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what often happens is that the parts then get shipped to China, where 8 year olds identify plastics by heating them with a lighter and sniffing the fumes (no kidding), salvageable parts get recovered, and the solder-covered motherboards get dumped in a canal.

A friend of mine has been working for the past year for a small, non-profit* electronics recycler run by an environmentalist, their site recycling and mining. As you may imagine, mining turns out to be vastly more toxic to the world than even burying computers in landfills.

* (They are run as a non-profit, but aren't registered as one since the paperwork isn't worth the tax-savings on their small revenues.)

what often happens is that the parts then get shipped to China, where 8 year olds identify plastics by heating them with a lighter and sniffing the fumes (no kidding), salvageable parts get recovered, and the solder-covered motherboards get dumped in a canal.

A friend of mine has been working for the past year for a small, non-profit* electronics recycler run by an environmentalist, their site has lots of white-papers, publications and links on this. One of the main thrusts of their work has been working make standards of "due diligence" in order to allow those who need to recycle computers to be able to know which recyclers investigate their sale and disposal chain to make sure that all of the material is disposed of in a responsible way.

Who recycles the computers is a rather big problem. Due to the money to be made by collecting recycling fees and the lack of standards and accountability in the electronics recycling industry, many companies simply "recycle" computers by shipping them off (mixed working, non-working, and garbage) to China, India, and other places where often they are picked through and dumped. The BBC has article with a good picture of the results.

As an aside, a lot of Retroworks/Good-Point Recycling's white-papers are on the environmental impact difference between [even toxic] recycling and mining. As you may imagine, mining turns out to be vastly more toxic to the world than even burying computers in landfills.

* (They are run as a non-profit, but aren't registered as one since the paperwork isn't worth the tax-savings on their small revenues.)

what often happens is that the parts then get shipped to China, where 8 year olds identify plastics by heating them with a lighter and sniffing the fumes (no kidding), salvageable parts get recovered, and the solder-covered motherboards get dumped in a canal.

A friend of mine has been working for the past year for a small, non-profit* electronics recycler run by an environmentalist, their site has lots of white-papers, publications and links on this. One of the main thrusts of their work has been working make standards of "due diligence" in order to allow those who need to recycle computers to be able to know which recyclers investigate their sale and disposal chain to make sure that all of the material is disposed of in a responsible way.

Who recycles the computers is a rather big problem. Due to the money to be made by collecting recycling fees and the lack of standards and accountability in the electronics recycling industry, many companies simply "recycle" computers by shipping them off (mixed working, non-working, and garbage) to China, India, and other places where often they are picked through and dumped. The BBC has article with a good picture of the results.

As an aside, a lot of Retroworks/Good-Point Recycling's white-papers are on the environmental impact difference between [even toxic] recycling and mining. As you may imagine, mining turns out to be vastly more toxic to the world than even burying computers in landfills.

* (They are run as a non-profit, but aren't registered as one since the paperwork isn't worth the tax-savings on their small revenues.)

Recycling computers into raw materials is REALLY nasty.

A friend of mine just started working as the director of American Retroworks/Good Points Recycling, a small non-profit company here in Vermont that specializes in computer and electronics recycling. Their website is kindof a mess (I'm helping to fix that), but as can be seen in their white papers and publications, there is a serious problem with many 'recycling' operations selling to any buyer who will take their stuff, often leading to unscrupulous buyers purchasing tons of computers, pulling a few sellable parts off of them, then dumping the rest.

Retroworks (as a small non-profit) on the other hand is primarily concerned with envirnmental impact and focuses on distributing the electronics that they collect to operations that can reuse the computers/parts instead of trying to convert them back into raw materials. Apparently one of their biggest businesses is selling monitors with broken electronics to companies in china which then use the tubes (with new control electronics) in multimedia entertainment consoles that they sell there. Also, I believe that they are currently in negotiations with other environmentally focused electronics recycling firms to have an environmental standard for computer recycling that those wishing to dispose of their equipment can use as a reference to determine if their computer will actually be handled in an environmentally friendly[er] way. For now, they have this (PowerPoint) info on choosing an electronics diposer. This has some interesting info on the effects of poor recycling practices.

Recycling computers into raw materials is REALLY nasty.

A friend of mine just started working as the director of American Retroworks/Good Points Recycling, a small non-profit company here in Vermont that specializes in computer and electronics recycling. Their website is kindof a mess (I'm helping to fix that), but as can be seen in their white papers and publications, there is a serious problem with many 'recycling' operations selling to any buyer who will take their stuff, often leading to unscrupulous buyers purchasing tons of computers, pulling a few sellable parts off of them, then dumping the rest.

Retroworks (as a small non-profit) on the other hand is primarily concerned with envirnmental impact and focuses on distributing the electronics that they collect to operations that can reuse the computers/parts instead of trying to convert them back into raw materials. Apparently one of their biggest businesses is selling monitors with broken electronics to companies in china which then use the tubes (with new control electronics) in multimedia entertainment consoles that they sell there. Also, I believe that they are currently in negotiations with other environmentally focused electronics recycling firms to have an environmental standard for computer recycling that those wishing to dispose of their equipment can use as a reference to determine if their computer will actually be handled in an environmentally friendly[er] way. For now, they have this (PowerPoint) info on choosing an electronics diposer. This has some interesting info on the effects of poor recycling practices.

Recycling computers into raw materials is REALLY nasty.

A friend of mine just started working as the director of American Retroworks/Good Points Recycling, a small non-profit company here in Vermont that specializes in computer and electronics recycling. Their website is kindof a mess (I'm helping to fix that), but as can be seen in their white papers and publications, there is a serious problem with many 'recycling' operations selling to any buyer who will take their stuff, often leading to unscrupulous buyers purchasing tons of computers, pulling a few sellable parts off of them, then dumping the rest.

Retroworks (as a small non-profit) on the other hand is primarily concerned with envirnmental impact and focuses on distributing the electronics that they collect to operations that can reuse the computers/parts instead of trying to convert them back into raw materials. Apparently one of their biggest businesses is selling monitors with broken electronics to companies in china which then use the tubes (with new control electronics) in multimedia entertainment consoles that they sell there. Also, I believe that they are currently in negotiations with other environmentally focused electronics recycling firms to have an environmental standard for computer recycling that those wishing to dispose of their equipment can use as a reference to determine if their computer will actually be handled in an environmentally friendly[er] way. For now, they have this (PowerPoint) info on choosing an electronics diposer. This has some interesting info on the effects of poor recycling practices.