{"id":4298,"date":"2011-11-03T08:59:12","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T15:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unrbep.org\/?p=4298"},"modified":"2011-11-03T08:59:12","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T15:59:12","slug":"study-smart-fabrics-pose-e-waste-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/study-smart-fabrics-pose-e-waste-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Smart Fabrics Pose E-Waste Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The burgeoning smart fabric industry could pose a serious e-waste hazard, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/green.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/11\/02\/into-the-rubbish-bin-toxic-e-textiles\/?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a> report.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers have been weaving small electronic components into textiles, allowing the clothes to function as mobile phones, heart-rate monitors and other devices. The ElectroScience Laboratory at Ohio State University is building a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/25\/science\/25shirt.html?_r=1\" target=\"_blank\">cell phone vest<\/a>. \u00a0The designer clothing company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plusplasticelectronics.com\/smartfabricstextiles\/smart-textiles-recognised-as-fashion-designs-40123.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Rainbow Winters<\/a> sells pieces that emit light and change color. Scientists are even creating a fabric than can act as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plusplasticelectronics.com\/smartfabricsandtextiles\/fibre-based-energy-harvesting-for-smart-fabrics-40095.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">power supply<\/a> to run all these gadgets.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>But few laboratories are considering the end of the products\u2019 life cycle.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The first large-scale analysis of the issue was published in the <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1530-9290.2011.00358.x\/abstract\" target=\"_blank\">Journal of Industrial Ecology<\/a> in July. Authors Andreas K\u00f6hler and Conny Bakker of Technical University Delft in the Netherlands, and Lorenz Hilty of the University of Z\u00fcrich, reported that e-textile recycling will be difficult because the valuable materials \u2013 including copper, gold and silver \u2013 will be dispersed in large amounts of heterogeneous material. The combination of electronics and fabrics pose a special problem, with the fabrics jamming e-waste equipment, and the electronics contaminating textile processing.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.environmentalleader.com\/2011\/11\/03\/study-smart-fabrics-pose-e-waste-threat\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read the complete article at Environmental Leader<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The burgeoning smart fabric industry could pose a serious e-waste hazard, according to a New York Times report. Researchers have been weaving small electronic components into textiles, allowing the clothes to function as mobile phones, heart-rate monitors and other devices. The ElectroScience Laboratory at Ohio State University is building a cell phone vest. \u00a0The designer &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/study-smart-fabrics-pose-e-waste-threat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Study: Smart Fabrics Pose E-Waste Threat<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4300,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298\/revisions\/4300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}