Electronic waste, or e-waste, refers to discarded information and communications technology equipment such as laptops, smartphones, and large and small household appliances. In 2015, Achim Steiner of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) described "an unprecedented tsunami of electronic waste rolling out over the world". In 2016, 44.7 million tonnes of e-waste were generated, equivalent to 4500 Eiffel Towers. In 2019, the World Economic Forum determined e-waste to be the fastest growing waste stream in the world. In 2022, the amount of e-waste hit 59.4 million tonnes, a 33% increase since 2016. Given the economic, and not the technical logic driving the digital economy, devices are rendered obsolete before their time and the pile of e-waste continues to grow. E-waste is the source of significant environmental harm. Production, transportation, and end-of-life treatment accounts for 80+% of a device's carbon footprint over its operating life. Extracting rare earth metals consumes copious amounts of energy; moreover, mining is typically done in the Global South under miserable social conditions. The end-of-life treatment of e-waste means those same devices return to the Global South, resulting in toxic pollution entering the environment and harming workers. Today, most devices have chips which need software to keep them running. Thus, software plays a crucial role in preventing e-waste: software determines a hardware's minimum working requirements, and for how long a device remains safely in use. For most users, environmental harm driven by software has largely remained overlooked … let alone that we can already do something about it with Free Software. In this talk I will provide a brief overview of the environmental harm from e-waste driven by software, and I will link the inherent values that come with a Free Software license to sustainable software design. By enabling full user autonomy and removing artificial vendor dependencies, Free Software means electronic devices that are otherwise unsupported by manufacturers remain in use. Lightweight and up-to-date software, free from bloat and energy-consuming ads, allows aging, less-powerful hardware to keep running and stay out of the waste bin. Software freedom means hardware freedom, and that means we are able to combat the environmental harm caused by e-waste with Free Software today.

1. Combatting E-Waste’s Environmental
Harm With Free Software
SFSCon 2023
10 November 2023
be4foss@floss.social
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2. Slides available under "conferences-workshops":
https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/be4foss/
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3. KDE Eco Combatting E-Waste’s Harm With FOSS 10 Nov. 2023 3 / 46

4. KDE Eco Combatting E-Waste’s Harm With FOSS 10 Nov. 2023 4 / 46

5. Autonomy & Transparency – Inherent To FOSS By Design
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6. Autonomy & Transparency – Software Design Enabling 3R
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7. Circular Economy: products designed to enable the 3R
across their life cycle.
Shifting to a circular economy is estimated to reduce
global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70%.
Sarah King, circular economy researcher, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reduce-reuse-recycle-why-all-3-rs-are-critical-to-a-circular-economy/
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8. Linear Economy – Produce, Use, Dispose
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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9. Combatting E-Waste With A Circular Economy
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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10. All stages apply to both software & hardware
Today – Autonomy & Transparency Where They Intersect
▶ (1) Lean Software . . . for longer and more efficient hardware use
▶ (2) Vendor Independence . . . for hardware reuse via software repair
▶ (3) Software Recycling . . . for support of new hardware and independent reuse/repair
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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11. What Is The Problem?
Image (modified) from Karanjot Singh published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license:
https://eco.kde.org/blog/2022-03-03-sok22-kde-eco/
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12. Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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13. Disposal – “Tsunami Of E-Waste”
Based on report: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%202017/Global-E-waste%20Monitor%202017%20.pdf
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14. Waste & Emission Leakage
Image by Muntaka Chasant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Agbogbloshie,_Ghana_-_September_2019.jpg
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/magazine/e-waste-offers-an-economic-opportunity-as-well-as-toxicity.html
See also: https://www.nytimes.com//2019/12/08/world/asia/e-waste-thailand-southeast-asia.html
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15. Waste & Emission Leakage
Image of smoke from the burning of e-waste, plastic, and garbage, Tamir Kalifa: https://nytimes.com/2019/09/12/opinion/sunday/west-bank-e-waste.html
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16. To replace discarded devices, process starts again from beginning . . .
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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17. Disproportionate Impact Of Production
Based on Apple’s “iPhone 7 Environmental Report (2017)” as reported in "Smarte Grüne Welt": https://www.oekom.de/buch/smarte-gruene-welt-9783962380205
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18. . . . At Huge Social Costs, Including Human Rights Violations
Photo of child labor in a cobalt mine in Congo from Thomas Coombes (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE)
Holding Companies Responsible (Supply Chain Due Diligence Act): https://www.goethe.de/ins/id/en/kul/mag/22370005.html
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19. Combatting E-Waste – REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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20. Hardware Longevity – Software Plays A Critical Role
Software
Bloatware / Feature Creep: "Device doesn’t meet minimum system requirements . . . "
Abandonware / Planned Obsolescence: "Device is no longer supported . . . "
Result
Functioning devices discarded as e-waste
New devices produced and shipped unecessarily
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21. Lean Software – Efficient Use Of Hardware
Adapted from: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/entwicklung-anwendung-von-bewertungsgrundlagen-fuer
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22. Autonomy & Transparency To Improve Software
Modified from: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/entwicklung-anwendung-von-bewertungsgrundlagen-fuer
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23. Non-Free Software = Vendor Dependency
https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
“[With a key] all the ice-cream machines in
town would dispense only vanilla ice cream.”
“Sometimes people were disappointed when
their favorite flavor wasn’t available, but what
could they do?”
Ada & Zangemann - A tale of software, skateboards, and raspberry ice cream (p. 17)
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24. Ada & Zangemann – A Tale Of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream
https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
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25. KDE Eco – KEcoLaB (WIP) For Free Software Developers
Karanjot Singh https://eco.kde.org/blog/2023-06-13-gsoc23-energy-measurement-lab/
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26. KDE Eco – Efficiency MRs
https://invent.kde.org/dashboard/merge_requests?label_name[]=Efficiency
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27. Lean Software – Autonomy To Uninstall Or Modular Install
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28. Lean Software – Autonomy To Run Offline Or Disable Advertising
Data from ATS = Ad / Tracking Services
Screenshot with modified colors from “Carbon footprint of unwanted data-use by smartphones: An analysis for the EU”:
https://groenlinks.nl/sites/groenlinks/files/2021-09/CE_Delft_210166_Carbon_footprint_unwanted_data-use_smartphones.pdf
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29. Combatting E-Waste – Reduce, REUSE, Recycle
Image: Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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30. Vendor Independence
Image (CC BY-SA 4.0) from Raimond Spekking: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Apple_MacBook_Pro%2C_model_A1278-8109.jpg
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31. Giving Hardware New Life And New Value
https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
“From a broken ice-cream machine,
they built a new one that could make
ice cream in every imaginable shape
and color.”
Ada & Zangemann - A tale of software, skateboards, and raspberry
ice cream (p. 35)
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32. Autonomy & Transparency To Repair (Patch) Software
“Value is lost when fully or partially func-
tional products are discarded because [. . . ]
software is no longer supported[.]”
“Focus on electronics and ICT as a prior-
ity sector for implementing the ‘right to re-
pair’, including a right to update obsolete
software” (p. 7)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1583933814386&uri=COM:2020:98:FIN
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33. Because What Is A Right To Repair Without Access To Software?
Open Letter To Legislators In EU, 27 April 2022 (Upcycling Android, FSFE)
https://fsfe.org/activities/upcyclingandroid/openletter.html
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34. Combatting E-Waste – Reduce, Reuse, RECYCLE
Image: Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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35. Software Recycling – Autonomy & Transparency To Integrate Code
https://events.canonical.com/event/31/contributions/177/
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36. Autonomy & Transparency Interrupt The Linear Model - By Design
Image (modified): Geissdoerfer et al. (2020) published under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Circular_Economy_concept.png
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37. Blauer Engel For Desktop Software (2020)
FOSS Advantage
Autonomy & Transparency recognized as being
crucial to sustainable software design!
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38. KDE Eco Handbook – eco.kde.org/handbook
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39. KDE Goals – Sustainable Software
Image from: https://dot.kde.org/2022/11/16/kde%E2%80%99s-new-goals-join-kick-meeting
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40. Is All Of This Worth It?
XKCD comic “2368: Bigger Problem”: https://xkcd.com/2368/
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41. FSFE – Upcycling Android
https://fsfe.org/activities/upcyclingandroid/howtoupcycle.en.html
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42. Green Coding Summit – Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance
https://sdialliance.org/green-coding-summit/2023/
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43. Measuring Software – Green Coding Berlin
Mission: “research the energy consumption of software and its infrastructure, create open
source measurement tools, and create a community and ecosystem around green software.”
https://www.green-coding.org/
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44. Measuring Websites – Green Web Foundation
https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/
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45. Get Involved – https://eco.kde.org
Contact
Email: joseph@kde.org
Mastodon: https://floss.social/@be4foss
Discuss
BigBlueButton: Monthly meet-ups, 2nd Wed. 19:00 CET/CEST
Energy Efficiency Mailing List:
https://mail.kde.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/energy-efficiency
Matrix Room: https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/#energy-efficiency:kde.org
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46. Resources
Slides available under "conferences-workshops":
https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/be4foss/
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