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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."
That's Basel Action Network, not Ban Action Network!
http://www.systemrecycler.com/
Disabled guy takes old equipment, cleans and refurbishs it, repairs it if needed, loads Linux and gives it away to the needy.
Some of it is resold to cover basic costs but it's pretty much a non-profit.
What do you mean, there's no silicon heaven?
~egilhh
Not too long ago, a french ship lined with toxic asbestos was sent to India (finally had to be returned) and had wide coverage in media. The poor are happy to take these things apart and make some quick cash without any knowledge of long-term ill effects. Sometimes, the hunger and immediate needs prevail over any consideration of long-term ill effects.
2 0.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4577198.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/46924
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.
Actually the kyoto protocol would allow rich carbon producing nations to sell their carbon output to poorer carbon negative nations. In fact it has the potential to do exactly what you say it will stop. Just more of the same non-systematic thinking that has got us into this mess in the first place.
IIRC, Kyoto is all about the carbon output. With respect to old computers, Kyoto would have only made the situation worse. Since China and India are exempt from Kyoto, even more old gear would be sent there so that the CO2 generated from recyling the metal wouldn't have to be monitored, counted, or paid for as it would (in theory) in the West.
Not that it really matters, IMHO, it's only a matter of time before Kyoto is officially declared dead. Here in Canada we're hopelessly behind our goal, the only way to meet our target would be to buy a billion dollars of CO2 credits from Russia -- which would have exactly zero impact on CO2 emmissions because Russia's CO2 credit surplus is due to a timing fluke relating to their collapsing economy in the post-Cold War period.
With China, India, and most other developing countries exempt from Kyoto, (and to a lesser extent, the USA opting out) there's very little incentive for those who have signed on to actually do anything. Plus, the costs of meeting the targets through technology (e.g. hybrids, or new power plants, or home upgrades) are enormous.
Yes, you send it to the manufactuer. The manufacturer then sends it to a 3rd world country where it isn't really recycled at all, it just sits there and pollutes the enviroment.
That's pretty much the point of the article, and you missed it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Of course, your oldest computer probably consumes a lot of power for the meager computing power or storage space it provides. This hurts the planet in an entirely different way.
Help I'm a rock.
> sees as a persistent failure by the U.S. federal government to stop the > dumping of millions of used computers, TVs, cellphones and other
> electronics in the world's developing regions, including those in China
I don't see it as dumping if the Chinese are smuggling the stuff in..
I agree that it sucks to live in a third world country, and it sucks to live in a polluted environment. But what will these people do for food if they can't recycle? Will they starve?
It's easy for rich fat Americans and Europeans to be critical of situations that put people and the environment at risk.. But we mostly all have food to eat every day, and homes, and money. I'm reluctant to pass judgement on other people I don't know or understand. If was starving I would work a dangerous job to buy food.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Problem is two fold.
1 - too many people believe that P-III 500 they paid $1500.00 for in 1998 is still worth $1000.00 and will not sell it for less so it will sit in a closet for 3 more years and then silently get thrown in the trash.
2 - Way too many people believe that you have to have a Pentium4 or better and 2GHZ or faster to do anything. I can edit a full length feature film, do Advanced CG graphics at broadcast quality and everything else productive that is done today on much older hardware. Hell we have a old intergraph Graphics Workstation here with dual P-II 350's in it with a old copy of Lightwave that can do amazing things (and has! the M&M animated characters on TV were done on that same hardware and software revision)
and that is with windows, install a properly chosen and configured linux on it and it can be faster "feeling" than a XP machine on modern hardware.
Way too much get's tossed based on a belief that it is un-useable. I fished out of the trash here at work a pair of Dell poweredge servers that had only P-III processors in them. They scream as SQL and File servers at home, and a smaller company would kill for that kind of resources that a larger company happily tosses in a dumpster.
Obsolete = useful in different ways. I have old obsolete 386 pc104 formfactor computers all over michigan on towers acting as ham radio digipeater data collection nodes running an obsolete linux kernel and had rolled Filesystem to fit on a 4meg flash. that 1.X kernel is supposedly "unsafe" but nobody can hack them unless they want to climb up 200 feet.
these old computers would rock for a robot "brain" for robotics... adda rat-shack VEX kit and go the next step from remote control erector set to real robot.
There is lots of life left in "obsolete" computers and computer parts.
Hell I keep around dead motherboards and cards simply because I never have to buy surface mount resistors and capacitors anymore... Harvest the boards for free parts to feed my electronics hobby!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.