simply advised to buy a new appliance. The Association of Electronics Distributors is revealing the other side of the coin: as the use of such devices increases, so does the amount of electronic waste that goes untreated into rubbish.

Proponents of the idea of ​​zero waste, which was formed a few years ago, are surprised that not only is there no decline in world consumption, but on the contrary, thousands of tonnes of electronic waste are generated every day. It’s hard to imagine what numbers of electronics are thrown away not only because of a fault, but also because of a lost commercial appearance or simply the device becoming obsolete morally.