ABSTRACT
Electronics waste (e-waste) is an inevitable and unavoidable by-product of the current worldwide technological revolution. E-waste is a collective term, embracing consumer and business appliances, products, components, and accessories nearing the end of their useful life due to obsolescence, malfunction, or exhaustion (e.g., batteries). Common examples of e-waste include personal and mainframe computers, printers, televisions, VCRs, stereos, copiers, and fax machines. There is no standardized definition for e-waste; however, electronics equipment can be defined as those devices whose primary functions are provided by electronic circuitry and components, i.e., semiconductor devices (integrated circuits, transistors, and diodes), passive components (resistors, capacitors, and inductors), electrooptical components (CRTs, LEDs, CCDs, lasers, etc.), sensors (transducers and MEM devices), and electronics packaging (printed circuit boards, connectors) (IAER, 2002). Some major categories of electronics equipment are listed in Table 22.1.
