research-article

Practices in the creative reuse of e-waste

Authors:

Eric PaulosAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 2395 - 2404

https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979292

Published: 07 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

E-waste is a generic term embracing various forms of electric and electronic equipment that is loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, or broken [27]. When e-waste is improperly discarded as trash, there are predictable negative impacts on the environment and human health. Existing e-waste solutions range from designing for reuse to fabricating with eco-friendly decomposable materials to more radical critiques of current practices surrounding capitalism and consumerism. Complementary to theses efforts, this paper presents an accessible reuse framework that encourages creativity while maintaining personal ownership of e-waste. Through a series of online surveys of existing personal e-waste stockpiling behaviors combined with observational studies of existing reuse practices, we developed a design reuse vocabulary: materials, shapes, and operations to enable wide ranging and creative reuse of obsolete electronics by everyday people. We operationalized this vocabulary and evaluated its legibility and usefulness. As a result, we derived a novel reuse composition framework: reuse as-is, remake, and remanufacture designed to be accessible and to have broader impact in encouraging creative reuse across a wide range of e-waste types beyond those specifically used in our study. We believe these frameworks will be a catalyst for the creative reuse of e-waste.

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Cited By

Bell FCampo Woytuk NSøndergaard MAlistar M(2024)Biodegradation as More-than-Human UnmakingACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/368552631:6(1-41)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3685526
Cooney SDang MJackson RPerdoncin S(2024)#Haul: An analysis of YouTube Discourse Surrounding Over-Consumption and Sustainability in Haul VideosProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685373(1-32)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685373
Lu JLopes P(2024)Unmaking Electronic WasteACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367450531:6(1-30)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674505
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Index Terms

Practices in the creative reuse of e-waste
1. Human-centered computing

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2011

3530 pages

ISBN:9781450302289

DOI:10.1145/1978942

General Chair:
Desney Tan
Microsoft Research
,
Program Chairs:
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
Vienna University of Technology
,
Carl Gutwin
University of Saskatchewan
,
Bo Begole
PARC
,
Wendy A. Kellogg
IBM Research

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 07 May 2011

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CHI '11

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CHI '11: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 7 - 12, 2011

BC, Vancouver, Canada

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CHI '11 Paper Acceptance Rate 410 of 1,532 submissions, 27%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

Bell FCampo Woytuk NSøndergaard MAlistar M(2024)Biodegradation as More-than-Human UnmakingACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/368552631:6(1-41)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3685526
Cooney SDang MJackson RPerdoncin S(2024)#Haul: An analysis of YouTube Discourse Surrounding Over-Consumption and Sustainability in Haul VideosProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685373(1-32)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685373
Lu JLopes P(2024)Unmaking Electronic WasteACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367450531:6(1-30)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674505
Urquhart LLechelt STerras MSailaja NRezk ACastle-Green TDarzentas DPrimlani NOwen VStead M(2024)Creating Sustainable Internet of Things Futures: Aligning Legal and Design Research Agendas.Companion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3658391(372-376)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656156.3658391
Lechelt SGorkovenko KSpeed C(2024)On Disused Connected Devices: Understanding Disuse, “Holding On,” and Barriers to CircularityACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/36511712:2(1-27)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3651171
Balsara DGómez-Zará D(2024)Virtual Threads: A Systematic Literature Review of 10 Years of VR/AR/MR Adoption in Fashion DesignProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661575(356-371)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
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Lu JMandel IJu WLopes P(2024)(W)E-waste: Creative Making with Wasted Computing DevicesProceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition10.1145/3635636.3660761(83-85)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635636.3660761
Bell FWu SCampo Woytuk NLazaro Vasquez EAlistar MBuechley LCiolfi LHogan TDöring TJenkins Tvan Dijk JHuron SLi ZCoyle DSigner B(2024)Making Biomaterials for Sustainable Tangible InterfacesProceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3623509.3634740(1-5)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2024
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Song KBell FDeshpande HMandel IWun TAlistar MBuechley LJu WKim JPaulos ESabie SWakkary R(2024)Sustainable Unmaking: Designing for Biodegradation, Decay, and DisassemblyExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3636300(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Yan ZLi JZhang ZPeng H(2024)SolderlessPCB: Reusing Electronic Components in PCB Prototyping through Detachable 3D Printed HousingsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642765(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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