Is recycled plastic the future of computer hardware?
Can you imagine the laptops you use day in and day out as being made of recycled plastic? In a bid to turn back the tide of plastic waste, that may soon be the case.
There's no doubt that plastic waste is a problem. According to National Geographic, about eight million tons of plastic waste that isn't properly recycled end up in the world's oceans, affecting more than 700 species ranging from marine life to seabirds.
There are several ways to stem this tide, according to scientists and conservationists, with recycling and improved product design being one of the best ways to lessen product waste.
On the fashion front, there are companies like Garbags in Portugal, which create backpacks, belts, and bookmarks from used packages donated to them, aiding in lessening the amount of waste that goes into landfills.
Big fashion companies like Adidas, Nike, Converse, and Puma are also doing the same by releasing sneakers made out of recyclable materials.
Tech companies are also getting into using plastic that would have gone into landfills or oceans and using these materials for their hardware. Given the ubiquity of laptops in today's society, it certainly is a welcome development.
In 2019, HP came out with the Elite Dragonfly, which uses ocean-bound litter from Haiti. The material is used for five percent of the laptop's speaker enclosure, while 50 percent of the entire laptop is made from recycled plastic.
HP Elite and HP Pro desktop and notebook computers released in 2020 were also made of a composite material that was partly recycled plastic. In an interview for Fast Company, HP's global head of sustainability strategy and innovation Ellen Jackowski said that the company plans to use 30 percent recycled plastics in its products by 2025.
Much more recently, Taiwan-based tech company Acer released its Vero line of products, which also use post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials in its products.
Photo source: Acer website
For instance, its three new products -- the laptops Aspire Vero and TravelMate Vero, the desktop computer Veriton Vero Mini, and the Acer Vero BR277 monitor -- are all made of varying percentages of PCR materials.
Photo source: Acer website
Even accessories like the Macaron Vero Mouse are made to be eco-friendly, with 30 percent of the Macaron Vero Mouse made from post-industrial recycled materials. The Vero Eco Sleeve and mousepad are both made from 100 percent recycled materials.
The company also plans to showcase these “green” products in their physical locations, as revealed by Acer Pan Asia Pacific President Andrew Hou in a recent press conference.
“We intend to design a green zone into the offline store so that people will see the Vero, the recycled products, so people can touch and play. We hope these new product lines bring the new momentum for Acer,” he shared.
While these products may be a start, more needs to be done to combat the increase in worldwide plastic waste, according to Lonely Whale Executive Director Dune Ives. Lonely Whale is a nonprofit that runs a project called NextWave Plastics, a group of businesses that encourage the use of ocean-bound plastics in production.
In an interview with Fast Company, Ives asked for more companies to look into this so as to drive down the costs as well.
“The more companies that can get involved and really scale these up, then the more likely we are to really get the price parity across everyone's initiatives and start seeing greater demand for what is now considered a waste product but truly has value,” he said.
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