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."

Comments

It's a bigger problem

[drmofe]

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)

Re:Exporting == solving

[NanoProf]

Umm, mainland China is not democratic.

Re:it's all a sham

[NeoSkandranon]

rare Earth metals such as silicon, glass, and copper, not to mention metal for cases

Sillicon and copper are rare-earth metals? My periodic table must be a bit out of date...

not just computers- radioactive waste as well

[call -151]

There was a recent Guardian article about how Kazakhstan was looking towards importing European nuclear waste as a way of rescuing their economy. The company planning this expects to use abandoned uranium mines; the company president was quoted as

We get $10 for extracting a cubic metre of uranium. We would get $100 to deposit the same amount of nuclear waste.

(I think he meant extracting uranium ore- $10/ m^3 is a very good price for uranium...)

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.

Re:Possible to use safer materials in new PCs?

[distributed.karma]

From the article it seems that the worst problem isn't the material in the computer. It's the dangerous chemicals used to treat the waste -- for instance soaking the motherboard in a strong acid to extract gold and other valuables. Likewise, the cable coatings may not be that harmful per se, but the method of burning them to extract the copper will probably produce harmful compounds.

Merc misses good program in their backyard

[kellan1]

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.