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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!
Speaking of shipping problems somewhere else... can we ship the RIAA execs there too?
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
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?"
.. 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.
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)
Happy to take them? I'd wager the general population has zero choice in the matter, it's the people who actually collect and keep the money that are "HAPPY" to make the trade. And its the people who take the money who don't give a damn how much mercury or lead seeps into the same water supply that drinking water is drawn from.
To make a blanket statement that these country's people are happy to take this junk from us -- for spare parts !?!?! -- is being incredibly ignorant of the problems this "welcomed" trade is causing for the general population.
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."
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...
While I agree with your assessment of his tone, you are mistaken in implying that "poor people" are the ones making the decisions regarding international trade. "Poor people" are not deciding to import the toxic electronic waste of first-world, but they are the ones who will be living and working with it. "The rich" who actually make these decisions will be far, far away.
The poster's analogy should have been something more along the lines of "If you saw an adult feeding nails (or other sharp things) to a child, should you do something about it?" While the comparison may use paternalistic terms, I don't believe that invalidates the analogy.
Umm, mainland China is not democratic.
Curtains for windows?
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.
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...
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
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
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.
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.
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If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
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.