Team:Tec-Monterrey/Surveys
Polls and data analysis: assessing the impact of our project.
Of the 196 people who answered the poll, 90% have college level education or higher, and the mean and mode were around 22 years.
The first set of questions asked for the amount of different electronic devices in their homes: computers, tablets, consoles, T.V, etc. We found out that the mean is around 2-3 for each device, except for cellphones, which have a mean of 4-5. Also, most people have had around 3 cellphones in the last five years. The statistics start to become more alarming when we consider the total amount of electronic devices that were accounted for in the poll: 4258 devices in total!. So the density of devices/person is around 5.3 if we take into account a mean of 4 people per house. When this result is scaled up to actual populations of big cities, the amount of electronic devices becomes a daunting problem.
However, this statistics become even more disturbing when we take into consideration that only 51% of the people we surveyed separates their electronic waste, mostly to store it indefinitely or to give it away. Additionally, only 9% gives it a the proper treatment required.
The problem becomes bigger when we take into account the social status of the people who answered our poll, most of whom have a higher education. As a result, if we had surveyed an even bigger sample of the population, we would expect the percentage of people who are aware of the problem to diminish. This lack of understanding of the problem is reflected on the fact that only 25% of the population could estimate the amount of e-waste/person/year in Mexico (which is around 8kg) with a margin of relative error of 50%. This is troubling because it shows the little understanding of the order of magnitude of the problem, because if we multiply the correct amount of kilograms times the actual mexican population, we will have 976 million kg of waste per year. Which is still a huge amount of waste, but only a small fraction of what is produced worldwide.
This data only highlights the significance of the Human Practices of our project, and the need for greater intervention on the issue. Therefore, it is imperative that we take action and create more awareness of this looming threat of electronic waste.
Brought to you by iGEM Tec-Monterrey 2016 ♥
