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Manufacturing 1 PC Takes 1.8 Tons Of Raw Material
remy writes "Although most of it (1.5 metric tons) is water, a study from the United Nations University details the raw materials used in the manufacture of a PC and 17" CRT. That's an incredible environmental cost per PC, and a very strong argument for trying to leverage older equipment, not to mention upgrading rather than replacing."
that I haven't bought a monitor in seven years and have fished several out of the garbage. Using a KVM switch is helpful too.
I have this odd feeling that they are neglecting how much it would cost to make the second PC and monitor; how much of the material cost is simply overhead?
OK, so I opt to upgrade my computer instead of buying a new one (which is the only thing I've ever done in the last 20 years of PC use).
What parts shouldn't I upgrade in order to be "environmentally friendly"? I'm sure the case doesn't take a hellacious amout of natural resources. I mean, it's just bending metal. The power supply is relatively simple electronics.
So, my guess is that the biggest consumers of resources are going to be the hard drive, the memory, the processor, and the motherboard.
Which are things I upgrade. Regularly.
I think environmental conservation is an important idea, but it seems like "Upgrade! Don't replace!" just gives the manufacturers a good excuse to not explore less environmentally hostile manufacturing techniques.
Having said all that, the beauty of water is that when you use it, you get to use it again. Yay water cycle. Makes planet work good.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So yeah, recycling really is a good idea.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
Linux can be used as a means to protect our environment, by using its features to save power or paper, since it doesn't require big hardware it may be used with old computers to make their life cycle longer, games may be used in environmental education and software is available to simulate ecological processes. See a detailed description of this means in the Ecology-HOWTO.
In some states it's illegal to throw a PC or monitor into the garbage. I know in the county I live in there is a fine for dumping computer equipment because of the heavy metals and other hazmats involved, but I've never heard of anyone being arrested or fined or anything for it. There are companies that specialize in proper disposal, but of course it costs you money.
So anyway, even if natural resources don't mean shit to you and you don't want to sound like some save-the-world-with-idealism, tree-hugging liberal, it's a good idea to recycle machines for reasons other than politics. Aside from dumping laws, there is always someone you know that could use an older machine. Or you can donate it to the VOA or Goodwill for a tax credit.
-JemI've not bought a PC from them yet, but I like the look of Hoojum. They certainly seem to be the most ethical manufacturer I've come across. Does anyone else know of any companies that do similar things?
how much raw materials is needed to produce "ecological" stuff (both mechanical and food).
Can't remember the brand of cigarette, but their ads always featured some long legged model with the tagline "We've come a long way baby"
Using SSH and console is ok, when I just have to pop in really quick to edit some conf file, or tail -f some log. %80 of the time i'm doing this, it's pertaining to some clients web site i'm working on.
Guess what though? Do I fire up lynx to view my changes? Hell no! I use mozilla or IE, or some other html renderer. Do I create graphics or video from the console too? Hell no, I use some graphic program, with some nice gui, and pretty little icons everywhere BECAUSE I LIKE IT!!!!
Not only do I like it for that kind of work, I like it FAST! The faster the better!
Does it look like I care about leveraging old hardware for modern content? (shameless plug)
What I do use old equipment for is an ipcop firewall. I also use it to frankenstien together stepper motor interfaces because it IS old and I don't give a crap if it catches on fire because I wired something the wrong way.
Here's the whole wrapup to my post, i.e. the point. I read slashdot everyday, I build mosix clusters using plumpOS (couldn't remember the link sorry) My garage is filled from top to bottom with old computer crap because I know i'm not average joe sixpack user, and I will find a purpose for it even if it's just for research or fun. Average joe sixpack doesn't care about these things, he just wants his little clickety click icons to open up faster, or his OS to load quicker, or his games to run better.
And I sympathize with him %100. Thanks Joe sixpack for not taking the time to learn what I do, because I'm that car that stops outside your house to load up that PC you put out with your trash.
I work in a LAN gaming center. Most of you have probably seen the type - lost of high end gaming pay-for-play comps loaded with CS, BF:1942, CoD, UT2k3, and a bunch of other acronyms. The power buttons on the cases are really inconvienient to get to (behind one of those door things, 5' off the floor, turned to the side so the case window faces out).
Hitting all those power buttons is NOT FUN. Not difficult, just annoying. So, being the compsci student I am, I wrote a litte C proggie that sends WOL packets out to any machine I want. Incorporate a small databse of the MAC's and a tidy front-end and voila - instant 'power-on' menu. It works well. I'm also going to write a small client-side app that allows me to turn them off remotely, just for fun.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
Consider this: when I need more PC power, I could replace part of the machine (say: motherboard, cpu, memory, disk drive) or I could buy a new system.
When replacing only part, I could say that I saved the environment by not replacing everything. But at the same time, I have discarded part of a system, useless to everyone but a few hobbyists.
When I would have bought a new system, I would have left one complete machine that could be useful to someone else. I could sell it, donate it to a school project, or whatever. It could probably run a few more years before it is useless to anyone.
So, instead of discarding useless parts into the environment, I actually only damaged the economy (because the one who gets my old machine does not need to buy a new one). That does not seem to be such a big deal.
You can also do a lot with a simple memory upgrade.
This is after all the business market. Not the home user market. For office use a dual P3 is even better (with the right modern OS) then a single P4. No more lag while your wordproccessor starts up.
With such an upgrade you just doubled the life of the Mobo, memory, cpu, HD, expansion cards, cables and monitor. 50% reduction in waste. Not bad eh?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't want to pay these people $35 to buy a copy of their report, nor do I have time to read the whole thing. But I suspect that anyone who does take the time will find faults with the stated conclusions. They aren't necessarily lying -- it's just that the nature of the topic is complex and therefore subject to multiple interpretations.
Due to the interconnected nature of the economy, I don't think that it is meaningful to just say that it takes a certain amount of raw materials to manufacture a computer. For example, does the figure include the water that the cow drank that went into the hamburger that the trucker ate while delivering the VGA connectors? It also takes a ridiculous amount of water to produce a little bit of beef, you know. Perhaps that was a bit far-fetched, but you can see how there could be lots of discretion in deciding what to include or exclude in the tally.
One way to see if their methodology is fair is to compare the environmental impact of producing computers with that of other products. Here I sense that between the UN University and InfoWorld, someone is being sloppy / misleading / sensationalistic.
I think that may be a bit unfair to compare the materials used to produce a PC and a car against their respective final weights. The goal of electronics is to fit as much complexity as possible into ever shrinking products. The goal of car manufacturers is to make their cars as roomy and as lightweight as practical. Why don't they celebrate the fact that a solar-powered calculator can compute what it used to take an ENIAC to compute? In that light, we're already making tremendous environmental progress.
What does it mean to say that water is used? If you take the water and mix it with some nasty chemicals, then it's polluted. If you use it to wash some dirt off of something, it's dirty but easily returnable to the environment. If you use it to carry away heat in a sealed heat exchanger, it remains perfectly clean but might make some fish unhappy when you return it to the river at a slightly higher temperature. If you took it from the Seattle, it's no big deal; if you took it from Ethiopia, it's a crime against humanity. How much of the 1500 kg of water in a PC is "used" in each way?
Anyway, I don't doubt that PC manufacturing has some significant environmental impact, and that we should find ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. But I'm sure that anyone who wants to write a report with an opposite viewpoint could easily do so. Just be aware that the authors have an interest in picking the comparisons that generate the maximum shock value.
Here they aren't saying anything about the water, but are implying it is 'removed' or 'used up' which is nonsense. It goes somewhere, and probably very near the original 1.3 tons is output as water. What is very important, as mentioned earlier on, is what happens to it, and how effective decontamination is.
Ideally it is still going to it's original destination , valley basin or whatever, just rerouted along the way.
You were modded as 'insightful' for repeating the drivel on television?
1L at 1.04 g/cm^3 is a cube 10cm X 10cm X 10cm and weighs in at 1.04 kg. 1500L is a cube approximately 1.15m x 1.15m x 1.15m and weighs 1560kg.
Now you'd like to transport that 1500kg across the world to some poor, impoverished nation and give some thirsty children some water?
How would you like to accompish that? Maybe put it in a truck? Or a boat? Possibly an airplane? You might have to burn some fossil fuels to move it, unless of course you will be willing to pedal and move it by yourself (note, you will need cooling water yourself in order to maintain peak performance and prevent your brain from frying due to overheating).
This new-age drivel is very annoying to listen to. You would have a better chance of relocating the affected individuals to a more 'rich' environment.
Of course, using those computers to predict where hotspots will form is a bad thing- better to be surprised by a hurricane and lose the entire crop across an entire nation, than to 'consume' that 1500L of water. Let's exclude the fact that environmental regulations strictly control what can be returned to the water table, and that fines run into the 100K's for offenses.
Personally, I'd find it prettey interesting to watch you move 1560 kg of water using a bicycle to pull an oxen cart loaded with ~5 55gallon drums of water.
Just making the metal for the case will use a *lot* of water, for coolant etc. You'd be amazed - in some countries, up to and beyond 100 tons of water can be used to make a ton of steel.
Most of the fossil fuels are probably mostly used in various refining materials process - the case, again, a lot of power needed for that. All the different materials in the PC and monitor adds up amazingly fast - remember that the actual raw materials are really cheap, so you don't see much cost due to this when you buy something in a high-street store.
-Chris
Mod that baby up. Dumping energy into a water stream has a massive impact on the surrounding ecology.
I'm sure most of the US people have heard of the manatees- the power plants in Florida have discharge channels that are long and wide and attract hundreds of the 'sea cows' each year. Why? Because the water being returned (reclaimed) comes out quite a bit warmer than the water it's going back into.
This translates to a literal calving ground of protected, tempered water. The plants even run a little tourist center for people to come in and watch the manatees - heh there's even a little hose that drops 'fresh' water into the discharge channel. Watch the creatures pull up under it and drink from a 'novel' non-salt containing water.... I think it gets them drunk, but then again if you've watched a manatee swim you'll swear they are all drunk.
But in this case the energy return is quite benefitial to the surroundings. Usually it's not- think of the Alaskan pipeway that draws heated oil from the wells to distribution. That permafrost underneath NEEDS to be kept cold, yet we are radiating millions of therms of energy above it to keep the oil from freezing solid. So it's a complete tradeoff in that sense- the coldest environment that MUST stay cold has the hottest (And capable of generating the most heat) mere meters above it. I think the pipes are about 2.5m off the ground, to allow animals to pass thru.
The dissolved O2 problem is real, but not as big as you think. I'd place more issue around the extra few degrees in the winter than on the amount of O2 present (algae can have a more devastating effect from phosphate dumping)
1500 kg of that is water. It's not used up--it's supposed to be treated and then sent down the drain. It gets recycled fairly quickly. My monitor doesn't contain a ton and a half of water--does yours? So where did that water go? We each use about 200 kg of water per day just in our homes--washing laundry, flushing toilets, showering. 1500 kg seems like a lot, but we each use that much every week.
240 kg of fossil fuels. Well, that's a possibility. How is that assessed? That's (ballpark) a hundred gallons of gasoline. That's what someone living 25 miles from work might use in two months of commuting. It's not enough fuel to get your motorhome to the Grand Canyon and back for your vacation this summer. The figure also assumes that all the energy used to produce the computer comes from fossil fuels. If nuclear energy was used, that 240 kg of fuel corresponds to roughly 2 cubic centimetres (half a teaspoon) of unenriched uranium. If hydroelectricity was used, the cost would be kinetic energy from many tons of moving water. (See note above regarding the recycling of water.)
22 kg of 'chemicals'. Well, that's certainly vague. Water is a chemical. Some of those chemicals are acutely nasty. Some are moderately unpleasant. Some will be relatively harmless. Does that 22 kg include the finished product? I mean, the computer itself with CRT is probably up around ten or fifteen kilograms...
Other posters have already noted that a useful report would compare these totals to the resources used in the production of other products: home appliances, automobiles, cotton. (The Aral Sea is drying up largely because of cotton growing in the area. It takes about 5000 kg of water to grow one kilogram of cotton. The environmental costs of the pesticides and bleaches used in cotton production I will leave for another post.)
~Idarubicin