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Justice does not stop there. Since we require American companies like IBM to abide by stringent environmental and work regulations that protect both the environment and American workers, we must also require foreign companies like Acer from Taiwan province (located in China) to abide by the same stringent environmental and work regulations. Otherwise, IBM will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies like Acer. Acer products are cheaper than IBM products simply because Acer does not pay the cost of protecting the environment or the employees.

At the same time, non-Westerners like the Koreans and the Chinese simply do the care about the environment or the health of employees. Please read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. All the Taiwanese and Korean companies received a failing grade on the issue of poisoning both the environment and their workers.

How can Westerners force non-Westerners like the Taiwanese and Koreans to enact and to enforce the same stringent environmental and work regulations that Westerners apply to Western companies like IBM? Simple. We boycott products made by Taiwanese or Korean companies. Please remember that when you buy products make in a particular country, you effectively support the value system in that country. Do not buy products made in either China or Korea.

If you have qualms about this boycott, please re-read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

... from the desk of the reporter

Justice does not stop there. Since we require American companies like IBM to abide by stringent environmental and work regulations that protect both the environment and American workers, we must also require foreign companies like Acer from Taiwan province (located in China) to abide by the same stringent environmental and work regulations. Otherwise, IBM will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies like Acer. Acer products are cheaper than IBM products simply because Acer does not pay the cost of protecting the environment or the employees.

At the same time, non-Westerners like the Koreans and the Chinese simply do the care about the environment or the health of employees. Please read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. All the Taiwanese and Korean companies received a failing grade on the issue of poisoning both the environment and their workers.

How can Westerners force non-Westerners like the Taiwanese and Koreans to enact and to enforce the same stringent environmental and work regulations that Westerners apply to Western companies like IBM? Simple. We boycott products made by Taiwanese or Korean companies. Please remember that when you buy products make in a particular country, you effectively support the value system in that country. Do not buy products made in either China or Korea.

If you have qualms about this boycott, please re-read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

... from the desk of the reporter

Justice does not stop there. Since we require American companies like IBM to abide by stringent environmental and work regulations that protect both the environment and American workers, we must also require foreign companies like Acer from Taiwan province (located in China) to abide by the same stringent environmental and work regulations. Otherwise, IBM will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies like Acer. Acer products are cheaper than IBM products simply because Acer does not pay the cost of protecting the environment or the employees.

At the same time, non-Westerners like the Koreans and the Chinese simply do the care about the environment or the health of employees. Please read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. All the Taiwanese and Korean companies received a failing grade on the issue of poisoning both the environment and their workers.

How can Westerners force non-Westerners like the Taiwanese and Koreans to enact and to enforce the same stringent environmental and work regulations that Westerners apply to Western companies like IBM? Simple. We boycott products made by Taiwanese or Korean companies. Please remember that when you buy products make in a particular country, you effectively support the value system in that country. Do not buy products made in either China or Korea.

If you have qualms about this boycott, please re-read the environmental report card produced by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

... from the desk of the reporter

A group of IBM fab workers (presumably the same group) made an appearance on NBC's Dateline to discuss this very issue five years ago. Here's a transcript.

Most people seem to be focusing on the "paper" or energy use aspect (often in conjunction with paper/recycling), but are ignoring the chemical factor of computers. Every computer takes hundreds of different types of deadly chemicals and chemical products to produce, most of which goes strait into the environment. Those who don't, go inot the computer components that are quickly finding their way back into landfills, causeing just as much polution. Also, unlike naturally produced things like paper, computer components cannot be easily or cost effectivly recycled (some components, often the most dangerous ones cannot be recycled at all). This is causing very serious environmental damage. for more info, Google, or:
Cleaning Up Computer Trash - TechTV
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Web site
Virtual Ecology: A Brief Environmental History of Silicon Valley
Computers in a Sustainable Society
The next revolution in computers: Think Green

The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition storehouses a lot of this information, though you have to wade through a lot of fluff. You might start here.

A few months ago I was looking at buying a new computer, and I tried to find out anything about whole-life environmental impact of computing gear. i.e. including toxic waste produced during manufacturing, and ease of disposal/recycling. It was pretty hard to find anything useful about specific products. I want to know which hard drive was produced in the most environmentally friendly manner, even within the same company. The only web pages I could find were about laws in different countries; I don't think I even found anything about any specific manufacturers. One interesting site I found was the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Other than that, there was some stuff from greenpeace IIRC, and some gov't web sites about international treaties.

Does anyone know how to buy an environmentally friendly computer?

SVTC

NPR News

Washington Post

I've got an rev. b iMac (the almost-original bondi blue style) with a dead monitor. As near as I can tell the electronics are all fine, but without a working display it won't boot. I'd love to get it running again, minimallly as a "hidden in the closet" server, or better still by finding someone with another dead iMac with a working display where I could merge the parts together into one working machine.

But since just fixing it doesn't seem feasible (a new CRT has been quoted to me for around $500, so that's not an option), and I haven't been able to find anyone for the "franken-mac" idea, my fiance has been trying to get me to throw it away instead, and sooner or later I'm sure she'll have her way on this one.

If it comes to that though, rather than toss it in the trash, I'd rather pay a service like this to recycle it if I could -- the toxins in modern PCs are *nasty* and worth trying to recycle or dispose of properly. Tossing it in a dumpster really isn't the best idea, as a major recent reports (and several related news articles) have highlighted:

• http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/spec ial_packages/marchmania/4605025.htm
• http://news.com.com/2100-1040-844195.html
• http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50645,00 .html
• http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash.htm

There's a reason that the phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" has the terms in that order. It's better to re-collect the production materials to be used in new products than to throw things away & need more raw resources, but it's better to stretch out the lifespan of existing products before giving them up for scrap at all. Even beyond that through, it's better to consume less at the outset than to stretch out the life of things that you maybe didn't need *or* recycle.

So yeah, it's better to reuse that old working Mac, but when the time comes to give it up -- and that time *will* come, sooner or later -- then it's better to dispose of it responsibly. Recycling isn't necessarily a very clean option, as the report in that last URL illustrates, so the longer you can avoid that the better.

And if anyone in the Boston area has an old iMac with, say, a dead motherboard, let me know :-)

"It will put the white box manufacturers out of business, that's why HP is doing it"

"doubt that companies that get their PC's manufactured in Taiwan will have to pay the fee."

aws like this do nothing but raise costs for consumers. Does anyone in their right mind think HP, etc., will simply eat the cost of this? No. The only reason they're doing it is because it's in California (home base of American liberalism), and if they don't, they'll be totally demonized by militant environmentalists and human rights activists playing on your emotions rather than hard, scientific data.

I love posters that can't think about the consquences of their actions. Once you have kids you begin wondering about the type of legacy you leave behind. I guess we can just tell our kids "Sorry the environment is toxic but some slashdotter wanted to save $35." Get real

How will things that think be developed?"

By making them small and cheap.

The invisible addendum to this sentence is expendable. Small, cheap, and expendable - the mantra of the Japanese economy. Someday we'll be so deep in silicon poisoning that it will be a worldwide crisis, and we'll have to have a resolution like the Kyoto Protocol so that our president can ignore it. But like our automobile industry fifty years ago, we should march relentlessly ahead with abandon until we reach a crisis point, rather than attempt to head it off now.

If machines could truly think they would be screaming at us: "Don't Throw Us Out!!!".

This issue has come up on slashdot and other places. Here's an earlier article on the same topic in the Guardian The Silicon Valley Toxics coalition has extensive information about the problem. Some congresspeople are also attempting to deal with it. What it comes down to is that old computers are just like other environmental hazzards: the actual cost of goods we buy does not reflect their environmental impact. Gas is cheap these days so it's inexpesnive to drive around in gass guzzling SUVs. But the price of the gas does not reflect the environmental impact of the emissions. Here too, the price of a new computer does not reflect the cost of disposing of it in a safe way. Eventually this will change and there will be an extra $20 charge for computers and similar electronic items that will cover the cost to the government of disposing of the waste when it reaches end of life.

There is a list here.

Basel Action Network
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition

Is there a problem? Oh yea. The Sacramento News and Review has an article showing how in spite of current laws, CRT's and other components still end up in landfills all the time. There is sometimes 4 pounds of lead in one CRT, all of which could easily leech into your drinking water.

Then there's the proposal itself.

Under the proposal, a fee -- perhaps $25 or $30 -- would be added to computer systems at the time of purchase. The collected money would finance a recycling program for computers and television sets.

What really needs to be done is local goverments should have a small tax they impose on everyone. That tax should go for proper disposal of toxic waste -- all toxic waste. Checking back with that SNR link above, private contractors are currently ignoreing the law and knowing dumping illegal CRTs in landfills. This sort of thing doesn't get done right unless the government removes incentives to cut corners -- i.e., it does it itself.

All of society benefits from not having toxic chemicals in their landfills and drinking water, so a general tax is fair. Regardless, please get involved. Support whatever you want but do it, the cost of clean up once this stuff is already in a landfill is huge. Find groups in your local area and support them. (Bay Area link ).

Peace, out.

Choosing my words carefully to avoid becoming flamebait:

Why is it that when something like this comes along, the first thing we geeks do is complain about how stupid it is? We are a minority, we who keep machines long past their prime, using them to their full capacity as web servers, mail servers, firewalls, gateways, etc... The majority of computer waste comes from major corporations, who dispose of these machines after they have passed the point of obsolescence. The cheapest method of disposal right now is to have it "taken care of" (i.e. put in a landfill in China). See this site for real info.

Giving major corporations an incentive to recycle computers is an incredible step towards changing the way we deal with computer waste. Who knows, maybe the next step will be to device a whole new model for computer sales that generates less waste by creating more interchangable parts; rather than throwing out the whole machine every 1.5 years, companies can purchase core processing units that all machines use... distributed computing... but i digress.

Well, it doesn't really work like that. Check out what happens to Old Computers at the Silicon Valley Toxics Commission site.

Basically, many people lack proper opportunities to make a living. Desperate people are forced to do things like rip through all of our exported consumer electronics to scavenge copper wire and monitor parts. SVTC (see link above) shows how people resort to collecting potentially carcinogenic toner in cups for reuse in order to earn enough to eat.

Unfortunately, it's not really as if we are packaging our old computers and sending them to Africa or India for educational use. We are exporting our old computers to Asia - as toxic garbage.

Check out these facts, straight from the SVTC report mentioned above: Every year, the US exports about 10 million obsolete computers to Asia to be disposed of as hazardous waste. On average, each computer contains 13 pounds of plastic, 3 pounds of lead, enough cadmium to pollute 260,000 gallons of drinking water, enough chromium to pollute 10,000 gallons, and enough mercury to pollute 260,000 gallons.

Crazy, isn't it!!! This is a huge environmental problem, that until recently has gotten little or no press. SVTC was in the San Francisco paper recently, but Slashdotters would do well to look into solutions to this terrible ecological stress!

Why does Slashdot insist on distributing metanews?

Most people here complain about media consolidation, information tracking and privacy infringement. The first step to counter these problems is simply to obtain information from the authoritative source.

Looking up this report took approximately three minutes. Why not improve the quality around here by putting researched items on the front page?

You'be been living in a dream world if you ever thought that the computer industry was squeaky clean. Silicon Valley has the highest density of EPA Superfund sites in the USA. Check out this lovely map of Silicon Valley pollution. If you live in this neighborhood, you'll get cancer for sure. Computer production has never been clean. In fact, it's nearly as dirty as the military. The manufacturers have simply been able to put on a "clean" face for the world.

You'be been living in a dream world if you ever thought that the computer industry was squeaky clean. Silicon Valley has the highest density of EPA Superfund sites in the USA. Check out this lovely map of Silicon Valley pollution. If you live in this neighborhood, you'll get cancer for sure. Computer production has never been clean. In fact, it's nearly as dirty as the military. The manufacturers have simply been able to put on a "clean" face for the world.

Check out http://www.svtc.org/ for detailed maps of all the toxic sites in Silicon Valley. Very scary.

A report card for major computer manufacturers on environmental responsibility. Apple and IBM scored the highest.

However, politically... those of us who actually work in the industry rather than own it (realizing that some folks do both), have very little influence. Politically, we are all over the map with a general spirit of libertarian ethics with a distrust of the megacorporation ingrained into our psyche by personal expierence and cyberpunk literature we have been gobbling for the last two decades.

And, if we formed our own party in the single member-district system of the U.S (sorry, I know the rest of the world is more democratic with parlimentary systems) such would be a third party which would never gain any influence outside of local elections in California and the Pacific North West. We also, as workers, don't have the money to buy...er...lobby politicans. Easy example... if you and AOL/Time-Warner lobby congress about MP3s, who do you think is going to win?

No, fellow workers... we get paid so much because we have power. Power, untapped and unrealized. Middle-management was gutted through downsizing and our network connections have given rise to more "just-in-time" capitalism. Our skills , if you believe the Software Labor Shortage Myth are in such short supply that we can not train and import workers fast enough. Imagine if we can collectively come to agreements in which we decide what things we will work for and will not. Not only can we have influence over technology, but a host of other things that need geeks to be accomplished.

Our power is in action, not the ballot box. We can vote with our feet. We can strike (here is the source. We can slack and slow down. We can sick-in. We can boycott. We can Direct Action. We can be as Electornically Civilly Disobedient, and we can be... it works like we did with Low Power FM through an organized political campaign of radio piracy, we were able to sieze part of the spectrum from corporate monoplization for community interests. We can break mass media blackouts of information, by making our own media, like we did in Seattle, and like we'll do again in DC.

Are you tired of 60-hour work weeks? Of corporations making deals with politicans to undermine over-time pay and encourage permatemping? We don't have to be slaves.

Are you tired of technology developing that penalizes both the worker and the consumer, to the benfit of a handful of the rich and power... anybody remember the Java Class War? Where was our class in that? Complaining about how the standards needed to be independent of propietary control, and largely doing nothing about it! We need to take control of training and make it clear that it is those of us work in the industry that can figure out who knows what, rather than some profiteering third party or a way for leading software companies to gouge folks for certification!

We need non-profit employment services (or hiring halls) so we can dump our contracting companies (ie. pimps, job sharks, etc... ) once and for all.

We need to organize, and organize in a way that maintains our autonomy and democratic values. We don't need any union bosses, telling us what we can and can't do... but we do need to be in solidarity with our fellow workers so we can support each other in struggle. Who among you wouldn't strike to help the workers in hardware manufacture to get a better shake? Some more pay, a safer environment, etc... Who among you wouldn't refuse to work, if you knew by refusing for a short time you could bring in ecological sound practices. We can bring on the Viridian revolution, but innovation won't be enough... we have to force the issue and force companies to clean up their mess.

We have to become responsible, or we have noone to blame for how bad work is but ourselves.

Solid,

Flint

Baltimore IWW Telecommunications and Computer Workers IU560

(San Francisco, Toronto)

Also check out: Syndicat de l'Industrie Informatique, Washington Technical Workers Alliance, FACE Intel, Alliance@IBM, BITE Division of NWU (Business - Instructional - Techincal - Electronic).

We Can Win! No Nerds, No Birds!