Three photojournalists have created an in-depth report on electronic waste — its negative and ... positive ... consequences.

Assessment of the environmental performance and burdens of radio fre- quency identification (RFID) technology shows that the RFID application reduces the environmental impacts in all the categories considered, and that, overall, the environmental benefits resulting from the food waste reduction significantly overcome the tag impacts. The purpose of this paper is to assess the environmental performance and burdens of radio fre- quency identification (RFID) technology. The RFID application involves additional environmental impacts to the life cycle of the product to which it is applied. Environmental burdens are caused, for instance, by the emissions and energy requirements that occur during the tag production, transportation and disposal. At the same time, when RFID technology is applied to tag fresh food products, some environmental benefits can be achieved. As an example, food waste can be reduced by optimizing the supply chain processes; therefore, the related environmental impacts can be avoided. The environmental sustainability of the RFID technology is evaluated through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, considering its application to a fresh product, namely fresh milk. The assessment was made exploiting the midpoint indicators recommended in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook, edited by the Joint Research Centre of European Commission. Results show that the RFID application reduces the environmental impacts in all the categories considered, and that, overall, the environmental benefits resulting from the food waste reduction significantly overcome the tag impacts (more than 5 times). Given the lack of studies focusing on the environmental impact of RFID technology, this work might represent an important addition to the literature.

Fact-based sustainability

With our new Fair Materials Roadmap 2030, we are extending our list of focus materials from 14 to 23 materials.

Anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate draws on five years of research and ethnographic fieldwork in server farms to illustrate some of the diverse environmental impacts of data storage.

The demand for ultrapure water (UPW) has been increased over the past decades. UPW production now occupies an almost equivalent position with seawater desalination in the world water market, fulfilling the demands of various industrial purposes. As an extremely low level of contaminants is required, the typical UPW production system combines 5 to10 purification technologies including ultrafiltration (UF), reverse osmosis (RO) and ion exchanger (IX). In recent years, RO has been at the forefront of this elaborate process as the majority of impurity rejections is carried out with it. This study provides a comprehensive review of the rising role of RO to satisfy the technical requirements in the UPW sector, with an emphasis on electronic industrial applications. The major transitions in recent UPW production are first reviewed: 1) ever-increasing water quality demand, 2) introduction of electrochemical processes into the water polishing stage and 3) UPW waste reclamation, all of which emphasize the enhanced responsibility of RO for producing cleaner permeate. Additionally, the noteworthy insights of RO technologies for the purpose of UPW are summarized, specifically focusing on RO configurations appropriate for UPW, scaling mitigation techniques for high recovery operation, and cleaning methods for maintenance. Lastly, this review concludes with future research directions for UPW production systems to achieve successful implementation.

Article technique survolant l'osmose directe incluant les principales différences par rapport à l'osmose inverse (publié dans Vecteur Environnement, 51(4), 41-45, 2018

Along with energy, reducing water usage is another challenge that data center operators must address. Both issues are inextricably linked.

Data centers use significant amounts of water for their cooling systems and this usage is gaining recognition in water-stressed regions of the world.