What is e-waste? What is so dangerous about e-waste? Many well-meaning individuals thought that recycling was the answer to the e-waste problem. But why hasn’t e-waste recycling yielded the results hoped for?
E-waste refers to electronic products that are no longer in use, wanted, or their usefulness has become obsolete. E-waste contains a plethora of semimetals, and heavy metals such as lead, copper, and mercury. These metals leak to the landfills and finally contaminate water and the environment. As a result, they pose toxic chemicals harmful to the health of human beings and other living things. Recycling is an excellent solution to handling e-waste. Nonetheless, the labor-intensiveness involved denounces this approach. The process also includes the creation of more toxins that further toss health hazards to the workers. As such, many people are reluctant to employ this method.
What are network effects? Think about the kinds of technology products that you own, or websites you use, that are subject to network effects. What sorts of exchange do these products leverage (e.g., information, money, software, or other media)? Give several concrete examples and explain them as clearly as you can in your own words.
The network effect is a phenomenon that describes the addition of value to products or services through an increase in the number of users. For instance, a phone and a laptop allow the user to exchange information with other users through phone calls, texts, emails, and twitter. In this regard, the value of owning these gadgets is only experienced if several different people own them. What sup is a recent invention that facilitates instant messaging service, and the increase in its usage depicts a network effect.
Find an article online that discusses the problem of e-waste, preferably one that also proposed a solution. In your own words, summarize and critique the article. Do you think it is a viable solution? Why or why not? Be sure to include the url to your article.
The article describes India’s current e-waste situation. Microsoft sets the goals to reduce e-waste generation by producing devices that only engage people around the world. As a move to regulate e-waste, HP has developed carbon-dioxide cleaning chips to substitute hazardous solvents (Needhidasan, Samuel & Chidambaram, 2014). I think this is an excellent approach because the toxic substances in the electronic gadgets will be reduced and hence enhancing their safety use. Nonetheless, the dumping of e-waste requires illegalization through combined efforts and aggressive legislation.
Describe the impact that your chosen information system has on your organization. Be sure to consider both the positive and negative impacts. Over-dependence on an information system can be a negative impact, so also discuss whether your organization has any contingency plans for business continuity during system outages.
The information system has induced various benefits to the organization. For instance, the organization managers can make informed decisions regarding what products to stock more, based on the sales data provided by the information system. The contingency plans include the input of information stored in AFMIS into a manual form to prevent its loss.
References
Needhidasan, S., Samuel, M., & Chidambaram, R. (2014). Electronic waste–an emerging threat
to the environment of urban India. Journal of Environmental Health Science and Engineering, 12(1), 36.