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The Scope of US E-Waste
theodp writes "Every day, Americans toss out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the US garbage stream. A lot of the world's e-waste is exported to Guiyu, China, where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead (a 15" computer monitor can pack up to 7 lbs. of Pb), while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. Guiyu's willingness to deal with lead, mercury and other toxic materials generates $75 million a year for the village, but as a result. Guiyu is slowly poisoning itself with the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. The village experiences elevated rates of miscarriages, and its children suffer from an extremely high rate of lead poisoning. TIME suggests checking out recycling brokers and accredited e-stewards the next time you're ready to toss a gizmo."
China hasn't been accepting E-Waste for at least 18 months. Now it goes mostly to West Africa.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I sort of gagged on the number 350,000 cell phones (130,000) computers a day? But it makes sense. in 2005 a survey found 69% of americans had cell phones. That's about 250 million users. So if mean replacement time is 2 years, that's 342K a day! Computer's last longer aparently to account for the lower discard number.
However the 7 pounds of lead in a 15 pound computer is complete BS. First most CRTs weigh about 30 pounds so this 15 pound number is perverse. If we assume that only referes to the computer itself and not the CRT we can still estimate the amount of lead using numbers from various studies:
According to this report 98% of the lead attributed to computers is in the CRT glass. (interesting the report also notes that 75% of CRTs are stored not recycled). However for a 15 pound computer system, only slightly more than half of that is the CRT. And CRT's are not made of 90% lead.
indeed this pdf article determiened that nearly all the lead in a CRT is not in the heavy panel portion but is in fact in the neck and frit seals.
most of the lead however is bound up. the leachable lead is still considerable however.
The actual amount of lead in a 27 pound CRT (19% screen) is 2.2 or less than 10%. If CRT's have 90% of the lead in a computer system then a computer is about 1% of it's weight in lead. so a 15 pound computer ought ot have about 0.15 pounds of lead not 7 pounds.
the article is BS.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've always said, companies should be responsible for the entire lifecycle of any product they produce, including its safe disposal. The way things are now, they are allowed to just dump that cost onto the public, and everyone has to pay the price of mass-consumption, which is mass-disposal.
If your company's monitor costs $30 to dispose of properly, that cost should be your company's responsibility. Of course, the company will just pass the cost on to the customer, but that's OK, since it's the customer who's wallet is hit, not the general public. Products that are toxic and cause cancer if they seep into the groundwater SHOULD cost people much, much more, to disincentivise companies from making them in the first place. Maybe higher prices for toxic difficult-to-dispose goods would get people to repair things instead of just tossing them into the bin. At least the extra cost would get them to consider that whatever they are buying is expensive to toss into the Earth.
As it is now, people just buy the cheapest product they can find without regard for the damage it does to the environment, because that damage is done to "those other people somewhere". Make that damage hit their wallet, and you'll see change.
Don't forget that the FCC-Mandated digital TV switch will likely result in tens of millions of perfectly good televisions going into the trash heap this year. Legally enforced obsolescence has some side effects.