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The Darker Side of Computer Recycling
Makarand writes "We all know that with electronics it is very difficult to be green. We leave
our computer waste in the recyle bin lest dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury
seep into our landfills. The more dedicated environmentalists make a trip
to the local recyling center where they may be asked around to pay around $15-$30 to recycle their old PCs. But guess what -- these 'recyclers' merely
ship 50-80% of this stuff overseas. The Mercury News has a
report on this ugly side of the PC industry which merely
exports the recycling problems instead of solving them."
eBay.
has a cousin who has some unpleasant health problems from living in a contaminated area where they do a lot of CPU recycling. It's a real disaster -- her cousin could tell you some stories, including the time that she found a piece of circuit board in her dinnertime meal (!).
/me turns head and looks at pile of old cases, containing semi-working bits and bobs.
$30 a piece? Thats more then it'd cost to send them to a random address with no return address on.
MPAA anyone?
Is how China is using the computers we ship over there!
It turns out they have a huge cyborg program in the works, and are literally turning their excess population in human/computer hybrids! They saw they Borg on Star Trek and were apparently quite impressed with their efficiency. Watch out! The Chinese Borg Army will be coming very soon!
Graphic article/pictures from the BBC:
article and in pictures
Speaking of shipping problems somewhere else... can we ship the RIAA execs there too?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
We have a problem. It is pollution of our local environment by decomposing (!) computer parts. The solution is to get rid of those parts so that our own environment is not hurt.
Easiest solution: ship it somewhere else.
The countries that we ship these things to are HAPPY to take them. It makes them money and it gives them spare computer parts.
If you think that taking away another country's means of existence is the right thing to do, perhaps it's time to sign up at your local anarchist hovel for the spring trip to the WTO meeting.
Trade that is welcomed by both parties is not bad. Just because third party interlopers feel the need to stamp and huff about it, it doesn't mean that it should be done away with.
I have been pwned because my
refurbishment!
Go to when the story was already published here and here, take some of the good comments and paste them here. Be quick before others steal "your" comment.
How ironic is that?
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Yeah, we recycle PC's sir! *Takes old 486 DX2, reformats, slaps win 3.1x back on it, and slaps "$39.99 starter computer!" on it.*
We exploit them to create these devices and pollute their country when we are finished with them. I really despise what the world has become, despite all the wonderful advances we have made. I hope this is just a speedbump in our progress as human beings.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
After trolling my local recycling drive, I came away with a 19" Dell monitor, a couple PII laptops, and other juicy stuff.
There were even a few resellers picking through the scrap as well.
One man's trash...
Mercury is the most polluted of all the planets. Radiation levels on the surface are off the scale.
Maybe environmentalists ought to head over there to clean up the place.
This is pretty heinous, if you ask me. Any time a business takes your money in exchange for some service and then doesn't follow through, an injustice is done. While this doesn't compare to that crematorium owner in Georgia who just dumped bodies in the woods, it is something to be upset over.
It's a great irony, though, that what is eventually done with these recycled computers is much "greener" than actually recycling them would be. Computer equipment is made from minerals and rare Earth metals such as silicon, glass, and copper, not to mention metal for cases. Recycling them involves separating and molding them into new shapes, which is an involved and energy-demanding process that necessarily creates pollution. The raw materials to build these goods from scratch, however, are often mined from the ground, and if the used products are placed in landfills, that's exactly to where they'll return.
While it's atrocious that companies should mislead their customers like this, I'm thankful that in this case the Earth is the greatest beneficiary.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I remember reading about this here in August.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Aside from letting all the crap pile up in ur garage, you can donate ur old machine to any number of institutions,, although i know my old school stopped taking crap after people started unloading piles of 486's
.. but what is?
What can we do to eliminate the problem, or, at the very least, tone the issue down a little?
The hardware in question is either too far beyond repair, or to old to serve a useful purpose, so is it best to approach this from a toxic waste disposal point of view, slap an extra $100 onto the cost of your new PC, and treat old computing gear like medical/chemical waste?
I've always said we should just pack our garbage into a missile and fire it at the sun, and it seems like an even better solution now.
Some may say that the problems of the missile exploding and reigning fire and computers upon people is bad, but just think about it. If that thing explodes over your neighborhood. BAM! Computers for everone on the block.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Nothing has changed since the last time this was brought up or the time before that.
People need to understand that the countries that these parts are shipped to either A) Want them. B) Don't care about the damage they do.
I read the article, but there are no new insights into this at all. Take this quote for instance:
"``I don't know yet if I like this work,'' said Li, 30, who had been on the job about one month. ``But back home there are no jobs. There is no money. There is nothing to do.''"
That is the plain and simple truth to this. There is a market for this crud. They are making money by doing it. Is it the most healthy way of doing it? More than likely not, but it is a way to make money.
Someone needs to publish that link about the place in India that takes apart oil tankers. Big Karma boost in that.
Lead and other chemicals are already in the ground.
It's called Nature.
Do you think that we get those things from magic poison fairies?
If you work in Hickville, IA and get $35,000 a year that is a good paying job. Get that much in Cali and you are very near poverty. It is all a matter of cost of living per region. C'mon guys this is basic economics.
I hate people that dont have a sig
Even 386s can be a a dumb terminal in a school network of a third world country. It is essential that computers be donated. One man's bother, is another man's gold.
Here's another part of the problem:
Incremental upgrading is part of the drive that keeps the marketing-PR-coup of Moore's Law running.
I just finished a book chapter entitled "The Leapfrog Effect" that details some of the ways in which developing nations HAVE to run their technology into the ground before upgrading. They can't afford to make the incremental steps. In fact, as it turns out, neither can the so-called "developed world" - they just hide many of the true costs.
Upgrade when you have to, not just because you are bored and there's a new game out that needs incrementally better hardware.
STF
"The Leapfrog Effect" is a chapter in: Managing Globally with Information Technology (Sherif Kamel, ed). IDEA Group Publishing (in press)
With 3 486's and some RAM, it is easier than you think to put together a lightning fast X server and workstation. These machines can do real work...
Perhaps the emphasis should be on re-use before shifting to recycle. There are upstart geeks all over the place that have no money... and in other news Mr Smith just threw out a Pentuim I PC, or a Mac Quadra....
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
I usually just give my old computers away somewhere -- what us geeks consider horribly slow and outdated can still be very useful to other people who can't afford/don't need state-of-the-art machines. What they do with them one they truely die, I don't know.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
I must be dreaming.
The person responsible for that word should be electrocuted right now.
Oh well, at least I know how to call that stuff in the recycle bin on my desktop.
my
...and whether it's batteries in Bangalore or PC's in Punguyng, the 3rd world is paying the price for our conspicuous consumption. This story has been battered around before, and I'm afraid it's just not news any longer.
squirrels - natures' little speed-bunps
The problem is not simply being shipped overseas. The PCs are being shipped overseas to be recycled. Recycling of paper, metal, and obviously PCs is not a clean process. Hazardous wastes are produced and such. But, when regulated properly, it is cleaner than pulling up virgin resources. These recycling facilities in China are obviously not being regulated properly.
Despite what you may have been taught in grade school, we can't just recycle our all resources and all our problems will go away. We have to re-use our components as well, that produces no waste.
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
Instead of recycling your old pc hardware, donate it instead through the World Computer Exchange. Hardware donations are a real boon to the people (especially children) of third world countries. Projects like the Goa Schools Computers Projects and the Digital Equalizer Initiative help provide the less fortunate w/such hardware and train them to use it, too. The DEI also accepts donations.
This is going to sound really odd, but I sincerly feel bad some days for the fact that I tread so heavily on the earth (not weight morons, enviormentally).
I feel bad about the fact that I generate trash with everything I do. I want to go completely paperless, because I don't like the idea of killing the rainforest for paper. I know that some cutting in forests is actually good for the forest, but few loggers do that.
Even if I didn't use paper, I still get things in the mail, I have packaging, etc...
My computers, my music equipment, my house, my car (esp my car), generate waste.
Even the food I eat, I consider waste. I want to be a vegitarian some days, just because of enviormental impact of hog farms, overfishing, etc... I would like to be in touch with the earth more- kinda of like how you think of indians (opps, native americans), of being.
You may ask, well why don't you. It's because I can't. I am in college. I live in Boston (well in 6 days I do). I can't plant myself a garden. I can't rid myself of paper. I can't use solar/wind/geothermal power in my apartment. I know that there are little things that I can do, and I do those, but it feels small in comparison. Well, at least I won't have my car in Boston, so the T should save some energy somewhere. Does anyone else feel bad about their impact on the enviorment? I am not an activist, just a concerned person. Even if something actually doesn't 'impact' something drastically, I still feel bad for that disruption.
90% of the time the hillbillies in the pickup trucks come around and cart it off well before the morning trash pickup anyway. God only knows what they want with an old broken CGA monitor, but hey, at least it's out of my basement right?
Cletus> Hey Lerleen! You might kin use this'n here at yourn job.
Lerleen> Naw, I already got a Mac.
Cletus> I guessen youse raht. (To Mac:) There ya go to waits for a woman o less discrimnatin taste.
quote
Someone needs to publish that link about the place in India that takes apart oil tankers. Big Karma boost in that.
end quote;
Someone has been watching History Channel lately haven't we?
1) Shit on people's lawns or park greens. The phosphates in your feces is like caviar to the grass. Smear it in so that it is spread over a larger area than a simple block of poop. :-).
2) Wear hemp clothes, and nothing but. Every other type of material has massive environmental or negative social effects. Wearing hemp is the only way to prevent the killing of animals, exploitation of children, or processing of oil to make plastic. As an added benefit, when you get cold in the winter, you can burn your clothes and get a nice high from the smoke.
3) Shoot yourself in the head in a wide open field. Do it naked so that you aren't returning nasty chemicals back into the environment (if you are following rule 2, you can disregard the admonishment to be naked!
Yes, you too can help the world! The power is yours!
I called Dell a few days ago looking to get pricing information. It turns out, with their low-end offering in the Dimension line, you can choose Wordperfect Office, MS Office SBE, or MS Office Pro -- bt not MS Works. On a low-end PC. WTF?
So I called Dell, asking if they could override this and somehow install Works. The rep said: "No." I said "No big deal I guess. I have Office 97 Pro from an old PC which I can install instead." This got him revved up.
Rep: "Well, sir, that's not legal."
Even after explaining that I bought this product at a retail store, and told him that the old PC was being tossed because it was no longer working, I could hear that he still wanted to lecture me.
So I reiterated, "I'm literally throwing out this computer because it doesn't work -- my license therefore is unused, and I can install it on my new PC, right?"
Rep: "That's illegal. Throwing away a PC is illegal. You might be able to see if someone would take it for parts if you gave them $30 or $40, but you can't just throw it away. You might be able to ask the manufacturer to take it back."
I did know this already, and had planned to bring it to my local waste facility for recycling.
But here's the punchline...
Me: "It's a Dell. Will you take it back?"
Rep: "No."
At least this is better than your usual export ... bombs.
Unintended Results From U.S. Hardware Dumps In Asia [2/25/02]
China Bans U.S. Electronic Scrap [6/1/02]
Recycling The First World, in the Third [8/23/02]
I seem to recall all of these had the usual accompanying photojournalism showing women picking through bushels of desolderied TTL gates and such.
(I'm not saying this is a dupe, I'm just pointing out previous discussions.)
I'm not in the least bit surprised, having read a few court transcripts of cases against recycling firms.
Make no mistake, waste disposal is about big bucks. For many materials such as chemical waste, waste oil, contaminated soil, and manufactured products such as computers, batteries and cars, the costs for recycling are enormous. Consumers, governments and environmentally-conscious firms know this, but are still often willing to pay the hefty disposal fees.
Enter the recycling company. They'll take your toxic waste in exchange for your dollars... and now they have a choice. They can actually dispose of the waste properly while making a small profit, or just dump it somewhere and make a ton of money. So, the oil ends up in the sea, the chemicals are dumped somewhere in Poland, the contaminated soil is diluted with good soil and used in horse riding arena's. The computers end up in China where the valuable items are salvaged by less-than-clean methods.
With the great anounts of money to be made in recycling by sweeping waste under the rug, it is no surprise criminal organisations have taken an interest, and are at least partly involved in a number of recycling firms. In Holland, reputed to be an environmentally conscious country, none of the larger recycling firms has clean hands, and have used any and all of the above methods to cheaply get rid of waste. It's not just the computers, people.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
What did you expect? Sheesh.
I mean let's not be naive now.
To Capitalists the environment is a unproftiable nuisance...well unless it's chock full o' oil.
The environment will always get destoyed under capitalism so get used to it.
I mean you don't wanna give up your "god given" right to drive a oil guzzlin' SUV and your produced in a sweatshop on the land where a rainforect used to be basketball sneakers and your (long list of pointless crap big media made you think you need).......
you stole my .sig
I feel very angry and depressed now. Perhaps I should break one of your toys.
my
Sorry, the 257th digit is incorrect it should be a 6.
Now you should know that Microsoft Calculator should't be used for complex calculations.
Thanks for your troll anyway.
The editor of that paper's favorite writer is Hg Wells
Stop recycling old news. This story is getting old. Rather than rigurgitating old news, how about providing a solution in thought!
The reason why these countries take the waste and dispose of it poorly may be a little less obvious than you might think. The first step in economic growth and prosperity for a country like China (or Bangladesh for that matter) is agricultural production. They will make cotton and clothing, or wheat and grains. They can do this cheaper than anyone else because their labour costs are low. They export it to rich countries and that money they receive increases their standards of living.
Unfotunately the US (and Europe) is preventing the poorest nations on earth from entering the Agricultural market (remember agricultural export is the first step to development) because they have MASSSIVE subsidies on farm products and clothing.
Taking waste from industrialised nations will be the next big export (in effect) for these countries as they have been prevented from making a sustainable living in agriculture. We are driving them to accept our waste because we are protecting inefficient local industries.
An important thing to note here. I think the WTO is a good thing! The WTO is all about stopping these stupid agricultural sibsidies, so that countries like China can export their goods to the world. In turn that will mean they won't take our waste (because they won't need to). In the end that will force us to deal with our own waste problems! Unfortunately (AGAIN) the US and Europe talk about free trade only when it is in their best interests. When they realise that subsidies only hurt the poorest nations, and adjust their local industries accordingly, the world we be much better for these poor nations. The suffereing in the US and Europe will only be temporary. A few farmers will either need to improve the way they work to be MORE COPETITIVE or find a new career. This really is only a short term problem.
An example of a country doing the right thing in this area is Australia. They have come out this month and said they will abolish subsidies on imports from the 50 poorest nations on earth. At the same time local recylcing of things like IT equipment is starting to happen.
Some of the consequences is they are paying sugar farmers to change industries. Get out of the sugar industry. "We are not competitive. There is too much sugar in the world." The farmers get payed to find a new career.
Hang on a minute... this can be a Win-Win situation !!!
lounge around on the blue couch
Is for someone with a bit of cash to get all of this old hardware collected together, and start building a beawulf cluster of massive proportions. Seriously. Even older p100's and such could contribute cycles to the monster machine. I figure that with a year's worth of colecting older and discarded pc's, you'd have the largest collection of proccessing power in the world...
And if people would actually ship the hardware in, it'd probably be the cheapest as well...
Call it the Green Resurection.
I'll co-ordinate the building of the monster, if someone will donate space and operating capital...
I'm really not surprised by this -- those Chinese who so wholeheartedly jump on the opportunity to contribute to their own environmental decay. I'm an American businessman in the import- export business, so as you might guess, my frequent travels take me to many places around the world, on every continent. Anyhow, I wanted to share my experience in the "great" country of China, in the very part described by the article.
So, I was in Shenzhen China last December for about a week on business. A bit of background: Shenzhen, like Hong Kong and a few other places, is a "Special Economic Zone" that the Chinese government set up to try and give foreigners the illusion that China really ISN'T a drab, decaying fascist state that's economically languishing behind the rest of the world. Here, rules are relaxed and capitalism is encouraged, not surppressed. Well, let me tell you this, if this is China's best, then I'd hate to see the worst.
Anyways, when I stepped off the train from Hong Kong (which was no paradise itself, as that place has gone down the shitter since the Brits left) I was shocked. The whole place smelled like a combination of vomit and dog shit that had been left out in the sun for a day or so. And it was probably BECAUSE there was vomit and dog shit all over. I almost retched, and I've certainly been in some sketchy places in my travels but NOTHING like this.
People spit everywhere. Trash litters the streets. I found myself looking DOWNWARD much more than looking FORWARD when I walked.
Noise pollution is endemic. It doesn't help that their infernal language consists of abrupt rapid fire tones that is a cacophony for any human ear to bear. How do they speak and listen to that shit without going crazy all day long is beyond me.
Anyways, Chinamen stink -- literally. There is no concept of personal hygiene whatsoever. Meetings with even top officials were hourlong sessions of having to endure hot sweaty bodies and rancid breath eminating from mouths missing a few teeth. Geez, at least use deodorant for crying out loud.
The hypocrisy, corruption, and double-standards from the highest levels of government on over are the norm at the same time China opens up to the world. Foreigners get charged as much as five times for transportation, lodging, food, and everything else.
Traffic is horrible. Rules are non-existent except for at traffic lights: red means to go fast, green means to go REALLY REALLY fast.
The Chinese people themselve are pretty apathetic and everyone just wants to get out of that hell hole, so you see smuggling rings shipping people out hidden in truck beds and ships, all too often with tragic results.
The whole country, in my assessment is a lost case. Even the cheap labor can be found in Southeast Asia or Mexico. Same goes for pirated stuff -- SE Asia and Eastern Europe will keep on churning them out.
Anyways, the one redeeming quality were the girls. I paid 100 yuan (about $12 US) for a great fuck, with a 16 year old who seemed quite new and "unblemished" if you get my drift. Boy, was she tight, made all the right noises, sucked and fucked all night long and let me cum all over her. Much better than even the vaunted Thai whores, and worlds apart from anything in Las Vegas or in Europe. Best bargain I have EVER found in my life!
So yeah, screw the hell hole that's China. It's a lost cause of a country suspsended by a hollow facade of so-called new capitalism that's just show more than anything.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
What about all the software loaded on these machines? I recall reading on a M$ EULA that exporting the software is illegal. Isn't that the same for some hardware too?
How much would Saddam pay for a tip like this?
Note: I don't support terrorism, they are getting Windows 95!
_________ Help me get a PSP!
I'd take any old computer! As long as it's a 486 or higher, it's still useful. Especially to a geek! Or give it to your child. Or just put it somewhere and use it as a typewriter. Or a print server. Or a regular ol' server. Or a file server. Or a router. Or a dildo. Er...maybe not the last one...but you catch my drift.
At least we don't crash our fighter planes into your recon planes and then blame it on you! AND then keep your crew "as guests"! AND make you take apart your plane and remove it in crates! AND make you apologize for flying over international waters. AND chain members of falun gong onto railroad ties and make a bonfire out of them in Red Square! ROTFLMAO
But China has smartened up and now does not allow us to export our pc junk to them.
I mean, one guy's recycling problem is another guy's Can you imagine.. MOSIX cluster.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Now this is not meant to put the blame on any one, as we are all responsible, but some computer parts are made over seas. Its not like we are sending them to Africa where they dont build computer parts (at least that I am aware of).
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
This is the least of the worlds problems these days! I don't know any self respecting geek that would GET RID of any kind of electronics that has some sort of use. But I thought it would be funny, to post something with a cool poetry like title!
I personally just walk a mile up the railroad tracks and throw my old electronics in the bush! I mean why the hell would I want to pay for someone to travel to vietnam and throw it in the bushes there.
[cx]
A ton of these old computers could run linux just fine. I know I would've been much better off learning linux all through school, so wouldn't it be great to take these old PCs, install linux on them, and THEN donate them to schools? The linux community would have a higher percentage of the PC userbase, the schools would get free computers, and everybody would be happy(except maybe microsoft, but I think they'll b. fine with their $40 odd billion ;) ).
I'm not an engineer, so this is an honest question... are there any substitutes for the toxins that go into PCs, like lead, mercury, etc?
If there are, perhaps we should be using those environmentally safer alternatives, even though they may cost more initially? Just like we've removed lead from our gasoline, maybe it's time we figured out how to remove lead and other toxins from our PCs.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Hope you don't lose too much karma. Ha.
Troll out.
If you *really* felt bad about it, you wouldn't even touch a filthy computer. You're part of the problem, buddy, you and your tech lifestyle. Until you throw away your cell phone and your computer and pull the electric meter off your house, you're just all mouth. How about some real action? Or would that inconvenience you too much? You friggin greenies have no ethics.
All true statements, with which I agree and support.
"Unfotunately the US (and Europe) is preventing the poorest nations on earth from entering the Agricultural market (remember agricultural export is the first step to development) because they have MASSSIVE subsidies on farm products and clothing."
Sad but true... it is said that European farm and trade policies more than negate all International aid to third-world countries. (Can't find the link to the figures backing up this statement, sorry. It's late and I am out of coffee).
Didn't New Zealand change their ways a decade or so ago? They abolished all farm subsidies more or less overnight. Many farms suffered and a lot of them went out of business, but the remaining farms are among the most efficient ones in the world.
Hmm off topic? Sure... I'll mod myself down a point then.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This makes no sense and reeks of anti-american sentiment. If you want to solve this problem, you force China to accept the risks and refuse the imports. From there start calling your local congress-critter to reform recycling laws. Both sides need to take responsibility and that includes each and every one of us that is reading this on a PC.
We have 'big trash day' in our city, they even take simi-hazardous items like old freezers and water heaters....
Once a year they even take old oil and other truely hazardous things....
What's the difference in an old PC?.. Besides licensing issues...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...chances are I was the buyer. I'm becoming like NASA: buying old hardware in order to be able to run MS-DOS 20 years from now.
In Sault Ste. Marie, ON (Canada), we (Clean North) run a computer recycling event twice per year. We accept old components from the community (businesses, individuals, government) and charge them $1CDN (about 5 cents US) to take it. We get as much running as we can to give to other charities, or use for ourselves (we have an environmental resource room on the main street in town), as well as sell on the day of the event.
Anything else goes on a truck bound for southern Ontario, where we have an arrangement with a recycler to accept our shipment, and reclaim as much of the metal and plastic as possible.
This is the third story I have read about exporting the problem of dealing with this waste, however, those recyclers that we have dealt with in Southern Ontario have been most accomodating about telling us exactly what happens to the materials. At times, we have even had them pay the shipping.
Our last event was in October, and you can read about it on our web site.
I am curious about the potential to remove useful parts off of the boards for resale to schools, hobbyists, or companies specializing in discontinue parts. The problem is the cost to remove the parts versus the pirce you could get for them. For example, it may cost US $1 in labor to salvage a 22V10, but why bother paying $1+ for a used part when new devices cost the same amount or less? Perhaps I have answered my own question.
Isn't that how Consoles usually work? Each new console is (in theory) a significant jump in technology, with nothing inbetween? (Personally, I went from NES to PSX, and havn't budged yet.)
Problem 1: PC/MAC lifespan is too short. Why not make computers so easy to upgrade that any grandma could do it without feeling intimidated. We're almost at that point now, why not promote this as a way to to reduce computing costs? Guess what?...most people aren't gamers and they don't want to fiddle too much with the hardware, but if they were convinced that it was easy and cheap to upgrade their current computer they probably would.
Problem 2: Computer manufaucters should be responsible for making computers more recycle friendly. Start an organization that makes computer product recycling standards and promote those eco friendly products.
Problem 3: Software that is not upgrade friendly (you know...those guys from Redmond). Boycott software manufacturers that aren't upgrade friendly or won't let you legally move your existing software from one machine to another.
"You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- 1976." --George W. Bush, to Queen Elizabeth, Wash
I've been through quite a few computers since my first Apple IIe. I will upgrade as much as I can then build a new one when I can't upgrade further. With all the leaps and bounds in computer tech and peripherals, I have been through many computers. When I upgrade, I donate the old hardware and/or peripherals to high schools. When I build anew, I donate to elementary schools, homeless shelters, recovery homes, churches, whomever non-profit.
I just replace the hard-drive (my personal info security) and pop for a new inexpensive reliable one. I install the OS and drivers on the new drive and *bam*, new comp for the people who really need one and no trash or hazard to the environment from my hands. I always include information on where to dispose of the computer to whomever I give it to so when they are done with it, it gets properly handled (hopefully).
I'm all for helping developing and struggling countries, but home is where the heart is. Besides, I did my part, I bought a KIA 4x4... *gah* the things I do for democracy and capitalism.
"It is essential that justice be done
Junking old computers is not the way to recycle them. A computer is only as obsolete as the software it runs. Here's some examples of how I have recycled old computers..
:)
2 386DX DNS servers
5 386-486 thin clients using a multitude of different thin client/diskless node configurations. PXES is a great distro for this type of use.
1 486DX Laptop + Trinux (Awesome network trouble shooting/ consoling tool)
1 100Mhz Pentium Sound server (just winamp + VNC + a soundcard)
I'm sure there's tons of other uses I haven't touched on, if you can think of any let me know! It might make a good ask slashdot article
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Something else for the lefty environmental lobby to whine about. What's new? They'll only be happy when we are all living in thatched huts made of biodegradable straw and eating a true vegan diet.
Or dead. I know one such individual who advocates reducing the global carrying capacity to 250 million. i.e. killing off about 5.75 billion of us. In the name of superior environment.
My ancestors mined coal, worked in steel mills, were cops (exposure to lead!) - these things are not optimal careers if you want to live a long time. Neither is computer recycling, at least the way the Chinese do. When they get their act together, i'm sure they'll think up a way to do it in a far less harmful fashion, as we would do it in the US. When they do so, their environment will reap the benefits. Until then, they are masters of their own destiny.
I couldn't care less. Greenpeace and the rest can go get stuffed.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
and pregnant women and chidlren should have less. This is due to mercury in the oceans. And it isn't going to be easy to celan up and it's getting even worse. Of wonder if my children's children will even be able to eat fish. And farmed fish will start picking it up too--it has permeated the planet.
I see a lot of mis-guided and mis-informed posts on this subject. Not surprising really, since the waste 'recyclers' don't exactly advertise their business practices.
1) In most cases, the countries involved in importing PC waste *do not* ask for it. Recent case-in-point being China, which after banning the import of US PC waste *still* cops both US and non-US PC waste. The people don't want it*, the government doesn't want it. But the businesses can make a f*#ckload of money doing it, so it continues.
2) One previous poster has pointed out that the Chinese people *want* the waste dumps to continue, so that they may work. To which I say, "utter bullshit". If you're a techie and, because of the economic climate are forced to work as a dish pig in the local diner, does that mean that you *want* to work there? No. You work there because *that's all there is!* It's the same with the people in China and other 3rd/2nd-world countries who panhandle our old 286 motherboards in corrosive acid for the tiny amounts of gold on the traces.
3) For anyone who thinks putting this crap in landfil is a *good* solution (like one previous poster) - lead, arsenic and other chemicals that remain on PCBs and other PC parts can *kill* you. If you don't believe me, try regularly eating old-paint flakes that contain lead.
4) To all the people who cite refurbishment of old PC parts, networked clusters and the like: You must look at the entire energy chain before you can assert that refurbishment of old equipment is better than replacing with new. Five networked 486's are all going to need power. They're all going to give off at least some amount of ozone. Basically, they're all going to pollute when running. Compare this to the pollution and energy usage of the single Athlon 1GHz you would have replaced it with, combined with the energy cost and pollution generated by recycling the old machines properly. Once you have your result (and you better use a proper equation, not just some approximations), THEN you can talk about refurbishment being more environmentally friendly than proper recycling.
Janie took my gun...
I've pointed out the population explosion in the bay area many times, every time I bring that point up I get modded into oblivion... But fuck it, I got karma to burn...
:) geek cominucae continues) Since we're the teachers its up to us to show the y to the (quote"l4m3rz"unquote) the path to rightiousnuss.
/. ..... it requires some action.
First let me explain why I'm an expert on this. My family has lived in san jose since 1901, we started out here as immigrant sicilian ranchers, and over the years went from being just the fruitpickers to owning a lot of east side san jose, and now we own strip malls (w00t) I hang out on slash because during the boom, I was quite the sysadmin, and came to know this place.
Back to the subject of enviromental disasters...
My great grandfather, grandfather, heck even my uncles could go to any stream in the bay area and fish without worries of toxic fish with 3 eyes. Before milpitas became a great big office complex they would take their shotguns out to the duck blinds and get duck.
These days though, there isn't shit left. Guadelupe river has a big sign "DONT EAT THESE FISH POISONOUS" all along it's banks. They say it's because of the "quicksilver" (read mercury) mines that were prevalent in the almaden valley area, but those existed WAY before IBM, which sits along the coyote creek which is a feeder into the Guadelupe.
What does this have to do with recycling computer stuff? Well let me tell you....
Since i've pretty much been jobless the last 2 years, i've gone back to my second love of bicycle riding. Riding a bike is a lot differerent than driving a car because if you want to stop to look at something.. No big deal. Hit the breaks and stop for a minute..
Last week I was riding along almaden expressway when I saw an AT style case laying in the creekbed (Almaden expressway runs along the guadelupe) I parked my bike, walked over and decided to take a look.
It looked like an old pentium class PC, I whipped out my swiss army knife's phillips attatchment to see what was under the hood..
Well, there was definetly a p133 in there. Nice of socket7 to make it easy to pocket this little treasure. Ram turned out to be 4 16bit EDO ram modules totaling 64 megs.
Hard drive had enough oxidation where I didn't want it, same went for the floppy....
But the point i'm trying to make is here in SV people have been dumping this type of semi usefull electronic shit for years in our creeks, and the combination of population explosion with enviromental hazzards has really fucked up the ecology of SV.
Now moderators, (and rob, cause i know you mod my shit once in a while) please.. This is the god honest truth i'm telling here, any negative mods would be an injustice to the truth (isn't that what good journalism is about anyways?)
Compare San Jose ecological system with a close sister city like portland. Portland OR. has just as many bright talented people as SJ/SV (think M$) The health of their river and stream systems just blows doors over anything we have because they took the time to think ahead (should we whore ourselves out for business or should we keep quality of life in mind)
Here in SJ, people are basically dumping their systems in the creeks and steams. Maybe i'm just being a bit optimistic here, but since so many of us geeks are outta work right now shouldn't we do something about it??? Seriously folks, go download some "router centric" version of *nix, turn those old POS 133's into broadband routers for those not in know. WTF I can find any ISA 3com NIC at a surplus store for less than a dollar.
I love what I used to do, I loved edumucating people on just how they can get the most out of their pc's. In this day and age of firewire capture and such, we need to let people know that their old 486-pentium 200mhz still got some life left in them in the form of hella phat broadband routers that will not only protect them from the evil assholes of the internet, but will log it too (Soooooo much better than my old linksys router)
You know... this is our scene.. And despite GWB being a total cocksucking dickhead to technology (yeah i hear you GWB, u n daddy want oil) we put our faith, our geeky little belief in thing like fuel cells, organic LED's and the like because ultimately we know it's better.
I can't really comment much on the havoc IBM and other companies have wreaked havoc on our ecology, but I know what we gotta do to stretch out the "usefullness" of what we got. And folks, there are two ways you can fucking approach it..
A. educate people..
B. stick your head up your ass.
So my advice to all of you is, if you want to prevent this sort of crap from continueing, DO IT FOR FREE!!! seriously, I consider myself an out of work techno hippie. Set up that killer BSD server with no backdo0rz fo free. Fuck it, aint no shame in promotin yo name. Trust me folks, all the no-geek people out there will love it when you show them how they can use their sprintlink wirelesss dsl to link to an 20 gig archive of data being served over a wireless link. Just don't whine about it, do something!@!!!!!
Well, i hope I've inspired folks to do something instead of whining about it. Sorry u all but im on my second glass of wine and aint coming down. (still can type
Becoming an enviromentall activist on this subject requies more than post on
Yours Truly...
--toq
How similar is an interesting question- in each country it's a nasty job, but is there any information on the relative working conditions, the level of education of the workers as to the health and environmental issues, and the avenues of recourse for workers in cases of abuse? Any correlation with the degree of democracy?
Curtains for windows?
I helped start a computer recycling business (provided business, computer expertise, and moral support). My friend is still running the business after 5 years. The industry is going through lots of changes, however not once has he ever sent something overseas. In fact nothing ends up in the landfill. He is proud to exceed all epa, federal, state, and local guidelines. I cant imageing that shipping stuff overseas would save money. I also wonder if the origanators of the salavage are aware of how its being disposed of. At least everytime I hear of this story I cringe. Maybe its cause Im in the midwest, but dont know of any salvage operator that does this. I would be interested to hear from other people in the business. starjax
Locking it up in the glass of a CRT is a pretty damned good way to keep discarded lead out of the water table. In fact, I can't think of a better one. Can you?
Yes.
My argument is that 99.9% of environmental scientists are neither chemical nor physical engineers.
Unfortunately, the reverse is true. 99.9% of chemical and physical engineers are not environmental scientists.
Environmental science is hardcore - it requires chemistry, biology, earth science AND a specialised series of courses. I picked the university of sydney at random (high google page rank,) but the requirements are similar here at Columbia.
The environmental scientists know their chemistry - the chemical engineers don't know their biology, meteorology or geology, which is where the problem lies (I don't want to badmouth everyone in that discipline; I'm a molecular biologist but I make an effort to keep abreast of the broader context of my work. I know some chemical engineers who are quite savvy on what happens outside of a synthesis facility.)
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The article said it is created there, why shouldn't it be returned there for recycling? They should do a better job of it, but that is really their deal, not ours.
They made it, we bought it, used it and sold it back to them when we where done. I have no problem with that. They should do a better job with disposing of it. I am glad it is there and not here!
Of course, this is all based on the fallacy that a nation REQUIRES an export driven economy to prosper, which is ludicrous. How did the United States or Australia for that matter prosper when they never have relied on agricultural exports as a foundation of their economy? The south had cotton and tobacco yes, but the north got by pretty well eating their own damn food.
It is an absolute MYTH that trade is a necessary part of a thriving economy. People need to create value locally. They can build better houses, create better laws, mine locally... They don't need us anymore than we need them, which in our case in the United States is not at all. We have always supplied our own people with all the food they need in abundance. The only reason we export food is because we produce so much.
We subsidize our farmers because we want to protect the agricultural way of life, and to insure we do not become reliant on a foreign source of food. There is nothing more damaging to a nation than to become dependent on a foregin source of key resources. If you think oil is a problem, food is much worse.
What you miss is these countries are poor because they have no system of justice or property rights. No one bothers doing anything like large scale agriculture or any other economic activity because there is no inscentive. These countries are subsistance farmers or they grow REAL cash crops like coca or the opium poppy. Everything else just isn't worth it. Most crops require careful cultivation and investment in the land to grow enough to make a profit. This investment is not feasible when a virtual anarchy exists.
Personally, I wish there were far fewer people in the world so the United States could become an agricultural economy again. I would join the Amish in a heartbeat if they didn't believe in god. I don't want to buy anyone elses shit, and I don't want to sell any of my shit. The world used to be that way, before this corporate fascist system of capitalism was implimented by the rich industrialists and their progressive puppets around the turn of the century. Now we are all just slaves, spending half our productive lives going through indoctrination in schools before we become employees in the system we call the global economy. I want my own life, my own future. I don't want to answer to anyone, and I don't want anyone to answer to me. It used to be this way...
I don't read or respond to AC posts
A lot of Australian farmers have done the same, we now have the most efficient cotton farmers in the world. It still means jack when the US puts big tariffs on exports because local US producers complain that they cant compete
Damn, over 100 posts and no one has seen this before? It was posted about 6 months ago.
Sorry, but ... I need to say here that countries like mine (south America) and surely Africa are bigger technology trash cans? Is that new for you? If this is new I'm reading the wrong page.
I knew computer recycling was a scam the second I heard about it. If it was legit, then they would pay *you* for the scrap, instead of the other way around.
At a place I used to work we handled a great deal of computer systems (both PC and unix) that we leased out as a complete system with our management software. Not only PCs, but printers, power conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies, networking stuff, etc.
The PCs were assembled inhouse and the unix boxes (suns and sgis) usually had some additions we put in as well such as extra scsi controllers. Anyways, these systems were leased out, never sold so when they came back they were all mostly tossed out in the trash. Sure, some stuff was saved, but most was trashed.
One night anyways, one of the higher ups caught some college aged kids in the trash dumpster (which was reserved only for computer trash) and called the cops. They were arrested and the cops also found marijuana in their car and they were sent away to prison for two years. After that, all equipment had to be bashed in with hammers. We had to bash in sun sparcstations, sparcservers, various PCs, monitors, SGI workstations and some sweet looking servers. The trash bin was locked and a razor wire fence was erected around it. So much perfectly good and very usuable, if not practically brand new (and in some cases brand new, still in the box) equipment was destroyed in a year it isn't funny. Probably like 50 tons a year of this stuff.
As if that wasn't bad enough, there is another department which does work with camera film and developing and they regularily dumped various chemicals down toilets and a sewer drain outside to get rid of it when I was still there. There was a reason why there seemed to always be a few different drums hanging around that drain in the back parking lot.
I don't recall last time this topic came up, but I know I got modded up to 5, so let's just assume I said that again and mod me up again, please.
Please post similar programs from other provinces and states. It's feels a lot better to donate computers instead of throwing them out.
And what would a /. posting be without my 2 cents ... ....)
(Boy, I can feel the flames on this one already, but here goes
From the article: They dip circuit boards and chips in acid to recover small amounts of gold, inhaling the fumes and dumping the acid into a nearby river that is dying.
We are not asking them to do that. I don't think Westerners should feel extremely guilty over these facts. Other countries have governments, regulations, and rules. It's up those goverments to actually create the safety regulations. We can ask, but they make the final decision. Sure we can stop "using" those countries for our own benefit as much as we do. I know North America does a lot of wrong for the sake of capitalism.
And also "migrant workers are paid pennies to crack open and sort the parts of monitors and circuit boards".
I am ignorant of the economical facts about those countries, but how do we know that it's as bad as it sounds. I mean, we live in the most prosperous nations of the world -- pretty much anything might sound bad to us. Might those pennies actually buy food, clothing, etc; maybe those are pennies they would not have otherwise had. If so then that's one good point amongst all the negatives. I'm just trying to say we need to look into every reported statement carefully before jumping to conclusions. Media outlets do love sensationalism.
It makes more sense when you realize that they already have their own huge radioactive disposal problem, and the marginal cost of a little bit more disposal is much less than what other, far more crowded European countries would be willing to pay to get it off their hands. They are the ninth largest country in the world with a population of 16 million, so there is significantly more room for waste disposal than in nearby Western Europe, which may be the region in the world most sensitive to waste disposal concerns of all kinds.
Just as in other environmental decisions, there are immediate and long-term goals that need to be balanced. Economic factors affect these decisions- an affluent community would rather have an expensive recycling facility, whereas an impoverished community would think it is nuts to spend big bucks on that and would go with the cheaper, traditional solution of a town dump, complete with perpetual tire-fire. These decisions are motivated by economic factors- given ample resources, most everyone would prefer a cleaner environment. But not everyone is willing to pay for it, so there ends up being disparity between decisions that affect the environment based upon local economic conditions.
Internationally, this comes as third-world countries which are happy to exchange cleaner air for lower-cost production which allows essential economic growth. Presumably, residents (or at least political representatives of residents) value the immediate economic boon over the long-term consequences. In the case of disposal, since there are already large waste-disposal issues of their own, the marginal cost of slightly larger waste-disposal issues apparently is outweighed by the massive price other countries would be willing to pay to get it off their hands. Unfortunately, decisions like these (trading in a long-term cost for a short-term benefit), are often political, and political decisions rarely favor long-term sustainable policies over short-term boons.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Whoever modded the comment above Interesting or Insightful, shame on you. It is one of the funniest comment in the whole article!
The poster shows masterful command of the irony, satire and sarcasm.
In his first phrases he introduces us to the problem and to the ironical solution: "We have problem, the solution is to ship it somewhere else" (he is clearly aware that any of us here in Slashdot, bright sons and daughters of the information revolution, knows that in a closed system there is no somewhere else - he knows that when the king ships Hamlet to England the Bard is just using a dramatic device to make the play last a little bit longer).
Then he goes all the way to fine sarcasm: "The peasants over there will be HAPPY to have our junk" (we all know too that no one will be happy with heavy metal poisoning the drinking water and the soil for centuries - less obvious but still in context is the fact that the peasants over there may be poor but they are not stupid).
The he insults the reader calling him/her a no-good WTO anarchist - imagine interfering with such an act of christian charity. And making room for more laughs, he states that our poisonous junk is the mean of existence (albeit short) of someone else.
If I had to criticise something in the post, I would say he stopped too soon. He leaves untouched the whole matter of sending our nuclear waste to the same peasants, maybe telling showing them how to make fake jewelery that glows in the dark - wouldn't that be hilarious?
All things considered, the moderators lost a precious opportunity to give the poster his highly deserved Funny points. A real shame.
Yes, everyone can make intelligent choices within the confines of their scope of action. But what forces set the boundaries on their scope of possible action?
Curtains for windows?
Poor people are often perfectly capable of evaluating the pros and cons of their own choices.
Maybe if they were well educated poor people. Or didn't have to worry about where the next meal was going to come from.
Then maybe you would be right.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
...whether the software can be separated from the hardware depends on the licensing. On eBay you now have to get an old drive or motherboard in order to buy bundled stuff like DOS. Think of it as a crippled license.
:) Er, seriously, I would never violate a MS license, nor counsel you to do so, so MS lurkers -- go sue someone else....
However, if you destroy the old machine, you ought to be able to use the software elsewhere, on one machine. But who knows what wacky terms might be in your license?
As a practical matter you're not going to get caught. Just don't tell anyone....
P.S. Don't forget to swing by the store to tell that Dell salesperson what he can do with your old CPU. Dude! Get a Dell! My ass.
http://www.computerbank.org.au/
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
Have a read on Vancouver Indymedia...
Yes, they are. But they're also very likely to make the best short-term decision and the worst long-term. Think Tragedy of the Commons if you can't grasp this concept.
These organizations spread disinformation and hysteria, with the real intent of 1) stopping profitable business or 2) finding a high-leverage segment of the economy to burden with special taxes and fees. Why? To support their Marxian ideal of redistribution of income.
Most could not care less about the actual ecological effects. They want instead to make people living within a successful economic system, feel guilty that people living within a murderous and failing economic system can only make $0.17/hour.
A CRT screen contains phosphors, not "phosphorus". The U.S. Navy lists phosphorus as "highly toxic". Indeed - elemental phosphorus is nasty, but without phosphorus as phosphate, our metabolism would cease instantly. The confusion of the two words is either inexcusably ignorant, or deliberately fraudulent.
These people are loudmouth liars - they don't care whether they get ANYTHING correct, as long as they can gain more control.
Color CRT screen phosphors have no significant quantity of phosphorus in them. They contain Yttrium, Europium, Vanadium, Zinc, Sulfur, Silver, Copper, Gold, Aluminum, and Oxygen.
Some phosphors in older or specialized CRTs did contain Cadmium, which is toxic. Of course gazillions of tons of Cadmium go onto steel as corrosion inhibiting coatings, and Cadmium is fundamental to NiCd rechargeable batteries.
It is difficult to believe that the lead bound up in the leaded glass in CRTs is anything other than less hazardous than the elemental and exposed lead in solder in nearly every electronic device ever manufactured.
These shrill fraudulent twerps, leveraged through criminally ignorant, malicious, or ideologically aligned lawyers and regulators, managed, nonetheless, to make it impossible to simply throw away an old TV set or CRT monitor in California.
In the meantime, many of them are almost certainly hypocritically driving giant gas-sucking SUVs.
Idiot, only the buds contain any meaningful concentration of THC. You can smoke a whole field of hemp otherwise and not get high.
Although it sounds like a fun proposition.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
Ask the Chinese what they think of the current state of democracy in their country.
That moderation was extra-tasty. But I think I'll avoid the bacon next time.
Oh, please. I don't know enough about early US history, but I certainly know enough about early Australian history to be able to tell that in Australia's case that's complete and utter crap.
Australia basically remained a prison colony until one British officer figured out that Australia was a damn good place to raise sheep and grow high-quality wool. The next big discovery was that there was a crapload of gold in various parts of Australia, which brought in a huge wave of immigrants. Many of those went into farming after the initial gold boom ended.
Australia's exports are still concentrated around agriculture and mining. The latest boom export industry? Wine. The biggest issue in negotiations on a free trade deal with the US? US agricultural protectionism. Trust me, agricultural exports are *vital* to Australia.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
3
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Its too bad the Merc was too busy spreading the bad news to spread a little good news as well.
Alameda Country Computer Resource Center is an excellent program, about 30 minutes from the Mercury's office, recycles and reuses, and installs Linux on much of what passes through their doors, and ships what they can't use to a special facility in Canada where it is smelted for valuable ores. (and no it doesn't get dumped in Canada, they have stricter laws about that kind of thing then we do)
Also they only charge $10 for computer drop off not $30, and accept a number of items for free. They publish a schedule of fees on their website.
I wasn't aware that our faucets were wide enough for a hd. I wanna move to where this guy is... I can imagine it now.... Computer Hardware Museum, via tap water...
".... on a six-mile stretch of oily, smoky beach, 40,000 men tear apart half of the world's discarded ships, each one a sump of toxic waste."
w ie sche.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/08/lange
SHIPS! Not a 15"crt... A Godamned ship being driven ashore to be ripped and torn apart for salvage.
The CBC TV investigative consumer news show Marketplace did a story on high-tech trash earlier this year.
They talked to Seattle's Basel Action Network, which made one of the earliest documentary videos of a cluster of villages in Guiyu, China, where 100,000 people live and work in what is essentially a giant computer dumping ground.
You can watch the report in Quicktime or in Real Video format.
Ultimately, it all goes back to the principle that "matter is neither created nor destroyed". There's a fixed amount on this planet, and all we can do is move it around and convert it from one form to another.
If it's profitable for parties here and in China for us to transfer some of this matter to their land mass, then that's where you can expect much of it to go.
Back in the days of the industrial revolution, the US wasn't exactly using clean methods of power generation and manufacturing, either. We had cities full of black smog and soot, and probably shortened the life spans of quite a few citizens working in those conditions at the time.
Nonetheless, those same cities seem to be much cleaner today. The black soot wasn't permanent. Perhaps more importantly, the things we learned about manufacturing and technology in that area allowed much progress that still benefits people today.
These environmental concerns always turn out to be "mind games", ultimately. Did the computer help accomplish enough "good" for society while it was in use to justify the pollution it will cause when it's melted down as scrap? What if it was used to teach thousands of college students, or by a charity that helps many people in dire need of assistance? What about energy saved by using newer, more efficient technology instead of continuing to use outdated and power-hungry systems (like old mainframes)?
LOL You want to know why the US isnt competive in sugar production...Environmental regulations. Most US sugar growers (at least in ND where i live) think they could compete without subsidies, if the developing world had the kind of environmental regulation that we have in the US. The polution controls on sugar refining cost big $$$. So on one hand, many of you slashdot types are all antisubsidy, but then you blame america when these places have poor environmental policy. Lots of ppl in our govt WANT them to have tighter policies, because it makes us more competitive. (there has to be a pretty big disparity in cost of pollution controls for a company to move solely for that reason, usually its labor cost, not lax pollution controls that cause industry to build in china or mexico.) Im very free trade BTW. And i agree that protectionism sucks, but the world isnt a perfect place. I guess i agree with what you said, except i think the US could compete in the sugar market (well most farmers could, not all). Protectionism of domestic markets drives the world price down. Which ends up costing the tax payers of every country. If we all had similar ag policy (laws, subsidies and all) it would solve a lot of disputes about protectionism and trade.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
And if this were true, it would justify what's happening in China?
As it happens, I don't think that the Phillipines and India are as democratic as you think they are. But then, I don't think the United States is as democratic as a lot of people think it is.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
I've read the same basic story before. (sarcasm)It's oh so touching.(/sarcasm) Now that they got some /. traffic from it, they'll probably write some books on it or something. Don't make them think this topic is the next Monica Lewinsky. It is important, but don't overdo it.
this is really a problem with communist china. i saw a big (mainly propaganda) video about this. america has laws about throwing poison in rivers and such. its not our fault china doesnt handle this well.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I'd always wondered why a CRT display, most of which is filled with nothing at all, is so heavy. But I'm intrigued as to why recycling monitors can't pay for itself. 4lb of lead and quite a lot of copper must be worth something. OK, recycling the PCBs might not be such a good deal, but isn't it possible to set one off against the other? Does anyone have figures on how much the various bits of a dead monitor are worth?
Virtually serving coffee
Oh wait... is the Japanese Borg Army who says that.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
This was posted a while ago. I even commented about seeing my Amiga.
According to the article, making a single computer chip takes a lot of chemicals (including hydrogen fluoride), and a lot of fossile fuel, making the process an incredible resource hog for what we get out of it.
There isn't much in the article about what happens to all the chemicals used though (i.e. how they're disposed of, if they're reclaimed/recycled).
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
Well - If you live in the uk, and have old computer gear - with the exception of CRT's I can use it. Rip it to peices and use teh components to build robots.
Especially BEAM robots.
Of course the cases are then usable in the scrapheap for larger projects. Anyone here watch scrapheap challenge?
There are people I know to whom anything above a 100mhz p1 with 12mb is an upgrade....
Also you should check how much even older gear sells for on ebay. Theres always another use for stuff if you look hard enough.... I agree that one way or another, the manufacturer, and the consumer should share the cost and responsibility of recylcling the stuff.
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
Solution 1: Pass a law making the company manufacturing the product responsible for dealing with the waste.
Result 1: The company collect extra money from the consumer, uses the money to fund multimillion dollar bonuses for executives who then bankrupt the company through mismanagement. (Similar to handling of worker pension funds) Consumer is out more money and nothing has been accomplished.
Solution 2: Government creates tax to deal with waste.
Result 2: The legislature uses the money to give themselves a raise and buy missile defense systems from campaign contributors. Consumer is out more money and nothing has been accomplished.
Solution 3 Aliens descend on Earth eradicating all human life.
Result 3: Hmmm.... this one may work.
at least until they break down...i'm not quite sure what to do with them after that, but one could put a reasonable sized supercomputer together from x86's running linux i'm sure. in the meanwhile, i'm upgrading my main computer, to a Pentium-133 come this decembre. there is so much need for computers, it is unbeleivable. not everyone can afford the latest tech!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I work for a smaller computer store. At one point (years ago) we had been either saving all of our old parts, just "in case" we needed them to fix an older computer, or tossing them out if we had too many of a particular part. If a part was "fried" (think a modem in a lightning storm) and had obvious burn marks, we had no place to go with them other than the garbage either.
We no longer throw anything with a circuit board, nor any monitors, not even a mouse or keyboard in the trash anymore. We also don't want to save much old stuff anymore. This leaves us with the dilema of what to do with it. For the past couple of years we've been storing up everything that no longer works, in hopes of finding some sort of recycling place to take it all to. Not just any recycling place, but one that will actually recycle the stuff, not just ship it overseas or hide it in some landfill somewhere. Unfortunately as a side effect of a lack of storage space, we've been forced to require customers to retain all their old computers and broken parts. We just don't have anywhere to take this stuff.
Sure you can say "Give it to schools" or "Make a router or DNS server out of it", but when the component, whether it be an olc Cyrix chip that fried itself because it's fan slowed down 10 RPMs and overheated, or a modem that got hit by lightning, or a power supply that died, or a hard drive that bit the dust and is no longer under warranty, there just isn't any place to put this stuff.
There may be places out on the west and east coasts that do some PC and electronics components recycling, but we've yet to find one here in the Midwest (specifically Southwestern Minnesota). If anyone's around that area and has been able to locate a PC recycling facility that is on the up-and-up, please let me know, so we can get rid of the heaps of broken components that fill our storage shed and recycling containers and hopefully do the right thing.
How did the United States or Australia for that matter prosper when they never have relied on agricultural exports as a foundation of their economy? The south had cotton and tobacco yes, but the north got by pretty well eating their own damn food.
e _routes.htm
Does the phrase yankee trader mean anything to you? The North originally made a large sum of money through shipping, including agricultural products but also a variety of manufactured goods. They also tended to ship other people's goods, as in the various triangle trade routes.
For a decent map showing the various products exchanged, see: http://rims.k12.ca.us/market_to_market/pages/trad
There was no "golden age" of self-sufficiency. Note that even the Amish are not self-sufficient, relying upon outside resources in various cases (medical care, national defense, etc.). And while the Amish may not use currency internally (I don't know either way), they certainly do trade with one another, by barter or informal agreement ("I'll raise your new roof if you shoe my animals this year"). So, sadly for you, even the Amish are engaged in "buying [someone] else's shit".
With all that said, you do hit upon a kernel of truth. Foreign trade is not the only means of growing wealthy. For a sufficiently large or diverse country, internal trade can make up a large percentage of all trade. And, generally speaking, you are better off producing things other than agricultural goods and raw materials (if you can).
But make no mistake, trade is the key to wealth. If you want to generate wealth you have to produce or deliver goods where they are scarce. This means that wealth is very limited without trade, because you quickly exhaust the available demand.
Biznitch loonies are a bunch of fucktards? I'm not inclined to disagree, but the quality of your argument is an indication of why the "fucktards" outnumber the environmental types. The environmental engineers may take business courses, but they are undermined by the pro-environment non-engineers screaming epithets at all that don't believe their mantra. Change doesn't happen unless you work to convince the other side. Calling them names (and "fucktards" seems inaccurate as they seem to be in the majority...) just gets you ignored. This could be valuable for continuing the cult of I'm so cool because I espouse non-mainstream ideas, but then it becomes about the novelty of the individual rather than the environment, now doesn't it?
Stop yelling and start spending that energy on persuasive argument. Just saying I'm right and you're a jerk just gets you ignored, no matter how many descriptive words you make up.
Why should computer manufcturers not be responsible for recycling their toxic products? If paperclips contained mercury, lead, and other toxins, people would be all over the paperclip manufacturers about how to recycle them. Why is the PC industry any different??
I'm not asking the manufacturers to set up their own recycling plants as that would be cost prohibitive for smaller outfits. At a minimum there should be a federal US tax imposed on new electronic devices including PC's that would go to fund government recycling stations.
I'd pay an extra 5% for my electronics and computer parts if I know that extra money was going to ensure an environmentally friendly recycling solution.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Who. cares.
I don't, and you certainly shouldn't.
The magnitude of enviromental damage from dumping useless PC's and other electronics overseas is negligible at best, compared to other industries such as chemical production, oil refinery, etc. This story does not deserve our attention in the least. Typical liberal journalism. If you're worried about this kind of thing, you obviously don't have enough to do.
...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13
As usual you vilify everything Capitalist and romanticize everything Benzapist.
You advocate a return to the (fictious) time of no one answering to anyone (sort of pseudo-anarchy). At the same time you freely admit that poor countries are only poor because the have no system of justice of property rights.
Is it your position then, that America should be a nation with no laws and no organized system of leadership? If so, how do you propose to motivate investment in agriculture or industry, if
1) What you miss is these countries are poor because they have no system of justice or property rights. No one bothers doing anything like large scale agriculture or any other economic activity because there is no inscentive
2) Most crops require careful cultivation and investment in the land to grow enough to make a profit. This investment is not feasible when a virtual anarchy exists?
...buy me a urinal and pay my increased sewer bill
Somebody mod this fucker down.
Really. If the box still works, why not just take it to Goodwill? That's what I've done and continue to do.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
if we kept doing that, wouldn't it change our orbit after a while? pretty soon we'd be orbitting around the moon instead of vice versa!
how many of 'any old computer' would you take?
I bet if you told slashdot your address, or put out a few free classifieds, you'd end up with truckloads coming in every day. I can send you a bunch of crap I'm not using, but you'll only end up in the same place as me. In fact it's sort of a conundrum for me.
1) I don't want throw it away b/c I know it's still useful.
2) I don't want to use it b/c i allready have plenty of stuff that's better to keep me busy.
3) I don't want to set up a giant beowulf/SETI@home cluster in my garage b/c
a) I live in an apartment that's allready littered w/ old hardware.
b) the electric bill would add up.
c) any jacka$$ w/ two p4's would still spank me.
4) I'm having trouble finding 'donation' places that take parts, or that take parts PII generation (PII is my personal cut off currently, so that doesn't do me anygood).
5) I don't have the time to take pics & post ebay ads for parts which are worth $1 & probably won't sell anyway, plus I don't feel like pluggin em back in to test & i don't want to sell people broken crap.
6) I'd rather not recycle working parts, b/c they still work, but I will if I have no choice. so what's a guy to do?
now that's an interesting peice of data. where did you getit?
You advocate a return to the (fictious) time of no one answering to anyone (sort of pseudo-anarchy). At the same time you freely admit that poor countries are only poor because the have no system of justice of property rights.
Please explain how you came to that conclusion. Because I personally want to be self sufficient does not mean I believe the nation as a whole could or should do so. Its called simple honesty. We all have personal biases that may cloud what we say, I merely attempt to make that known. Rather than wishing to be part of some corporate fascist state slaving away for the 450 square foot apartment in which I currently reside, I would rather be free. It is from that vantage point I speak. And you are right, it is pseudo-ficticious... it is an ideal, something that may not be perfectly attainable, but one for which I believe all people should strive. I will say we were closer to that ideal in 1850 than today.
As a matter of policy, I don't believe we should turn third world countries into export economies, it is that simple. Countries should focus on trading amongst themselves and raising the standard of living of their own residents, then perhaps focus on exporting their surplus.
Without property rights, poor countries focus on the bare necessities of survival (subsistence farming) or a quick buck (opium). Perhaps if they had title to their land, they would work hard to build a more permanent home, or pave their streets, invest in electricity, plumbing, all the staples of civilization common to Europe and America. Being that I support property rights, anarchy could be hardly a system of government I desire.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
But make no mistake, trade is the key to wealth. If you want to generate wealth you have to produce or deliver goods where they are scarce. This means that wealth is very limited without trade, because you quickly exhaust the available demand.
So, what will happen once we supply all the world with everything they want? What will we do then? Perhaps then these third world countries will try and pave their streets, make their homes out of lasting materials, stop having hordes of children?
What you are misunderstanding is I oppose a corporate-fascist command economy approach to trade. I have no doubt the Amish trade amongst themselves, but they certainly do not trade with people from India or anywhere else outside of their local community, with one exception: fuel oil, although they prefer kerosene. My point is the purpose of life is to live comfortably, support your family, and be part of a community of which you are proud. Foreign trade has its place, surplus wealth should be traded in whatever its form. BUT local interest come first. Creating wealth is done locally, with only frivolous items available from foreign markets. The Amish are the example I cite because outside of medical care and fuel, they are completely self sufficient as a local community.
This is the ultimate failure of 20th century capitalism, because it is not based on the principals of frugality, modesty, and hard work exemplified by Ralph Waldo Emersen. 20th century capitalism created public schools to turn free men into drones, willing and desperate to serve a master. It used government controls to manipulate markets and induce dependence upon the state, principally under welfare.
The is coming, and will come in your life time, where the means of production will become so efficient and technologically advanced that man's basic needs will be extraordinarily cheap. When life need not be spent earning a living, what will wealth be? These are the questions that make it quite clear the incapacity of economic theory to answer the questions that will face us in the future. What will happen? I do not know.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Look at your refrigerator. See the petty amount of insulation on it? If it had twice that amount, it would use less energy and last twice as long.
How much would it cost you to buy one that has more insulation? Twice as much? Five times as much? Do they even exist?
What would happen if you and everyone else started using half as much electricity as you used to? Would the price stay the same? Would it be worth the investment?
Have you ever worked in corporate America? What would happen if you suggested to your boss that he shouldn't pollute the environment, that he should make products that last longer and are more efficient?
You can relax a little though, because the fact is that lots of your waste is recycled already. Many communities have waste-to-energy plants that burn your trash and recover some of it as energy. Many others are implementing recycling programs and even programs to convert sewage into methane fuel. Greedy companies are even being tricked into saving energy by purchasing cogeneration units that lower their overall energy bills.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Agree. I'd just like to point out that the same thing occurs with cars, yet no one cries about the "toxic chemicals" that are in them. In fact, this is pretty much the M.O. for the "developed" nations: constantly upgrade your crap and pass on your hand-me-downs to the rest of the world. Anyone who's taken even a basic economics class can see that it doesn't add up.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
LOL. That should be a bumper sticker :)
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
And you are right, it is pseudo-ficticious... it is an ideal, something that may not be perfectly attainable, but one for which I believe all people should strive.
:)
Scarey... I agree with you. Whoa. Hope this isn't a trend.
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, ..."
exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How
about
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
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