Recontextualizing the E-Waste Issue
A data-driven, interactive narrative that combines data visualization, policy research, and critical design to expose the myths of e-waste and reimagine technology ownership.
Interact with the project here.
This interactive web prototype explores global misconceptions about e-waste distribution. Through dynamic maps and visualizations, users are guided to reassess commonly held beliefs about the e-waste trade from high-income countries to low-income regions, revealing a more nuanced reality shaped by historical policies like the Basel Convention. The prototype also examines the limitations of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, questioning its role in e-waste trade patterns.
Using this project, I aim to prompt a critical conversation on technology ownership and consumer responsibility. By incorporating insights from experts like Josh Lepawsky and Jonathan Chapman, the project emphasizes that addressing the e-waste crisis goes beyond simple recycling. It challenges us to rethink our attachment to technology and advocates for a cultural shift toward valuing and preserving our devices, ultimately breaking the cycle of excessive consumption.
Project Details:
Skills: Graphic Design, Web Design, UI/UX Design
Tools: Figma, After Effects, Illustrator
Date: Fall 2024
Problem Significance
E-waste is not only a crisis of discarded technology, but also a crisis of design, ownership, and the values we place on the objects we create.
Electronic waste has become one of the fastest growing and most toxic waste streams in the world, outpacing the capacity of formal recycling systems. In 2022, global e-waste reached a record 62 million tonnes, yet less than a quarter of that was collected and properly recycled. The dominant narrative suggests that wealthy countries in the Global North generate excessive e-waste that is then exported to poorer regions of the Global South, where it accumulates in unsafe landfills and exposes communities to environmental and health hazards. While this storyline is compelling and often repeated by international organizations, it oversimplifies the issue and obscures more nuanced patterns of trade, policy, and consumption that are equally important in shaping the crisis.
Historical trade data shows that international agreements, such as the Basel Convention and its Ban Amendment, significantly reduced the export of hazardous electronic waste from Annex VII countries to non-Annex VII countries. By the early 2010s, shipments from developed to developing nations had declined to a negligible level, suggesting that the simplistic view of e-waste as a one-way transfer from rich to poor no longer reflects reality. Instead, what persists are complex intra-regional trades, informal recycling practices, and a staggering increase in domestic consumption within both high- and low-income countries. This shift complicates the picture, making it clear that the problem is not only about where discarded electronics end up, but also about how they are designed, owned, and discarded in the first place.
Creating the Identity
The site’s identity emerged from transforming a simple cursor experiment into a way of uncovering hidden stories about e-waste.
The project began less as a formal investigation and more as an experiment in interaction. I was interested in cursor-tracing prototypes in Figma and had been thinking a lot about obsolete technology, both because of the subject matter of e-waste and my own fascination with retro digital aesthetics. I wanted to see if I could replicate the feeling of an old display screen where pixels illuminate and dim depending on the proximity of the cursor. This became a way of reintroducing tactility into a flat, digital environment, using movement to “wake up” parts of the screen in a way that recalls the flicker and impermanence of early electronic displays.As I played with this system, I started to think beyond the screen as just a surface. What if the cursor wasn’t only creating visual traces, but also shaping the way information was revealed? That shift reframed the experiment from a purely aesthetic exercise into an opportunity to engage with data. The idea that a user’s hand could actively uncover or conceal parts of a dataset felt particularly resonant with e-waste, a subject where so much of the story is about what is seen, what is hidden, and what gets misrepresented in mainstream narratives. Interaction here became metaphor: by moving through the interface, a viewer is also moving through layers of context.
As the interaction developed, I began moving away from the idea of pixel illumination and instead focused on the act of revealing and concealing. The cursor became less about simulating a retro display and more about creating a dynamic threshold between what is visible and what remains hidden. This shift aligned more directly with the project’s narrative goals. Just as the mainstream e-waste story leaves out crucial complexities, the interface withholds parts of the visual field until the user chooses to uncover them. In this way, the design moves from being an aesthetic experiment to a metaphorical tool, reflecting the tension between dominant narratives and the obscured realities behind them.
Impact
Equally important was the impact of the narrative framework itself. The project was praised not only for its visual ingenuity but also for its depth of research and critical perspective. Instead of reinforcing the dominant storyline that frames e-waste primarily as a North-to-South dumping issue, the site emphasized underrepresented dimensions of the problem—specifically, the global consequences of consumer trends and the cultural perception of technology ownership. By reframing the conversation in this way, the project underscored that e-waste is not only about distribution but about design, consumption, and disposal habits embedded in everyday life. This perspective resonated with audiences, reinforcing the importance of design as a tool for both revealing overlooked narratives and shaping how complex issues are understood.