Slashdot Mirror
Where Computers Go To Die
broohaha writes "Salon.com has a featured article on where all our unwanted techno trash gets sent, and what is not being done enough to account for all the so-called 'recycling' we're doing. From the article: 'More than 50 percent of our recycled computers are shipped overseas, where their toxic components are polluting poor communities. Meanwhile, U.S. laws are a mess, and industry and Congress are resisting efforts to stem the effluent of the affluent.' Some sites to visit dedicated to attacking the problem are Computer Take Back Campaign and Ban Action Network."
Our router vendor told us that some models will not be available in Europe anymore, because they contain lead and other dangerous stuff. He also told us that they will continue to sell it in USA and Asia, "because it is not illegal".
Companies don't care about the environment, until governments force them to care.
Due to an EU directive, computer recycling will become compulsary in the UK in 2008: the related article here describes how the WEEE[sic] will force computer manufacturers to be responsible for their products, by providing a recycling service for *all* the electronic devices they sell.
As a fairly poor college student who left the computer industry during the 2001 depression I have lots of broken/obsolete computer hardware and not allot of money. The prices they charge at the recycle centers to take this stuff are quite steep for some one like myself (20 bucks for a monitor is a weekends worth of micro brews for me after all :) ) making just dumping them in the dumpster near my house extremely tempting. I'm sure there are allot of people less eco conscious than myself who see fit to just throw this crap away rather than pay the fairly hefty processing fees associated with proper disposal.
I wonder how polluted our own landfill is due to this.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I found Free Geek a while back and liked the ideal a lot but as I'm in the UK it sort of died a death. I'm partially involved in PC recycling as an amateur PC builder and Linux advocate so it would be something I'd be interested in doing in my part of the UK. What I'd like to see is if any other like-minded UK Geeks would be interested in a similar 'franchise'.
They have a recycling system that gives back to the community. The basic idea is that geeky types learn how to strip and make good an old PC load Debian on and then it goes to the poor. After a certain number of builds they get to keep one for themselves. Sounds a bit 'hippy' but then internet grew on hippy-ish ideals and I for one commend the organisers on their selflessness.
Anyway please take a look at the Free Geek site and see what a GOOD THING it is.
http://freegeek.org/Cheers.
There was a report on TV some time back (investigative report) which wondered why communities charged for recycling so they decided to find out.
They tagged some recycling trucks and followed them to their final destination:
The city dump.
If the story ended there it would have been sensationalistic enough, but the next day they showed what goes on at the city dump.
Normal trash, and trash from recycled bins got fed into these giant conveyor belts where workers sorted through the trash and pulled out all the recyclable material before it got burned.
They asked the landfill operator why, and they said because they make money off the recycling.
After I saw that piece I haven't worried one bit about nor recycling, and I haven't paid for it either. Why should I pay a company money to do some work when it doesn't mean anything in the end and they in turn are just going to make more money?
No thank you.
I'm sure the same happens with PCs and equipment. Copper is valuable. So is gold. If there's money to be made, someone will figure out a way of extracting the raw materials. If the process is not environmentally friendly then that's a different problem.
Power plants didn't used to be environmentally friendly until the laws were changed which forced power companies to install scrubbers and catalytic converters. If you require the recycling companies to clean up their acts then they will.
Old computers don't use more power than new computers, in fact it's quite the opposite. Power supplies are now much more powerful than they were during the 486/pentium era, partly because CPUs are much more power-hungry.
OK, the ratio WPCC (Watt Per CPU Cycle) has definitely decreased over the years; but to be honest, do you really need all the CPU cycles to do a simple firewall or a file server?
Making an efficient use of an old computer is more eco-friendly than under-using a brand-new computer.
The sad thing is that a lot of the stuff that gets thrown away really isn't all that bad.
;-)
My inlaws bought a new pc a while ago because the old one was "broken". What they meant was that the machine was completely bogged down with spyware and crap that Windows had slowed to a crawl. They bought a new machine without asking me, or I could have told them that all they needed was a new Windows install...
I put a fresh install on it and gave it to my neighbour who needed a basic browsing / MS Office machine. (No, I did not put Linux on it... I'm sure I'll burn in Hell for that)
Seeing the amount of hardware that is tossed out by non-geeks way before the end of it's usuable life-cycle, it sounds like a very good idea to have a bunch of geeks just check the machines and rebuild them into workable systems for students / people that cannot afford their own pc. I'm not sure about putting Linux on it: it's a good way to spread "the word", but it might be a bit too optimistic.
PageTurner Reader: open-source e-reader for Android with cloudsync. http://pageturner-reader.org
Amazingly nobody complains about toxic waste being sent to the very same countries where the American jobs are exported.
The United States uses 23.6% of the world's energy to to produce 28.4% of the world's gross domestic product---it seems that the U.S. is actually rather efficient. (My source for these is the CIA's World Fact Book and a rather large PDF from BP).
It ranks 17th in per capita oil consumption. And it uses less energy per capita than Luxembourg, Iceland, and Candada. Why don't you pick on them for a little while?
This is not my sandwich.
So when one of those out and out sabotage attempts actually ends up spreading asbestos in your hometown, you will have no problems with your neighbors conducting out and out sabotage of the earning potential of Greenpeace contributors (such as yourself), I hope. Fair is fair after all.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
I don't value people by how much money they produce.
Most of us in the first world (I Include myself (a Brit) in this) need to cut back on use of the world's resources. Until we come up with less polluting energy generation - that (to a large extent) means cutting back on energy use.
Why pick on the USA: it is a large country that is profligate in it's use of Energy.
In Europe there is a lot of work going on to reduce the consumption of natural resources. The USA only seems to be interested if it doesn't hit today's bottom line. That is short sighted.
You should contact your local landfill and see if they offer an free recycling dates for electronics. I found myself in a similar situation as yours previously and then I found a program at the landfill.
Electronics are accepted for recycling three days a month from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The collection is held at the Hazardous Waste Facility located at the Broome County Landfill. There is no fee for residential users. Visit www.gobroomecounty.com or call (607) 778-2250 for collection dates. Materials Accepted: Monitors, printers, CPU's, televisions, VCR's, stereos, laptops, keyboards, two-way radios and fax machines - From my local landfill website http://www.gobroomecounty.com/dpw/DPWLandfill.php
nothing
I thought the opposite was true until I connected a kWh (kilowatt-hour) meter to some of my older computers (486, Pentium). The meter showed that those slower devices used almost 2x the amount of power as did my newer P3.
The meter I used was a "Kill-A-Watt".
One of the tasks of the Widernet project is to take old PCs, install a static copy of part of the Internet on them, then ship the computers to developing countries in Africa so that they can benefit from the knowledge without having a dedicated connection. For working equipment, this would be an excellent way to keep the computers from being junked.
When I was a kid I used to go skiing in the winter, now I go bike riding. What will change the next 10 years?
Something IS happening, and I blame the polution until someone gives me something else to blame.
Want something else to blame? Our sun's output has been going thru a phase of increasing output over the last few decades. It's going to get very much hotter too. The govt knows this (as well as most solar researchers) but all involved want the knowledge to be kept suppressed because they wish to postpone the widespread panic that will inevitable. Land in Siberia and Canada in the upper latitudes will be skyrocketing in value.