Sustainability

The subject of sustainability deals with the consumption and maintenance of the world’s resources. Sustainability asks the question “can the current system of resource consumption and replenishment sustain itself indefinitely”? This wiki focuses on the sustainability issues related to OLED’s [3].

OLED’s have some advantages over traditional LCD screens when it comes to sustainability issues. OLED’s are more energy efficient than traditional LCD screens because they do not need a backlight. This energy efficiency cuts down on the CO_2­ emissions and money spent in energy generation, curbing global warming. The greater energy efficiency allows for cheaper to use electronics, giving people of a lower socio-economic class easier access to things like computers and laptops and thus greater access to the internet and information. Greater access to information would help lower socio-economic class people to shorten the class gap through a higher standard of living and educational opportunities like secondary education [1].

OLED’s do not contain toxic materials like LCD screens do, meaning less damaging pollution. Traditional electronics contain many harmful chemicals and require special disposal procedures to ensure that these chemicals do not pollute the environment. OLED’s would not need these special disposal procedures, saving the time and resources put into the disposal of traditional electronics. OLED’s do have some sustainability disadvantages when compared to traditional electronics. Current OLED’s have a shorter lifespan than other types of electronics used in similar applications, so the cost of producing and replacing OLED’s may outweigh the benefits of energy efficiency [1][2].

References 

[1]       “Organic light-emitting Diode”. Available:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED [Accessed February 4, 2009]

[2]        “A Tsunami of Electronic Waste” Available: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/86/8621gov1.html [Accessed March 4, 2009]

[3]        “How to Prepare EE 422 Lab Reports” Available: http://courseware.ee.calpoly.edu/~dbraun/courses/IEEE-EE422-Reports.doc. [Accessed February 4, 2009]