Recycle Fee For Each PC?

UncleJosh writes: "The New York Times (free reg rq'd) has a story about a $25-30 fee to be added to the price of a new PC to cover the cost of recycling it. Sort of like a bottle deposit, but you don't get the money back." What if I just want to buy the case?

Comments

environmental hazards

[happyclam]

Computer disposal has attracted public attention because of a recent report by environmental groups that 50 to 80 percent of American high-technology trash was exported to developing countries. The report described the hazards experienced by residents of China, India and Pakistan who are exposed to the hazards of electronic recycling.

This is the single most important piece of information, and they nearly swept it under the rug in the article. I saw a program about three months ago on one of those TV "news" magazine shows covering this problem.

The used PCs being "recycled" are essentially shipped to third world countries. Peasants there then melt down the boards to "recycle" them. They essentially grab the parts that have resale value and let the other parts seep into the environment.

The video on this program was disturbing, to say the least. A huge junkpile of cases and monitors, everything covered by the soot of the burning fires melting the boards... and the people doing all this completely unprotected in any way. Not even masks. The ground around the entire site had been poisoned beyond any possible near-term use.

This program interviewed a clean recycler in the SF Bay area that said the costs of recycling locally in accordance with California environmental laws was very expensive but that this particular outfit never shipped anything overseas.

Basically, this has to be paid for somehow. Right now we're paying in environmental capital in third world countries. If we want to recover that, then the payment needs to come from the profit margin of the machines, the consumers' payments, or the government (taxes). Your choice.

Re:freegeek it

[AnarchySoftware]

OK. I work at FREE GEEK and we reuse and recycle a lot of these gizmos.

Monitors are the worst

Here's what currently has to happen to a monitor to dispose of it safely and responsibly (without shipping it to Asia). Note: We're on the west coast, USA:

• Drop monitor off at FREE GEEK
• We gather and test the monitors. It's far more efficient to re-use when possible. But some are broken or so obsolete that no one will touch them.
• Those that can't be re-used get palletized and shipped to somewhere in Washington State where they are disassembled. This costs us $8.00 / CRT, plus shipping.
• From Washington State, the leaded glass gets shipped off to a smelter in Pennsylvania. That's the closest place to domestically handle this kind of glass. This requires a trainload of glass to make it worth the while.

Now, we could try to cut costs by doing some of the work ourselves. (We already do the testing.) But:

• Wanna disassemble a monitor? Their innards are coated with a fire retardant that you can absorb into your blood stream through the skin. Their capacitors can electrocute you. This is not a minimum wage type job here.
• Wanna have a lead smeltering operation in your neighborhood? (I didn't think so.)

Same story goes for TVs, BTW.

There's a lot of stuff in the computer that's worth pulling out (gold, paladium, tantalum). There's some stuff that's break even (most of the other metals). But a lot of it is just expensive to deal with.

These proposed deposits are not hidden costs. The real hidden cost (from the consumer's point of view) is the tax that he'll have to pay a decade down the line to clean up the water supply, etc.

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