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Unintended Results From U.S. Hardware Dumps In Asia
Izeickl writes: "The BBC has a thought provoking story about old hardware being dumped in parts of Asia. The report 'details a group of villages in south-eastern China where computers from America are picked apart and strewn along rivers and fields.' the article also states 'The report suggested that as much as 80% of the America's electronic waste collected to be recycled is shipped out of the country.'"
"picked apart and strewn along rivers and fields."
What are they trying to do....grow more computers?
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
After all, it's just the wogs dying, right?
Best Slashdot Co
Yuck! we know there is all kinds of nastiness in computer compunents. How unfortunate that our crap ends up in someone elses yard....Preferred trading status, just isnt as attractive....
It was an anime/manga in which a whole society lived on a planet that was a dump for another society's high tech trash. Enough of the junk worked or partially worked that they were able to make a fairly high tech society themselves; although it was a fairly lawless one. Living off of the trash of others has a psychological impact...
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
This is just another example of the "no longer our problem" attitude. I agree with the introduction of cradle to grave responsibility and would love to see this sort of regulation being made retrospective. The bankruptcy courts could not cope though and the problem would not be solved...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
some years ago i heard almost the same thing with radioactive waste being dumped on the fields.
"shining" future, eh?
in russia though they steal old military computers and use some chemicals to melt the chips and release gold in it.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I've been amassing old computer junk in my closet for years. I'm almost to the point where I was going to pay to have them recycled. But damn, for all I know, I'm probably just paying for shipment to China!
I think there has to be an upcoming business opportunity in recycling this stuff, and doing it in an environmentally responsible manner. I'd almost be willing to start the ball rolling myself. Any resources out there for learning how to do it?
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Last I heard from greenpeace about chemical corps just filling up a whole ship with waste barrels and letting it strand on an african shore. It sits there waiting to fall apart andspread it's deadly cargo into the oceans.
Eat more fish they say... contains no mad cow disease... ha !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
For more reading see this CNN article (picked up off AP).
Have anyone seen those graveyards for ships where they are taking them apart? Looks like a scene for a post-nuclear-war movie.
"Everybody knows this is going on, but they are just embarrassed and don't really know what to do about it,"
If we stopped shipping this crap out to other countries, and it started piling up here uncontrollably, I think we'd be forced to find a way to deal with it...it really makes me sick that we use other countries as dumping grounds.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Just an example that we need a global recycling system for hardware components. Few countries have implemented laws that demand hardware producers to take back their products and recycle them as much as possible. Such a thing can't be handled by single nations IMHO - or governments at all.
The hardware industry should come together and create binding recycling standards. It is sad that there is still a large share of computer companies ignoring environmental concerns.
Line 9: Argument of type SIGNATURE expected.
This reminds me of a report a few years back that found that most paper being put into recycling bins actually wound up being stockpiled in warehouses because companies weren't buying enough post-consumer paper. Same thing was happening in Austria. It kinda made me a bit cynical about the whole environmental issue. (I still recycle most of the stuff I can, but I always get skeptical whenever a new 'study' comes out on the benefits of recycled materials.)
:-/
But I digress... so, in PA, we're not allowed to throw out computers. We have to take them to recycling centers... well, technically. I still think most people just toss the machines. For the reason that toxic metals will leech into the ground and pollute the water. What a shame that we're shipping all our crap to other countries to pollute.
Humorless sig goes here.
It is only thought provoking if you are like most americans that have never travelled outside the US to see these kinds of things first hand. It actually says more about your lack of awarness than it does about any sort of industrial posture. Russia dumps subs off Japan and Korea. Britain dumps medical waste off the coast of Sri Lanka...Australia dumps scrap metal into the South polar seas...New York City dumps commercial waste into the Atlantic. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's new or newsworthy. Get outside and take a look for yourself. Visit India and the Balkans and the South Seas and Asia. Waste has a meaning you obviously missed during history class.
It doesnt matters who does it or why, th epoint is that its being done and thats bad enough, e-waste practicly ends up killing th eland and making water unusable.
Dont take on the siner, get on with the sin, because the next country around the corner will do the same and the next and the next, its time to focus on the problem and not on who did it.
- Everybody in Denial -
I think two points are worth noting - firstly, for better or worse, the source of the report and its tone are set firmly within the environmentalist camp.
Secondly - this problem is probably the tip of the iceberg, and is certainly a very real threat to the environment in the next few decades. I personally believe we should take significant action now to prevent the need for another Kyoto (where this would be a serious issue) ten years from now.
Apparently California is considering imposing fees on the purchase of computer hardware to cover the costs of recycling.
The question is, if I want to keep the hardware I buy in the closet forever when I'm through using it, do I still have to pay the fee?
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars
I know around these parts (Eastern MA), I just can't get rid of the stuff. It piles up in closets, clutters up counters, sits in heaps in the corners. Old monitors my eyes can no longer tolerate, strange boards with bus interfaces I can no longer use, old hardrives too small to bother with. Its illegal to put in the trash, and even the "hasardous waste" pickup wont take monitors anymore. As more and more "average" people upgrade old computers, the problem will only get worse. Already I see "dumping" of old eletronics at the goodwill drop sites in the middle of the nights. I don't know what they do with the stuff, since it probably can't easily be sold or scrapped. Electronic waste will be a serious problem in the near future, and not just for our poorer friends in China.
}#q NO CARRIER
Some old linux disks are getting sent over with all that computer hardware. Then all they would need is a reliable source of electricity and a net connection and they could be sending the US *THEIR* trash in 20 years.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
CNN has a more detailed article regarding this. China, India and Pakistan are main destination for the rubblish.
The situation is quite frightening. Consequently, the groundwater (near Guiyu, China) is so polluted that drinking water has to be trucked in from a town 18 miles away, the report said.
These "high tech" waste is especially hazardous to these poor workers. Medical waste (eg used bandage) usually smells and look nasty, everyone know they are dirty. Villagers usually have no clue toxic heavy metal will leak to groundwater, burning the plastic will generate very toxic smoke... before too late.
Probably, it is now to add a "prepaid" waste recycling fee to new computers....
Thats where i sell all my old shit!
I understand someone puting the full text of an artical up when the source site is slow. But, this is from a BBC site, why can't people just read it on the original sources page?
Are you so sure that the title is warranted? Somehow I doubt that this effect is entirely unintended.
After all, speaking as the Ugly American that I am, it seems that the main point is to get the crap we don't want out of the country. Well, shit, mission accomplished there, huh?
What happens to it afterward is not our problem. And frankly, I live in an area once known for its steel foundries, and never known for environmental consciousness.
--saint
.. a beowulf cluster of those.
:-)
Hook 'em all together and china might get the supercomputing power to match a 1 GHz PIII..
Apparently, I was wrong.
These kinds of things really tick me off. I've recycled numerous old systems, in the hopes that they either went to some good, or were safely broken down, to be used in other applications. Instead, they probably just got dumped in a landfill.
I guess I shouldn't be so surprised, these types of things always happen with recycling. Recycled papers sit in warehouses because companies don't frequently buy post-consumer stock. Glass & tires that were originally planned to be melded together to make a new, cheap pavement wind up sitting in their respective piles. Tires that were supposedly going to be used for recreating habitats for aquatic life are instead burned.
And now, all our old 286s are dumping mercury & lead into China. If my old Vendex Headstart 8086 is sitting over there, instead of being recycled, I'll be very, very upset.
Is there anything we can really do to ensure that our equipment doesn't wind up in some other country's landfill??
And the point is ?
Yes I know this is bad for the enviroment, but the simple fact is its not like China is colony of the US and we are forcing th govt to accept the waste, THEY ARE BEING PAID !!!!!
If CHINA chooses NOT to give a shit about its citizens it on them, and THEY should have to answer for it.
This is NOT about the US, get it understand it and live with it.
Now, the people, well thats unfortunate, it really is, BUT IT THEIR GOVERMENTS(CHINA) FAULT !
Wide spread mass industrial pollution with NO regard to the enviroment is seen on both ends, the capatilist and the COMMUNIST side, the latter aswers to noone and it is thus a fair bit worse in general, no dont belive me ? Ask all the people in eastern europe what things were like during USSR rule.
Ok, so you want an alternative use ? Lets drop all this crap out of B52's on Iraq, and all the US enemies, a hell of a lot cheaper than smart bombs, could you imagine what damage a monitor would do falling form 30000 feet ?
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Why don't they build a beowulf cluster of these? We know people are still using Comodores in Afghanistan to send emails don't we?
On a more serious note, I've heard of websites in the 3rd world (was it India?) powered by dozens of 486's. Anyone care to confirm this?
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
but will at least reduce its impact : by choosing to invest in smaller computers using low-consumption chips, this will reduce the amount of wastes.
Just imagine such a beowulf cluster of these.
Now an interesting comparison could be made with cars...
In the sixties, everybody dreamed of a cadillac or a pick up.
Now, they'd rather look for smaller cars.
I think wearable computer or power-palmtops spreadth will clearly result from such pollution problem.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Toxic garbage has to be dealt and everybody knows that the cheapest solution always comes first... The transfer of hazardous waste is restricted by a 1989 treaty known as the Basel Convention, but the United States has not ratified it. why am I not suprised??
Migx
Oh really! :)
Patient: "Hey, Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
Doctor: "Don't do that."
I was wondering, does this happen in America alone, or does Europe just does thesame thing?
When I see a story like this at CNN (I don't get cable TV -- did anyone see if this was a TV story, or if they only posted it as a webstory?), it kinda makes me think CNN posted it so that some slashmonkey would submit it, their story would get slashdotted, and they'd cash in on the ad revenue.
Anyone agree? Or think this is just silly conspiracy talk?
How is my problem if people in other countries, far, far away, don't care as much about "preserving their scenic countryside" as they do about eating?
Do you have any links to back up this story?
The title of this article is Misleading. As stated before here, we pay china and other nations to dispose of these Items. Once we write the check, it's out of our control.
Look at it this way, You take your used car to a Junkyard to dispose of it. It's not worth anything so you pay 5 bucks to get rid of it. Now , the junkyard is supposed to pull the battery, drain the fluids, and strip most of the car down before smashing it, and sending it to the smelters to be melted. But instead, they just roll the car into a resevior and all that oil, battery acid, transmission fluid pollutes the water.
Now, you had a good faith arrangement that the Junkman was to dispose of the car properly, but instead, he didn't - Are you liable for his actions?
IANAL, but once you showed the bill of sale, I seriously doubt that the person who got the car to the Junkyard is.
It's the same issue here. However, the title of the article makes it look like the United States is loading up b-52's with this stuff , and dropping it across the country over there.
I get rather annoyed when people take cheap shots at the United States like this. It doesn't do anything to foster anything but bad will.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
If what the Discovery channel is correct, dumping is a very incorrect term. An asian buyer is purchasing all of the steel for reuse. Purchasing scrap metal is hardly what I'd call dumping. Unless you want to consider that the seller is actually dumping on me when I buy recycled paper.
There are millions of tons of steel that would be much better served being melted down and put back into good use, than to sit in a landfill, left to rust.
[humor hat]
So I guess according to you when ever I buy something, the seller is actually dumping on me... yuck.
[/humor hat]
...before I read anything else, I expected to read about some mechowarrior / android / wireless WAN/ d.net cruncher / cybernetic exoskeleton, being created out of unused computer materials. That would've been the ultimate hack.
I keep having this picture of archeologists in thousands of years in the future going through all of this stuff, and trying to piece together an old PC. no tech manuals, etc.
Alot of their success would depend on the level of their own technology, of course.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Seriously, if the material in computers were in short supply, then there would be profit in recycling computers and companies would be out trying to make a buck doing it. Same thing for paper and any other recycling.
Because this recycling business is driven by fear of a shortage instead of a real shortage, there is not money to be made in it so stuff like this happens.
Most of China is still very poor, and schools there (if any) have unimaginable budgets. In some remote areas, a kid would be fortunate to have a textbook. I wonder why can't US just give China all its old hardwares in *usable* form instead of smashing them. It really doesn't matter how old the machines are, some people will be glad to have it. It would be mutually beneficial in the end.
1. Practically everything in China is recycled. I've seen old folks / poor people rummage through trashbins with tongs looking for whatever is valuable for picking up some cash. This usually is cans or plastic soda bottles, which usually end up being turned into low-quality polyproplene or such.
2. While the cities I've been to in the last five years have considerably cleaned up their act, China still has an enormous problem with littering. Ever seen the commercials showing the roadside trash from the early 70's in America? That's China nowadays.
3. Many electronic components are desoldered and reused by small mom-and-pop outfits that want to get into business, and don't mind cheaper used components. When you've got lots of people who want to get ahead in life, they will use any resource at their disposal.
> When other people are doing things which we know are harmful to them and their environment we have a responsibility to try and help deter this act
Horse shit.
How do you tell a totalitarian regime that they should stop harming their environment?
Do you realize that China has population control.
Is it 1 kid, and then you get clipped? ( maybe 2, can't remember.. )
They arrest people and throw them in jail for decades for doing terrible things like speaking out at political rallys.
Screw them. I think we should sell China every bit of garbage we can. It's a win-win situation. We get to get rid of stuff we don't want. We get to have a nicer environment for us, here, in USA. They get to buy stuff they want to buy ( our garbage).
In the not so distant future, this concept will be at the forefront of corporate values for a company to succeed because people will be more aware of the effects of waste and pollution to the environment. For those companies that create a lot of waste without creating systems to properly deactivate or recycle the waste it will be corporate suicide.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
In Minnesota, we have strict laws about throwing out old computers too. In some places (Minneapolis), the laws are taken seriously. In other places (northern Minnesota), they aren't.
However, I was talking to someone who had a relative in the computer recycling business. If they recieved anything that had no resale value (and they frequently did), they'd just ship it to Wisconsin, which has lax landfill laws.
caption should read: 3 men loading pirated copies of 2k server on the new open relay cluster.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
1. We are not forcing this old hardware on anyone. If it's ending up in China or India it's because the people there think they can make some money off of it.
2. Even if they CAN make some money off of it, it's not our fault they throw the exploited "recycled" hardware in rivers. Come on. Crap in your refrigerator and it's going to have some negative affects on your food. Don't complain to someone else because you decided to crap there.
3. If the Chinese government sees this as a problem they should not let the stuff be imported. If it's being imported illegally the Chinese government should have no problem prosecuting (i.e., executing) the offending party.
Do I want my old computer ending up in a river? No. But don't blame me if it does, *I* didn't throw it in a river or asked anyone to burn plastic off its wires...
There are too many other responsible parties here that are DIRECTLY responsible to come after me with some tax or $30 increase on PC sales to try to resolve the problem. You want to solve the problem? Have China ban the practice. If China doesn't see it as a problem then why the hell should we?
Come on, I'm sick of this environmental psycho-babble.
If any of you get/read the New York Times, they have an article on the same topic:
T OX I.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/25/technology/25
NYTimes registration yadda-yadda-yadda.
What is music when you despise all sound?
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?
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalitions Techno Trash Report
If the US can export hazardous waste to these countries, how is that any different from Colombia sending drugs to the US?
It may sound like twisted logic at first, but think about it.
Country A produces a product that it ships to country B. This product is used by the poor in country B to make some money, but in the process they end up hurting their own communities. Not only that, this product spreads, causing harm in more affluent communities living further away.
Replace "A" with Colombia and "product" with drugs and you have the current drug war.
Or, replace "A" with US, "product" with toxic waste, and you have the current toxic waste dumping scenario.
Think about it.
Instead of charging someone X number of dollars for the cost of recycling, they should charge X*2 number of dollars and then PAY each person who brings in a computer X number of dollars.
That way people would have an incentive to do the right thing instead of just dumping it someplace and the program would pay for itself due to inflation and the fact that not EVERYONE is going to recycle, even if it pays.
As for the inflation angle, it works like this. If someone pays you X number of dollars and Y number of years later you pay them back the same exact ammount of money, well then you're actually paying them X/(inflation_rate^Y) in real dollars. This is why you almost NEVER see interest free loans, the lenders lose money on them. In the case of computers, the lifespan is short enough that the devaluation of the money from inflation would not be so great as to reduce it to nothing.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
If you actually "read" the article you will see that Afghanistan has barely any computing power at all. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has 1980's-era Wangs for godsakes. I think giving these people 2-year old laptops is like giving them a new lease on life. At least the machines wont lie rotting in some field in china.
There is no spork.
Why do I keep hearing about USA having not ratified this and that?
Because we read the fine print before we sign. And, yes, many countries envy our position so we need to make sure contracts (treaties) arent' screwing us over. Which, lately, most of them do.
'Not ratified' is a nice phrase that doesn't sound like "I'm a greedy, weak coward", which it really means in contexts like this, IMHO.
Ah, ok, so if you go to buy a house and read the contract and it says "The bank will charge you 200% per year and if you don't pay the loan back in a year we get to charge you another 500% and if you don't pay it we'll reposses your house and the house of your parents" and you wisely choose not to sign it it's because you're a greedy bastard?
Think Kyoto treaty for example. I'd be embarrassed to live in the States.
Oh, please. I was embarrased that Clinton was thinking of signing it. Luckily we got some sanity in the White House willing to stand up and say, "This is BS, we're not signing this."
On the other hand, I'm only waiting for people to start showing what they feel about this madness like they did in 60'ies and 70'ies. That's an era that american PEOPLE should be proud of.
Hahah, your true colors revealed. You're talking about the ultimate lowpoint in American culture.
It's not coming back. It had its time and its gone. No-one is going to get pissed off because environmental pscho-babble treaties aren't being signed.
Go back to the commune, flower child.
Hello! This is Junis from South-Eastern China! I am writing this on a rusted PDP-11/34 with 8" disk drives and Linux I found in the river, which I hooked up to the Internet using barbed wire and a 300 bps modem I found under a chicken coop. I write to thank you, USA, for all the computers! It is really helping my country to progress in IT! I also love American culture like martial arts movies, anything to do with Star Wars, and rap! I believe "Temptation Island" and "Baywatch" will be number one shows in China soon!
Yours,
Junis
The US is bullish on Wasenaar, which is supposed to limit arms and dual-use technologies but is usually used to try to prevent the spread of encryption. A good resource for checking which treaties a country has signed (and ratified) would be the CIA World Factbook.
I can't be arsed remembering the link though.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
It's more like a 14 year-old crack addict who'll let you fuck her up the ass for $10 (without knowing whether you're HIV positive) just because she needs the money. Surely this is "market forces" in action. Supply and demand.
"Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
Joke
"Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
It is not 'a race thing', but neo-colonialisation. Exactly what happens when developed nations take developing countries for a ride.
Tat Tvam Asi
Of course, we usually brought back more from Dayton or Findlay than we took, I guess we must have been part of the solution. ;)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This gets modded up? This is a tired, stupid argument.
If it wasn't for the Europeans (aided by the middle east and asia), Americans, ugly or otherwise would be hunting buffalo (and I'd be spearing kangaroos), so no internet for you without the eurotrash.
Reading a few history books suggests that one or two Russians died in WW2, but other then them I'm sure that the USA did it all. Of course, if it was announced that America would stand against Hitler as soon as he started, it is quite possible that a great deal fewer people would have died (and almost certainly no Americans...). However there was no real rush, as no-one was dropping bombs on their homes, nor driving tanks through their streets.
That the terrible suffering and infinite loss of those involved should be sullied by some prat who is quite happy to slur his own and another country's government, but gets upset when someone else offers up their opinion, is sickening, and shows a total lack of understanding, tolerance and maturity, I guess that is what scores on /. though...
I was going to make an on topic comment here, but
that the US abides by?
Those which suit US interests at the time and those which were created by the corporate masters of the US government, maybe...
There's a lot of international traffic in garbage. For example, Kingston, Ontario has sent most of its garbage to landfills in Michigan (which is about 20 times further than New York State, but much more eager to receive it) for at least 5 years now. Toronto was set to do that too, but the Sept 11 events have made border crossing slower, so they're still keeping most of it locally.
is considerable and I'm delighted to have a chance to share my own experiences on the topic in a way that might clarify some of the issues brought up by the article.
Although we often think of motherboards as the thing that holds the CPU, in fact monitors also have motherboards and even your power supply has a little motherboard in it.
One thing these motherboards or printed circuit boards all have in common is that they generally have all kinds of goodies like capacitors and transistors on one side and a bunch of solder holding them on from the back side.
By heating the back side of a printed circuit board with the component side facing down, it is quite possible and practical to remove many valuable and toxic components without damaging them because of the delightful fact that heat tends to rise rather than sink, so by heating the back of the board, you can save all those great little toys. This activity in itself can be quite entertaining. I like to call it "el bueno pinata" because the parts fall to the ground with a delightful clatter like the candy from a pinata with severed entrails.
I must confess that when I started playing "el bueno pinata" as a youngster, I did, in fact, use a propane torch which generated generous amounts of rather toxic smelling smoke. As this is both a cheap and effective technique for getting started in "el bueno pinata," it is probably what the report was referring to.
But let's not just jump to the conclusion that this means it's wrong to try and recycle components that have previously been soldered to a PCB. It just indicates that these people are hesitant about going about it the right way because they haven't seen enough profits yet. But don't worry. There's plenty of room for profits in the recycled electronics market and as the profits grow, the recycling techniques will become more sophisticated as mine have.
I no longer use a propane torch when I play "el bueno pinata" because there were simply too many complaints about the smell and the smoke etc. So, I tried a few different techniques. I tried using a clothes iron, but I found that it wasn't hot enough. Eventually I rigged up a custom device very similar to an iron, but with a greater heat output and I now use that to slowly and smokelessly desolder old TVs, monitors and power supplies. These are generally where the fun is at for my interests so far. But even if you don't want to get into tesla coils and all that nerd stuff, you can at least blow up the capacitors for fun and give the transistors to someone who enjoys such toys.
Once you clean the components off a circuit board, there's not much left and putting it in a landfill doesn't seem to be such a crime although I'm sure they could be further recycled for the metal sandwiched within the board. Either way, the mass is greatly reduced and many valuable parts that are usually for the most part in working condition can be used as is.
In the case of a monitor, all you're left with is a bunch of plastic and the tube itself which certainly should be recycled professionally as it has lots of valuable goodies within. Stripping it to that point though, is certainly worth doing if you care about the recycling and are interested in learning a bit about electronics.
As for power supplies, after you strip out the transformers, capacitors, transistors there's nothing left.
In fact, motherboards may be the most useless pieces of the whole PC for the average PC enthusiast while ironically being the only piece that most people care to deal with because of the warnings on all the fun stuff about "Dangerous Whoo Hoo Inside" It's a pity that the industry assumes everyone should stay and idiot instead of trying to educate the public about how they could safely repurpose some of those parts.
But that's what's cool about Slashdot. It makes up for where the PC industry left to its own devices fumbles the play.
Anyway, couldn't rant like this without at least one reference and that would have to be Sam's Repair FAQs. If you've never checked them out, then I highly recommend them.
For those of you with old hardware laying around, especially burnt our monitors and power supplies, I invite you, moreover I grant you permission to play "el bueno pinata"
they should just sell all those old computers back to westerners on eBay. ;)
Vast amounts of used clothing and old US cars go to Mexico. Some of the clothes are re-used while others are recycled into industrial rags.
If you went shopping around and four or five junkyards quoted you forty dollars to dispose of your wreck, and then you found one who would do it for five dollars, wouldn't you be a little suspicious?
When you see item X going for $100 in the stores, and someone on the street offers you X for $10 (including shipping to another country), you would have to be an idiot to refuse, wouldn't you?
Of course, you won't get gaol time for doing something that is morally wrong, but to believe a business has no idea what is going on after it "signs the check" is crazy. They will have costed various methods of disposal and found the cheapest "legal" method they could.
I do think the article is a cheap shot though, it isn't like America is the only country with old computers, and shady businesses.
Damnear all the frame steel that goes into American buildings comes from the Far East. Where it originated as crushed cars shipped to China and Japan -- from America.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I keep having this picture of archeologists in thousands of years in the future going through all of this stuff, and trying to piece together an old PC. no tech manuals, etc.
(A.P. News 25,237 CE)
Archeologists have made a great advance towards understanding the contents of fossilised "hard disks" with the discovery of what they are calling the "Pornsetta Stone"...
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Also reminds me of something that happened while I was visiting a client in Tokyo.... while riding the high-speed train to the convention center... he pointed to the land surrounding the convention center and said "this used to be ocean... how do you think we got this land?"... I said "I dunno"... He said "every year japaneese throw out old electronics and buy new electronics. We put electronics in bay and build convention center on top.".
Now... I never knew whether or not he was serious - I suspect he was... .but after reading the article - and pondering this... isn't that bad for their environment?
I know that my company alone disposes of numerous skids of workstations and servers every year. We have tried in the past to use recycling companies and have recently been using a used hardware reseller that charges us a fee to wipe the contents of the drives, but in return shares the profits for all equipment sold (I think we get 65%). The benefit to us is that we get a list of serial numbers that we have disposed of and how they were disposed (recycled, sold, etc..). We probably break even on the financial side. If you are interested in selling (or buying) check out Redemtech.
So rather than blaming the US, in general, you might want to start by considering the people who buy these things and toss the remnants, or the middlemen who make a living carting it there to auction off to them.
... hu hom, no one in the US took care to prevent those people dieing.
... I think again I will get a flaimbaite for this :-/ at least it does not substract form my little karma.
So?
Of course you said: in general.
Its not the US in general which is to blame.
So we have electronic waste in china. Asbest waste in India. A raising level of sea water all over the world (climate/CO2), threatening Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia etc.
So in 15 years some people, yellow this time, not with long beards and turbans, will go somewhere where they suspect to be the cause, the root of all evil. There they will drop a bomb or something similar.
And then we will read again: why do they hate us?
Well, because their children died in the polution of heavy metals, their parents died by cancer caused by asbest or burning plastics, their family or friends drunk in a Taifun.
But
Regards,
angel'o'spehre
Hm
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There are many who feel that the Kyoto treaty places undue burdens on the US - burdens that other nations are not required to shoulder. The US pulls more than their own weight in other areas (UN, World Bank, etc.) and yet it isn't enough.
It wouldn't matter what we did in any arena, there'd be flack from those saying it wasn't enough. Why are you helping here and not there? Why are you doing this at all since you don't belong here? Why stop genocide in Kosovo and let it continue in the Sudan and other nations?
As far as people "showing what they feel about this madness", apathy shows as much as activism, it just doesn't happen to line up with your passions. If you want something to be done so badly, start a private foundation, collect private monies, corporate grants and the like and go do something instead of harping on someone else to do it for you.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Do what I did, send out a message on my local LUG saying you have a bunch of old hardware laying around, that's free for pickup.
Before you know it, you'll have dozens of Linux Users clamoring at your door to pick it up for their various projects. You'll get rid of all your stuff, and someone else might actually end up using it!
Hey, it worked for me!
I was talking to one guy that works for DRMO (a goverment agancy that sells old computers and such) He was telling me how they get 1-2 year old Sun servers and cover pot holes in roads with them. I could not sleep all night. They take these Suns that still work and have a good value and just grind them up to fill holes in roads. The reson they can't sell them (this is was the goverment want's you to belive) is that they held top secret information. Hmmm, hello? junk the hard drives but spare the other parts! Thats what they use to do but my guess is that it's "cost prohibitive" now.
This site is in Germany.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
A few years ago I was a graphic design whore conjuring up speaker-support slides for corporate fun-fairs and the like. Every year our outfit handled the National Post (nee Financial Post) Environment Awards for Business, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canda. In the 1997 or 98 show, I distinctly remember some magical gizmo winning the big award on account of its ability to eat old computers and poop out neat little cubes of separated metals and plastic-bits. I can't seem to find anything through Google about it, but I was pretty sure the name of the company that made the award-winning gizmo was called "Shredd-Tech" or something similarly awful. Does anyone else actually know of and/or dimly remember this environment-saving miracle machine? Maybe we could pool our pennies and buy one for India.
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
Not an attempt to displace any blame here, but the version of this story that I saw said that the waste came from the US, Western Europe, and countries such as Korea and Japan (versus the slant here that this all US generated refuse). Also, are not the Chinese authorities are culpable as well? I don't think that the enterprise described in the report would exist without their approval at some level...
The companies that build these things should be made to set up facilities for getting rid of the products when they are no longer used. This would even apply to industries that produce things other than computers.
:-).
Think about it. GE should be the one to pay for getting rid of CFC's from the refrigerators that they manufacture. This would force them to either raise the price of what they sell, or find a better way to manufacture it (without CFC's for instance).
Computers are built with the knowledge that they will be obsolete in a few years, so it should come as no suprise that if they sell X number of machines in one year, that in 3-4 years that many machines will need to be recycled.
At the very least, a law like this would prevent AOL from producing millions of disks that get thrown into the garbage unopened, or from someone even proposing a throwaway product like DIVX (old DIVX, not new Divx
Here's the bit you left out:
Some enterprising people probably realized that they could make a few bucks taking apart old computers and no one would be monitoring their activities and they could make off with a bundle of money while the people who do the real work and handle all the toxic materials get all the health problems and long term environmental damage. Because the workers have no political clout, these "entrpreneurs" have little chance of being held accountable for their negligence.
But then, you're a troll, aren't you?
thats nice for word - but being in the digital media field - we constantly look for faster machiens in order to get our jobs done on time - alot of times we need multiple machines just for a single job. try running photoshop or softimage on your P75 - it wont work. and microsoft isnt the only platform that requires increasingly higher hardware demands - ever hear of unix? what do you think our airports use to route all the planes in the sky? they constantly need to upgrade there systems as they add more flights/planes.
Ave Molech Setting
What would the anti-environmentalist camp's perspective on it be? That trees generate more waste circuit boards and plastics than disposed computers do? Or that discarded electronics make great fertilizer for trees?
Why do you think we are still driving gasoline autos? Because we are stupid and lazy and don't give a shit.
Trade agreements have LOOPHOLES from which evil polluting corporations profit. Don't blame China for a law the United States made up and is exploiting.
And next, WTF makes you think that Pollution OVER THERE does not affect us here? You should re-think your rant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
First, the article does not say that the sovereign state of China buys it. Second, "China" is not a person. The analogy is just fine. You're paying some company in China to dump it in someones back yard.
bnf
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
We collect trash, we recycle rubbish, but it has to go to someone. If they lie about proper processing of that trash, corruption not being unknown in the waste disposal industry also known as the Mafia Assistance Program, then they are at fault. If they dump it in an under regulated location, the PRC say, then they are clearly the cause of the problem.
Now, if and when the local authorities find the dump, they have a responsibility to a) clean it up and b) prosecute the dumper.
If and when the client, the US user, discovers the fraud, they have a responsibility to change waste managers or suffer culpability for future acts.
If you read a little Dickens or brush up on your American West gold rush history you might come off your high horse. Just 100 years ago streams flowed purple with coal tars and green with copper cynide compounds here in the first world. It was dirty, but we are rich today from such efforts. Rich enough to clean up. Try telling a man who might die of starvation or common disseases next month that his current activities might give him cancer in thirty years. He will laugh, before he eats you.
All we can do is shout that it's wrong and point out propper methods of disposal. Hopefully, the world will hear and work on other things like sanitary sewerage, potable drinking water and other basic public health issues.
Would your Basel Convention prevent the transfer of new working computers? What other great things should the US ratify for you?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The cost of disposing of any electronic item should be determined, then charged to the distributor in the country in question by the government, which then sets up modern disposal facilities where anyone can get rid of their old gear.
This is a perfect example of socialization of costs- and it's the reason we have governments.
You might argue, saying that this will make electronics more expensive- but this cost is *already being paid*, but by Chinese villagers, as this article notes. Tanstaafl, folks. The question is, do you want to face up and take responsibility?
Programs like this would also encourage more ecologically friendly designs- as well as delivering the death blow to the ecologically nasty CRT in favor of the less vile (although by no means clean) flat panel.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
This is the peril of of the computer industry becoming a commodity-based system. Margins are so low, manufacturers have to make it up on volume. Consumers say why not buy a new P4, it's only $700. Gamers buy new ware just to play Unreal Tourney at 100fps instead of 70. My brother just bought a new box because his old one (P3 500) got trashed by a virus and he lost his restore disk. I know a lot of /.er's reuse old ware with *BSD or Linux for routers, DNS etc. But how many PC users collect old Packard Bells, Dells, Gateways, HPs?
I still have every machine I've ever owned. Mac Plus (classic), Mac TV (rare and cool), Quadra 660 AV (+VCR=TV), PM 7500 (workhorse, testbed), G4 Cube (you wish), and 1999 iBook (yeah, it's Tang). Only the Plus sits in a closet. I keep them all because they are either still useful, collectible or have sentimental value (my Plus got me through college). I fully intend to pull the Plus, time-capsule-like from the closet in 2010, and boot it up for old-times sake. It'll never end up in some Asian landfill...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Macintosh...
Well, at least I feel better about stealing stuff out of the 'recycling' dumpters at the recylcing center.
What about that paste solder that didn't require baking at high temperature, and could be heated again to remove the components from the printed circuit board? That would help, perhaps... a resistor is a resistor...
certron
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Not so very many years ago (~10), I was traveling around a country usually derided as "Third World."
One day, in a major city, I was walking near the river, and came across a small road where dozens of older men were squatting with old circuit boards and soldering irons. They would unsolder resisters, capacitors, etc, and place them into bins according to the kind of component.
A few streets further down, I came across another group of old men. These guys were pulling apart what looked like damaged automobile transmissions. One set of guys unscrewed, decoupled, and removed pieces, one set of guys cleaned the grease off of them, one set of guys sorted the parts (gears, synchros, etc) according to their size and level of damage.
It really got me thinking. Here in the States, you don't even think of repairing broken consumer electronic stuff -- it's cheaper to get a new one, and it'll probably have more features. There, the labor costs are virtually nil in comparison to the cost of the materials.
It made me think that there was a valuable process at work. Our garbage was recycled, and it actually benefits someone. Now, it is clear that this is an artifact of an unfair, unjust system. Obviously, fixing the overall system would be better. But within the context of the way things currently are, it's a reasonably good thing.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
AFAIK, the nice folks at Noranda have a big plant in Quebec that grinds this stuff up, Burns off the plastic, and runs the metal though a copper smelter to get out the metal content. The plant is suposed to have suficent scrubbers to make chemical feedstocks out of the plastic smoke.
Another Wild-Eyed CANADIAN.
Resources will eventually become scarce, and then corporations might turn to recycling. This means it's better that the old papers, monitors, etc. are conveniently stacked in a warehouse rather than just strewn in landfills.
Here's a random thought. Maybe the US rather enjoys 'pulling more than their own weight' in the World Bank, given that it essentially means all the more power to them, and equally appreciates the opportunity of throwing their weight around that the UN offers them.
Random seems right. How does loaning money to countries that are certain to default and hold anti-US political views bestow power on the US? As far as throwing our weight around at the UN, check the number of times votes are contrary to the US's position in a variety of matters and see if an informed thought can replace the random ones you're having now.
As far as the US acting in an unbecoming manner in some matters, I've already conceded that point. What torques my jaw is the implication that other nations are lilly-white while the US is the breeding grounds for all manner of evil intent. I guess I could chalk that up to the US being held to higher standards because the world expects more from us, but I'm a bit cynical.
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Based on Pop Science, and media sensationalism a bunch of rich americans are going to "help" a poor country by preventing them from engaging in an enterprise at which they can make money.
Who is self-centered?
If someone comes to my house and pays me $1 for a box of junk so they can pick out the good stuff and sell it for a profit, I wouldn't consider myself to have "dumped" anything on them. NO! They pay for the junk. They don't GET anything until they sell what they have scrapped for a profit.
Who is calling who less important. YOU are trying to run their lives, and tell them what is good for them. Do YOU think people loose the right to choose when they are poor?
Get your facts right. They are willfully engaging in a transaction. They WANT this junk. They BUY it. AND they make MONEY on it.
Poverty is what you make of it. I've always had the willingness and the freedom to pull myself up by my own bootstraps. I'm glad you weren't there to keep me down.
In my opinion, a lot of cultures hate Americans because we meddle too much. We always stick our noses into other peoples business.
What right do we have to tell the Chinese or the Indians if they can recycle motherboards or not. Those people that have this work as their only way to make money are probably not going to appreciate what you did for them ( to them ) if they starve to death after they loose their job.
Yeah, to an extent, you're correct. But you're talking about integrated circuits and I'm talking about individual transistors and capacitors not chips. PC cards and motherboards are mostly chips which don't offer a lot for DIY electronics, but PSUs and TVs and monitors have lots of fun stuff to play with and these are the parts that most amateurs neglect because they're the parts that have the warning labels on them. I agree that repurposing chips is hard to imagine, but you can certainly re-use transistors and capacitors. You could just buy them too, of course, but the article was about disposal issues and that's waht I'm talking about.
I don't buy it. I don't believe you do either.
I suggest that those same countries that are recycling motherboards make motherboards too.
I don't see a thing wrong with buying those new motherboards from whoever makes them.
Who made the motherboard that is in your PC?? Have you ever bothered to find out if the soldering stations in the plant that made your motherboard is properly ventilated? ( you might have... I'd say it's unlikely though.. )
The more I think about this story, the more I think it's all a bunch of horseshit.
Go back to the original article, I bet This guy, Ted Smith, of the Silicon Valley Toxic's Commission, probably works for some big trash company, or recycling company here in USA. Or probably the entire Toxic's Commision is funded by the same.. His agenda is probably to get some new Regs passed so that HE can make all the money on this stuff instead of the Far Easterners.
As for being a troll, I don't know anything about it. But I do have to scold my 8 year old for name calling once in a while.
By that logic we should intervene in every political dispute in the world since, eventually, it may lead to a regional conflict and then to a world war--and then we're involved. So we automatically have a right to intervene in anyone's affairs.
THAT'S the attitude that causes so many people in foreign countries to hate Americans. It has nothing to do with the environment, it has everything to do with sticking our nose where it doesn't belong.
That said, an environmental problem in China is going to kill off China and/or cause them to fix the problem out of necessity long before it affects anyone downwind (which is 8000 miles of Pacific Ocean).
The amount of time for toxic waste dumped in sea to spread itself uniformly in water and terra firma is not decades but years.
Can you cite references for that?
Also, I'd like some concrete data regarding what in my computer is so toxic as to need to treat it as a superfund site.
I'd be totally in agreement if China was dumping nuclear waste into the ocean. But dumping computers into rivers? I'm sorry, I don't see the threat. There are a million things in this world much more dangerous than used computers; perhaps we should address those million things first rather than harping on consumerism in the United States.
For anything longer you need to think harder.
How about getting rid of communist governments so everyone can enjoy to the benefits of capitalism? That way the number of poor people will decrease, as well people exploited into doing this kind of thing.
Heck, while we're intervening in world environment and world politcs, why don't we just topple every third-world government and replace it with something like what we have at home?
O.k. How much gold and silver is in a computer?
Sure there are mounds of computers there. Maybe they have labels in English, but isn't Taiwan or Japan a lot more likely source? Aren't they the #1 manufactures of consumer electronics worldwide? Both are small island nations with limited (possibly none) landfill opportunities. Why would a scofflaw in the US or UK hire a boat to haul garbage to China, when they could just put it in a sack and dump it at a local landfill?
The problem with recycling is that it gives folks a warm 'n fuzzy feeling that they're somehow being environmentally conscious, but not enough to actually consider the broader implications of consumption.
Idea: Build your computer from industry-standard parts (such as ATX-standard motherboards and cases rather than odd proprietary bundles). Choose parts that are made to last, and buy only the items you really want, not parts that'll merely suffice for six months until you can upgrade them. When you *do* upgrade a part of the system, make it a BIG upgrade. This approach doesn't always make the most $$ sense, but it sure does cut down the amount of "stuff" that passes in and out of the house: Buy a $1K monitor, $500 case and $200 power supply and I'll bet they won't be headed for the recyling bin soon!
that's my basement!
Can you imagine a beowulf of these?
Where do you get that? It can be perfectly legal and still hypoctritical. If hypocrisy were illegal, every US ex-president alive today would be in jail. (mind you, if everyone got caught and sentenced for doing illegal things, every US ex-president alive would probably be in jail, regardless of hypocrisy laws.)
China and others want our junk for the raw materials, not because they're looking for 300 baud modems that still work.
First and foremost: Gold or silver connectors and contacts. What do you think all those shiny yellowish pins on the underside of a processor are made of? They're not copper; it would tarnish quickly and your system would stop working. In many cases, the older the hardware, the more gold that was used due to physically larger components. Steel used in cases and racks may also be valuable enough to salvage.
Why isn't this done in the US? It is, but it's not as profitable because labor costs are higher, not to mention overall costs of living. Basically, you're talking about hiring people to take old parts and chisel away the gold with a hammer all day. The rest is discarded, hence the waste strewn along rivers. Not a pleasant situation regardless.
So the question is whether we can do a better job of *truly* recycling old parts. I believe we can. It just requires some innovation. The biggest problem I see is solder removal. It's entirely impractical to do by hand. As any electronics hobbyist knows, old circuit boards are a goldmine of perfectly good parts. What if there was a way to quickly heat and vacuum off all the solder on a board? Then, violently shake the board to cause all the components to fall off into a bin, after which they'd be mechanically sorted, packaged, and sold as surplus. Waste solder is nearly pure lead which can be melted and recycled at little cost. The remaining plastic circuit boards can be scraped of copper traces, then melted down. This would work pretty well for really old boards. New ones with mostly surface mounted components would much much trickier. On the other hand, there's much less material to waste to begin with!
..how about a surcharge at the time of purchase to pay for disposal? Businesses could make a living disposing of these things according to some guidelines. They'd get paid per computer, like those who collect bottles. Just a thought.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Not to swift on economics, are we now?
Hello, requiring disassembly of everything would NOT be a boon to the economy. It would increase costs, tend to have inflationary effects, and cost jobs.
You can argue whether or not these are acceptable prices to pay to implement this environmnetal policy, but do not be mislead into thinking it would help the economy. It would increase costs and would make the world, as a whole, less productive since the businesses disassembling the stuff would be doing that instead of something PRODUCTIVE.
Take another whirl through Econ 101 and then we'll talk.
Hate to break it to you, but the US isn't the only one guilty of this. The UK, Japan and others also send their obsolete systems to Asia and the pacific.
That doesn't mean you're not right. Europe and others are starting to dislike the US more and more but not just because we are "selfish" and "arrogant" shits. It's partly because they are blind, self-righteous, prideful shits who worry more about what the US is doing more than themselves.
How can it be considered meddling if we WANT to sell and they WANT to buy. Is your grocery store meddling in your business when you go to buy food?
Environmentalists have been saying this for decades to make us feel bad to the point of doing what they say.
While I'm not against recycling, this argument doesn't hold. Despite how destructive environmentalists think humans are, there are no signs of any natural resource being depleted. Even petroleum--which was supposed to be used up by 2000--suddenly has decades more to go.
It also assumes that our great grandchildren are going to being using the same raw materials that we do. They very well may have a need for other raw materials at that point.
Besides, China is currently taking care of the need to recycle these parts by removing the copper and gold from the computers. It's the environmentalists that apparently do want that to continue.
We can do better than to push the cost (of disassembly) to our great grandchildren's grandchildren.
Yeah, let's push it to China. Or, rather, let's let China buy our old PCs, let them disassemble them and make some bucks in the process. Then we aren't wasting these valuable resources and everyone makes a buck in the process.
They fought with tough and nail to oppose pollution-control devices in cars and claimed that these devices would drive up costs and hurt the economy.
And they did. It's common sense. As always, the question is not whether regulations and taxes hurts the economy and raises costs--the question is whether society believes the benefits by the regulation and tax outweight teh cost.
But Ford, GM and Chrysler all were right. Any and every regulation and tax increases costs and hurts the economy and should be carefully considered.
Only if they didn't know the dangers or I missled them in some way.
> Imagine I'm a gun store owner. I know for a fact that the person at my counter is going to commit a crime with their purchase. I > am both legally and morally obligated to do something about it - i.e. not sell that gun.
What if the crime was the breaking of a law that only existed in your town but not the town from where the person lived. Do you have the right to subject that person to your laws even though he doesn't live in your town?
> to an irresponsible foreign company; a company which would not be allowed to operate under the same conditions in the United States?
( side note: This is why so many jobs go out of the country and overseases. Liberals have made it very hard and costly for industry and manufacturing. Most every job moved out of the country is done so to avoid operating under our rules, like minimum wage, work hours, and OSHA stuff. And in most places were these jobs go, people are usually damned glad to get them, even if they don't get pampered like we Americans do. And unemployed Americans can be happy that at least if they had a job, they would be making minimum wage.)
>It's not about running their lives, its about providing them a voice that says "this is not right".
Problem is that you are not speaking for them. You are speaking for you. It is YOU who are worried for the environment in their country, it is YOU who are worried for their health, it is YOU who will take their jobs away, it is You who will make them starve. This report from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition was not authored by Chinese or Indians. It was authored by arrogant Americans trying to run other people's lives.
> "The poor do not have the same choices as the rich"
You are right they don't in most cases. Because people like YOU are pushing them down, staring them in the eye and telling them what is good for them.
> You're argument comes from an irresponsible, non-empathetic world view.
Yes and No. I absolutely do not consider myself to be responsible for actions taken by others, by their own free will, and in full knowledge of the consequences.
NO!! I'm not "non-empathetic." I wish people and nations didn't do stupid things. And I do feel bad when people get hurt. But Arrogant Americans are not going to force countries to change their ways. Trying to do so will only cause more hatred. Let them go. They will learn just like we did. It will be a lesson well learned. When it's over we will all be friends.
You ignorant wanker. All you are doing is hiding the disposal costs - moving them to some future quarter. Where the cost will be much higher than it would be to deal with it today. The current economic models are seriously flawed in that they promote immediate profit without any regard for the impact and future costs. "Yeah, great, we'll set up a chemical plant here, make lots of money." Twenty years later. "Oh, shite, we need to spend millions to clean up the neighborhood - there goes the profit". Ignorant c_nts.