Sustainability has become a regulatory idea for international politics, set out in the Agendas 21 and 2030, among others.3 It has thus become a guid- ing idea of national and international political processes. this is currently reflected in particular in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) issued by the United nations in 2015, which the international community has committed to implement by 2030.3 one of the goals (SDG 4) calls for quality education for everyone with a special focus on imparting skills that are nec- essary for sustainable development. By 2030, target 4.7 in particular asks the
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worldwide community to “ensure [that] all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non- violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of cul- ture’s contribution to sustainable development.”
7.2.1 Quality Education and Digitization
Quality education includes creating the best possible learning opportunities for learners of all ages. one of these opportunities is to find the most promis- ing ways that lie in the use of digital media in teaching-learning-arrangements.
this led to a nationwide program in Germany called Digitalpakt Schule.13 the program was launched in 2019 by the national Ministry of Education and Research and has led to massive investments in digital infrastructure in schools. 5.5 billion Euros were provided to update the digital infrastructure in schools. At the end of this process, among other investments, schools will have quality digital access and all teachers as well as learners will be equipped with up-to-date digital devices, primarily tablet computers.
Availability of digital devices for all teachers and learners will also impact the teaching of chemistry. Digital devices will provide easier access to world- wide information resources, being it information as such or to animations, visualizations, or virtual and augmented reality applications in class. these devices will be used in different forms to enrich chemistry learning. the dif- ferent forms encompass new chances for practical work, e.g., for data logging and easier analysis of data. they can help to better understand phenomena, e.g., by slow-motion videos of chemical phenomena. Video tutorials, digital learning environments or digitally enriched textbooks will become available easier. Finally, the digital devices themselves and new information and com- munication forms can become an interesting topic for learning chemistry14 both for students and teachers,15 e.g., about the chemistry behind the mak- ing and function of digital devices and what do to do with them physically after they are no longer usable.
7.2.2 A Different View on Digitization
Digitization in schools, however, can also be viewed from a different angle in terms of sustainability. the SDGs also focus on sustainability in other areas, more specifically issues that relate to the preservation of our natural envi- ronment. For example, the increasing air traffic is repeatedly criticized in the international discussion as one of the main causes of climate change.
the approximately equally high energy consumption by digital technologies and the constantly growing energy demand for increasing data traffic are not being questioned to the same extent. For sustainability education in chem- istry classes, chemistry education must focus on all chemistry related effects of digitization in terms of systems thinking.16 Chemistry education needs to
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reflect the issue of digitization in terms of its impact on energy and resource consumption as well as the growing amount of electronic waste when the digital devices come to the end of their operation time. Digitization offers new learning opportunities, but it also requires reflection on resources con- sumption and potential environmental pollution. thus, digitization is a multi-faceted sustainability issue, and raising the quality of education is just one of them.
Digitization requires investments in infrastructure from the digital device in hand to data lines, storage units, and data centers. All of this has an impact on the environment, from the extraction of raw materials, their processing and use, to disposal or recycling. Digitization has social and political effects as well, for example when it comes to the exploitation of raw materials and the often politically influenced trade with them.3 Chemistry plays a central role in all of these steps.17 not only the environmental impacts on life, on land or under water (SDGs 14 and 15) or on climate (SDG 13) are to be con- sidered. Global trade with minerals in different parts of the world applies to issues such as global justice (SDG 10), sustainable and clean energy use (SDG 7), or sustainable consumption (SDG 12). Chemistry class is linked in one way or another to all of the SDGs as discussed in the Global Chemical out- look II issued by the United nations Environment program.15 Competent and sustainability-conscious handling of digital media and the necessary hard- ware consumption is an emerging question, not only from an educational perspective. Geopolitical and economic interests also play an important role in the implementation of digitization. Risks for hardware production are increasingly predictable. politically, there is discussion of how supply bot- tlenecks and dependencies on raw materials supply from different countries can be limited or avoided, for example from politically unstable countries and regions or those in which ores are extracted and processed under eco- logically questionable and inhumane conditions. one of the often-discussed examples is Coltan mining for the extraction of tantalum in the Congo.18
When it comes to many raw materials that are important for digitization, Europe is almost completely dependent on ore imports as primary source.6 For many raw materials there are no economically viable sources to be exploited in Western Europe, as it is for many other countries in the world.
Such raw materials are considered critical for economic and societal devel- opment in Europe. Since 2011, the European Commission has regularly pub- lished assessments of non-energetic and non-agricultural resources under the concept of critical raw materials. In 2020, 30 currently critical raw materi- als were identified to have high economic importance and, at the same time, to have a high supply risk.6 China is often named here as the most influential country for the global supply for many critical raw materials, e.g., rare earth elements, magnesium, tungsten, antimony, gallium and germanium. other countries dominate the supply in other areas, such as Brazil (niobium) or the USA (beryllium and helium). platinum group metals are concentrated in Russia (palladium) and South Africa (iridium, platinum, rhodium and ruthe- nium) and Chile is named as the main exporter of lithium. Chile currently
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accounts for 44% of the global lithium production; the EU covers 78% of its lithium needs with imports from Chile. the list of critical raw materials includes heavy rare earth elements, light rare earth elements, and metals of the platinum group. this means there are not just 30, but actually well over 40 raw materials with a critical supply status. In addition to the risks associ- ated with the provision, in many cases critical raw materials can, in fact, not be substituted at all or only with difficulty in their areas of application and the recovery rates of their recycling are inadequate. Similar assessments exist in other countries.7,8 the EU furthermore started stronger regulations con- cerning the trading of minerals, and a regulation was issued on the handling of minerals from conflict areas in May 2017, which came into force at the beginning of 2021. Its aim is to create a system for compliance with the duty of care in the supply chain. the possibilities for armed groups and security forces to trade tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold, or other corresponding ores are to be restricted.19
7.2.3 Digitization and the Need for Investment in Better Recycling
those reasons create a need for action for more sustainable electronic waste recycling. For example, about 20 kg of electronic waste are generated each year on average per person in the case of Germany. Although in Germany old devices can be returned to communal collection points and dealers free of charge and the manufacturers take over the disposal, only 45% of the devices get back into the cycle.20 In response to the disposal problem, the European Commission issued guidelines in 2002/2003 with the aim of reducing the use of hazardous substances in production (including particularly toxic heavy metals, plasticizers, and halogenated flame retardants) and to reduce the proportion of electronic devices in household waste. the controlled disposal is intended to combat the illegal export of electronic scrap and to recycle rare and valuable raw materials. the guidelines have been implemented in Ger- many since 2015 through the Recycling Management Act and the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Act.
the content of precious metals per personal computer (pC) or mobile phone is often only a few milligrams. But, given the total volume of old devices, there is an economically relevant potential. For example: to extract 1 g of gold in African mines, about 2 tons of rock have to be extracted from great depths and processed. Recycling just five pCs can yield the same amount.
old electronic devices, so-called “end-of-life” material, are usually disman- tled manually at first and the recyclable fractions are sorted according to materials and ingredients. the collected components are then mechanically shredded, magnetically separated and sent to the respective refurbishment processes. Gold, copper and platinum, among others, are recovered from so-called shredder fine fractions by electrolytic processing.
In the public discussion in Europe and beyond, when recycling electronic waste is concerned, special attention is paid to the rare earth elements
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known as technology metals.21 none of these metals occur naturally in pure form, but always as a mixture of different compounds. Many of the 16 stable rare earth elements are part of electronic components, magnets, batteries, energy-saving lamps, or lEDs. their primary extraction harbors major envi- ronmental risks. the remaining residues mostly contain toxic waste (heavy metals, acids, fluorides) and are stored in artificial ponds, which cannot always be considered safe due to the often-inadequate environmental regu- lations. In addition to the danger to soil and groundwater, there is also a permanent risk of radioactive exposure since many of the rare earth element ores are accompanied by radioactive substances (thorium, uranium).
once installed, rare earth elements are difficult to recover from electronic waste. the amounts are small, the processes complicated and, so far, hardly affordable on an industrial level. According to the current state, less than one percent of the processed rare earth elements are recycled in the case of Germany.22 Due to the steadily growing demand, however, the production of some rare earth elements has risen sharply in recent years, especially when focusing on neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium. A good example for this is the strongest permanent magnets currently available, made from a neodymium-iron-boron alloy with the composition nd2Fe14B. Such mag- nets are found in wind energy and electrical systems, but also in data stor- age media, headphones, or vibrating elements in cell phones. the economic prognosis for recycling also looks favorable as the prices of rare earth metals and many other raw materials are constantly rising.