Today's Lighter TVs Mean Much Less E-Waste

MojoKid writes "We all know that today's flat-screen TVs weigh far less than old-style CRTs, or they wouldn't be able to hang on the wall. New research from the Consumer Electronics Association finds that this translates into a massive savings of electronics waste. The report found that today's flat screen TVs are 82% lighter and 75% smaller than cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs. In other words, 40- to 70-inch flat-panel TVs weigh 34% less than 13- to 36-inch CRT TVs. This reduction in materials has a staggering downstream effect. The report claimed that an old 36-inch CRT TV generated about the same amount of electronics waste as 5,080 cell phones. However, today's 70-inch flat-screen TV generate the equivalent of just 953 cell phones."

Comments

Tit for tat

[MrQuacker]

Sure, you eliminate several kilos of leaded glass, but you replace it with LCD electronics and all the highly toxic compounds associated with that process. Crushed and submerged in water, leaded glass will not leech, but let the waste from LCDs soak in a stream and you'll soon find heavy metals downstream.

So while you have less overall weight of e-waste, the potency of the waste goes up.

Re:Tit for tat

[gilesjuk]

But pixel mapped displays should last longer than scanning tubes. The electron guns, valves and other components in a CRT display degraded over time.

Re:Tit for tat

[rtaylor]

Plasma screens certainly don't last very long before the colour starts going off.

Do LED backed LCDs use a phosphor coating? In which case they won't last more than 2 or 3 years either before becoming dim or losing colour correctness.

Re:Tit for tat

[Seumas]

Not to mention, CRTs last a hell of a long time. My parents still have a CRT in the household that runs just fine after at least twenty-five years. Most LCDs only have a short warranty and there are a lot of parts that will simply fail over a much shorter period of time than a CRT (like the backlight). In the lifespan of that one CRT, I would expect to go through at least three LCDs based on lifespan alone (not counting the greater frequency of replacement due to technology improvements/shifts/etc). So when it comes down to it, you're probably looking at just as much waste for the same period of time.

Re:Tit for tat

[darkmeridian]

CRT televisions also have a few pounds of lead in them, don't they? I wonder how much of that is taken out before it reaches the landfill.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course, in ye olden days CRTs actually would get repaired. I wonder if there'll ever be a day when that becomes a realistic option again.

Re:Tit for tat

[stms]

You Environmentalist will never be happy... Where are these hypothetical streams full of LCDs? When will they exist? If you throw things away it will be taken to a Landfill eventually buried under about 10 feet of dirt and usually have grass planted over it. There are a lot of regulations on what land can be used for landfills.

Re:Tit for tat

[Threni]

You idiots never learn anything. That's right - landfill sites are all situation insided of 30 feet of waterproof material, so any toxins are safely stored forever, with zero chance of it leaking into the water table. That grass they plant over the top of it - it turns toxins and poisons into butterflies and puppies.

Re:Tit for tat

[kilodelta]

Not to mention the LCD TV is mostly glass anyhow, which is kind of fascinating. But they're only going to get thinner as time goes on. To the point where it'll be a sheet 1 mm in thickness. The power supply will be the biggest piece of the unit.

Re:Tit for tat

[Opportunist]

This would be the first device built in the last decade that lasts longer than ones built 30 years ago.

Face it, we're in a world of throwaway electronics. The ancient ones here might remember how our parents sent the TV for repairs every now and then and how we had the same TV from the moment we start noticing that there is a TV 'til about puberty or beyond. Today, you'll be hard pressed to find any kind of electronics that survive 5 years or more.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

China and Southeast Asia, mostly. Because no one ever breaks the law.

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

you must be young ;)

tv's that were crt based lasted 10 and more years. show me someone who still uses an lcd after even 5. all my lcd's show more ghosting and wear over 5 yrs than my old tv's used to.

tv's also didn't have stuck pixels and refresh problems. tv's pretty much 'just plain worked' for decades and decades.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

All of it, if you dispose of it responsibly. Same for the mercury in your LCD TVs.

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

thank you. its almost exactly what I just typed, a minute ago.

yes, we grew up with our 25" 'console tv' that was in the living room and it was there for much of my childhood (70's and 80's). we had another tv in the family room and that was a 10year or longer lasting set, probably closer to 15.

replace some tubes, shoot some tuner cleaner and rotate the mechanical set of coils and contacts and you're good. maybe throw that tuner clear stuff in the analog pots, too.

but that was when things were designed to be fixable! and fixable by regular people, too.

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

it will never be cost effective, but some people are trying it. I'm in the early process of starting a new DIY audio company that will emphasize 'design for serviceability'. ie, using thru-hole common parts, open source code and schematic, no wacky connectors from hell, stuff like that. it won't be price competitive with, say, sony or panasonic, but it will also be built to 'run for 5 or more years' standard. I expect to get a good 10 years from the current prototype I'm building. it IS possible, but it will never be mainstream or super profitable. still, I'm going to try. look for my arduino-based stereo preamp box - if I can ever get the thing to market..

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

That's also because the flat panels keep getting better overall, so people are buying new ones in shorter periods *anyway*, and they cost a lot less as a percentage of income than CRT's did at the same time-in-the-market.

They'll start to last longer as the other improvements start to be less dramatic, and durability becomes a more important attribute for manufacturers to compete on. Right now it's just not worth it: when people's sets burn out in five years, they're not going to go to the same manufacturer their friends have that's still going strong, they're going to whoever has the latest features that they've been missing out on the past two.

Once the feature improvements start to level off, you'll see more purchases where durability factors in. Right now manufacturers need to concentrate on being just durable enough to not price themselves out of the market, while having all the latest features. And hoping that just durable enough is just a little more durable than their competitors, so they'll be the ones with the reputation when the feature race runs out.

Re:Tit for tat

[rsilvergun]

TVs maybe, computer monitors not so much. I've had this Acer for 5 years and it's fine.

Re:Tit for tat

[powerlord]

Don't know, but I've got a pre LED, 32" LCD TV from 2006 that is still good sitting in the living room (watch the backlight go right after I write this :) ).

The color still seems fine, and the only reason I would consider replacing it is for a larger model (prices have dropped enough to make that feasible), while I'd move that unit into another room for auxiliary use.

It replaced a 2001 21" CRT that was still good (but with HD TV around the corner I decided to trade up).

That replaced a 1981-2 19" CRT that finally died (no amount of bench-thumping would bring the picture back).

So, so far, the earliest CRT model lasted ~19-20 yrs. Replaced by a CRT that only lasted ~5-6 (before being discarded as obsolescent not due to failure), and the current LCD is approaching the same 5-6 years and shows no problems so far.

I hope it reaches 19-20, but doubt it will. I bet it dies before the 10 year mark, although the biggest weakness from what I understand is the pre-LED backlight, so I have high hopes the next model lasts longer. :)

Re:Tit for tat

[Moridineas]

I bought a Samsung LNT4069 tv about 3-4 years ago. Within 2 years of buying it, it completely died...wouldn't turn on. Luckily the problem was busted caps and after a trip to *3* different radio shacks (er, "The Shacks") to find the proper capacitors I was easily able to replace them and the TV is still working perfectly today.

Most people would not be able to fix that kind of problem. Most people would not take their tv to a repair shop anymore (doesn't make sense most of the time). Most people who have ANY kid of electronics failure are just going to ditch the device. Doesn't matter that the technology should inherently be longer lasting, one shoddy cap is all it takes. Shoddy caps are no rarity today!!

Re:Tit for tat

[gmack]

That was before and they have gotten cheaper in the meantime. My last CRT TV didn't even last 5 years before it had problems and I've had some CRT monitors die after 1 year.

Re:Tit for tat

[wwbbs]

Indium is a major component in the screens (were running out of it too! ) It's produced by letting nickel react with air and water and the sludge that results is the good stuff. Indium is chemically similar to gallium and thallium, both of which you do not want in your body. so MrQuacker your on the right track. There is a reason there is are very few North American E-Waste processors. The good stuff is is hard to get at without generating smelters penalties for the bad stuff.

Re:Tit for tat

[MrQuacker]

But the lead is inside the crystal matrix of the glass. Its locked in there and short of refining it in a furnace its not coming out.

Re:Tit for tat

[MrQuacker]

Its cheaper to ship it overseas to China than to properly dispose of it in a legal landfill.

Re:Tit for tat

[wwbbs]

CRT Televisions are processed at very few places in North America (last time I researched it Noranda Mines was doing it in Quebec Canada. CRT Displays contain high amounts of Beryllium by weight. You must be careful with beryllium-containing dusts; inhalation while surely cause you severe illness. Beryllium is corrosive to tissue, and can cause a chronic life-threatening allergic disease called berylliosis in some people. As it is not synthesized in stars, beryllium is a relatively rare element in both the Earth and the universe. The element is not known to be necessary or useful for either plant or animal life.

Re:Tit for tat

[stms]

I would like to personally thank you for further proving my point that Environmentalist will never be happy. Yes there is a chance toxins can leak into the water table which is why...

There are a lot of regulations on what land can be used for landfills.

Its either that or you use twice as much energy to reprocess waste into raw material then re-manufacture it (a process called recycling).

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a few hundred LCDs that are old than 5 years at the place I work. Care to cite a source for your claim?

Re:Tit for tat

[pz]

Yes, it's an unfortunately naive question, but the persnickety answer is that the white LEDs that form the backlight internally have phosphors to generate broad-spectrum light.

Re:Tit for tat

[Seumas]

I guess it depends on the type of LCD. On a pure flat LCD panel display, I would say that there are far fewer things that you could or would get repaired, when they fail. However, on a rear projection LCD (like my 60" Sony SXRD that is sitting upstairs), there are plenty of thing that you would have serviced and for a $4,000 display, you most certainly *would*.

On the other hand, I'm sitting in front of a 30" Apple LCD that was $1,700 last time I bought one and $3,000 the *first* time I bought one. Just a big flat display panel. If something were to go seriously wrong with it, I have no idea what the resolution would be. I guess at best, return it under warranty and they throw it out and give you a new one rather than fix a "part" . . . ?

Re:Tit for tat

[maxume]

My 14 year old CRT tv is fine. My 3 year old LCD monitor has some pixels that take a while to wake up and is nearly garbage.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything else *but* the tube glass itself will leach heavy metals just fine, so it isn't much of a consolation.

Re:Tit for tat

[kpoole55]

Now there's my kind of hardware hacker. I've brought motherboards and power supplies back from the dead with repairs like that. Yes, it's a shame that newer electronic devices and even their components are built to such poor standards.

Re:Tit for tat

[rolfwind]

Most LCDs only have a short warranty and there are a lot of parts that will simply fail over a much shorter period of time than a CRT (like the backlight).

They're mostly selling LED backlit systems now for both TVs and Computers (and phones and notebooks and tablets, etc). The two monitors that are part of my desktop of LED and over a year old (and were cheap already).

I'd say the weight savings in the summary is understated going forward. My monitors are much lighter than the old flat ones, let alone CRT.

Re:Tit for tat

[tbird81]

(This is Slashdot I'm on right now isn't it?)

Yep. You can tell by your sarcastic dickhead answer!

Re:Tit for tat

[simcop2387]

I'm sure some do from what I understand about them (in some the LED produces UV and the phosphor turns it to the visible spectrum) but it's a far cry from hitting the phosphor with an electron beam.  It should still be far more stable and last far longer (in theory!).  If a problem does show up i strongly suspect it won't be from degrading phospors.

Re:Tit for tat

[camperdave]

So they are a UV LED with built in phosphors? I kind of always thought that they simply combined red, green, and blue LEDs in a single package.

Re:Tit for tat

[retroworks]

It's the cheaper boards and components that fail, not the CRT tubes themselves. As they go down-market, they are no longer made with "solid state" boards.

Re:Tit for tat

[twidarkling]

but that was when things were designed to be fixable! and fixable by regular people, too.

And that's the problem, isn't it? It's not that we're in a throw-away society, it's that companies realized that if they designed products to fail on a shorter timeline, and could incrementally improve products in small enough amounts to always be able to take advantages in lowering production costs on older models with slight alterations, they could make a lot more money. Except if you kept fixing it. That was the monkey wrench in the cake. They can't make you buy a new one if it's a simple fix to repair the old one, so they make everything as hard-wired together as possible, ensuring maximum cost to repair any defects, and suddenly it's roughly the same cost to fix as buy new, only with a lot less hassle. After all, you get the new one right now, and fixing the old one can take a week. The new one has more features, and should last about as long as the old one. The old one could have a different part fail the week after you get it back. You'd have to be pretty dedicated to keep the old unit instead of trashing it for a new one.

Re:Tit for tat

[Osgeld]

heh its the back light that gets you every time

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

There are a lot more attributes than longevity and maintainability.

There's quality. You're comparing the 525 interlaced lines of SDTV with the 1080 progressive scan lines of an HDTV. You can claim "it's just a TV, it worked fine for all those years", but in reality, the image was substantially worse than HDTV. And with a 16:9 aspect ratio, you see the original movie without the funky pan-and-scan reediting needed to shift perspective to the most important on-screen action.

Price is important: your $400 25" TV set from 1970 cost the equivalent of $2,300 in 2011 dollars. You can get a 26" LCD today for about $200. Even if you replaced one every two years, the LCD is still cheaper.

For efficiency, the tubes powering your hundred pound 25" CRT TV probably drew 300-400 watts while on. Many TVs of the 1970s had "instant on", meaning the filaments of the tubes were kept hot while the TV was "off", drawing perhaps sixty watts of standby current. That feature also led to premature burnout of filaments, requiring more frequent tube replacement. Today's 26" LCD weighs less than 20 pounds, and draws 26 watts while on.

As far as availability goes, well, in 1970 your choice was CRT or nothing. CRTs obviously win in that comparison.

Safety wise, of that hundred pounds of 25" TV set, about 40 pounds of it was lead. The circuit boards were soldered with lead. The entire inside of the back half of the tube, everything but the front screen, was either lined with lead or made with leaded glass in order to catch the electrons after they had excited the phosphors on the front. The phosphors themselves were often made with cadmium. The picture tubes leaked small amounts of X-Ray radiation to its viewers. And when damaged, the picture tubes could implode, causing a glass shrapnel hazard, not to mention the huge static charge the flyback transformers generated inside the tubes.

Environmentally, it wasn't until this century that the EPA required they be kept from landfills, meaning the older landfills and junkyards (built before modern containment landfills were invented) will remain filled with every TV disposed of from the 1940s through the 1990s. Once broken, the lead-lined CRTs will readily leach lead into the environment. The leaded glass may leach much more slowly, but it still does leach over time. Older LCD TVs have cold cathode fluorescent tubes containing a bit of mercury vapor, while newer ones are using LEDs for illumination. A RoHS compliant LCD TV is not going to risk damaging the environment nearly as much as a CRT.

Even if it seems like they were "built to last", they delivered a much lower-quality product wrapped in a dangerous and highly toxic shell, at ten times the price.

Longevity may be a desirable attribute, but it's certainly not the only important attribute.

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

But the lead is inside the crystal matrix of the glass. Its locked in there and short of refining it in a furnace its not coming out.

Not always. Only the newer CRTs were made with leaded glass. Lots of the older CRTs were made with a plain glass envelope with a lead coating on the inside. Once that tube is broken, the raw lead is directly exposed to the environment.

Re:Tit for tat

[pz]

Yep. The problem with using separate R, G, and B colored LEDs is that they age differentially and the color balance shifts too much.

You can get triple LED packages with R, G, and B elements, but those aren't used (any more) for producing white light as you would want for backlighting an LCD.

Re:Tit for tat

[evilviper]

all my lcd's show more ghosting and wear over 5 yrs than my old tv's used to.

Ghosting on an LCD is a TEMPORARY issue, which is trivially easy to completely reverse. The ghosting on your CRTs is permanent and irreversible.

As for "wear", I have no idea what you're talking about. If you mean physical, then yes, plastic can be scratched more easily than glass, but that's a problem that can be fixed, too.

tv's also didn't have stuck pixels and refresh problems.

Actually, TVs did get dead pixels. The phosphor may flake, the screen may shift, the gun may lose alignment. I've seen some TVs with bad (internal) screen damage, that people just keep using.
On an LCD, stuck and dead pixels can often be worked-around with some simple software to exercise the screens. And if it doesn't fix it, well, that's one pixel in 2 million, instead of one in 300 thousand.

tv's pretty much 'just plain worked' for decades and decades.

TV's didn't "just plain work". TVs were EXPENSIVE, so people put up with the problems a hell of a lot longer, did all kinds of half-assed fixes to keep it going a bit longer (eg., glue a screwdriver permanently in the hole to keep the vhold adjustment in proper contact) or perhaps got professional repair, back when the economics of repairing TVs made sense. Or how about designed-in quick-fixes, like the ability to easily turn up the power on the flyback transformer, so the TV will keep looking tolerable for a couple more years as it starts fading and getting terribly blurry...

show me someone who still uses an lcd after even 5.

LCDs aren't century-old technologies like CRTs, so:

A) There just isn't such a long history of widespread LCD use, as there is for CRTs. You can't look back at the LCD TV your parents owned as you were growing up... Naturally, there will be far less long-term owners, because there are simply far, far less owners, period.
B) The technology is improving rapidly, so people WANT to buy new ones.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Apple does board-level repairs. As an Apple tech, I get refurbed boards all the time - anything that's expensive goes back to Apple, they refurb it.

Your 30" will have parts available until at least 5 years after it's discontinued. It's a depot repair, though - it has to be shipped back to Apple.

Re:Tit for tat

[ajlitt]

Not to mention all the pre-RoHS leaded solder gracing the big fat solder points on those flyback bearing PCBs. I don't think many CRTs were manufactured with "unleaded" solder if any at all.

Re:Tit for tat

[dbIII]

Crushed and submerged in water, leaded glass will not leech

Now where did you get that one? If you are going to throw absolutes around you should never pretend that very slow is equal to zero. It's a glass and not a stable structure, plus lead diffuses fairly quickly.
I think the article has things backwards anyway. The true benefit is using less stuff to start with (for instance there is a lot of copper in those CRTs). Throwing less away comes from that.
Now as for the increased danger from materials such as arsenic in electronics - it appears that the poster above does not have a clue that such things are used as doping agents on the surface of bits of silicon in features less than a micron across. Would such materials add up to a gram in an LCD? Meanwhile the solder in the old appliances has around 40% lead in every joint.

Re:Tit for tat

[Opportunist]

Given the way technology "progresses" (or, rather, regresses) I'd say that longevity becomes a more and more interesting asset in an appliance. Why? Because newer does not necessarily mean better. More and more, it means "with less features and more lockdown".

What's perverted in today's technology is that the flaws are actually desirable for the customer. Because they allow jailbreaking and unlocking, because they allow "leaking" the content to a recording device and media shifting, something the devices should disallow. What's even more backwards is that a device that has flaws will sell better than a "perfect" one. Because it allows the user what he wants. It's in the interest of device makers to include flaws in their machines that allow the leaks mentioned. Think about it: If device A has the flaw and device B does not, which one do you buy?

It's a given that later versions of the same device will have this flaw fixed. Without a chance to undo that fix. Can you imagine how people have a lot of interest in retaining their old device that allows them more than a new device with those options disabled?

Re:Tit for tat

[russotto]

Not to mention, CRTs last a hell of a long time. My parents still have a CRT in the household that runs just fine after at least twenty-five years.

It runs just fine, but it's dim as hell with poor contrast, right?

Re:Tit for tat

[zippthorne]

Did they also mention that a 21" TV (which was mostly bezel...) in the 50s cost closer to two month's salary? Compare that to the two days salary for a 21" viewable screen you'd pay today...

Re:Tit for tat

[adolf]

CCFL backlight tubes (like your set has) are replaceable. It's not generally a very fun process as it takes some time to do, but it is do-able.

We've replaced a few in the shop, mostly on laptops, but the concept is exactly the same as size scales up.

The most common failure I see on LCDs these days, is electrolytic capacitors. I fixed dodgy a 19" Viewsonic LCD a month or so ago at home by replacing a visibly swollen cap with a $2 Nichicon from Radio Shack. (Yep, I got ripped off on the part, but it's so cheap that it really doesn't matter, was cash-and-carry, and the new part is better enough than the old one that it's unlikely to fail that way again.)

The hardest part, in both cases, is just the basic disassembly and reassembly. And these things are generally far easier to take apart than, say, an iPod...

Whether it's worth it or not to fix (or have fixed) your LCD when it fails is up to you. But back to the topic of TFA: If/when you decide that it's had enough, do the landfill a favor and at least try to give it away on Craigslist or something first.

I mean: If it dies tomorrow, I (for one) would love to try to rescue it for a bedroom TV, or a wall-mounted PC display, or something cheap to occasionally hang up by the pool. And even though I suck at component-level troubleshooting, I'd have a crack at fixing it.

Re:Tit for tat

[adolf]

Good luck. Please let us know when you've got something.

But stereo? Come on, man... There's a whole world of perfectly awesome stereo preamps out there right now, for cheap.

For instance: I've got a Yamaha C-2 which has got to be 30 years old which is all-discrete, has never been modified or repaired (other than cleaning and lubricating the switches), and it's a joy to listen to. It is built about as solidly and carefully as anything ever was. It was free. It lacks a remote, and it's not programmable in any fashion, but meh. :)

What I want is a surround preamp which doesn't cost multi-$k, or have a bunch of amplifier circuitry that I don't want to be using anyway. If you can build something with even the paltry featureset of a $300 Sherwood receiver, but with good analog electronics and without built-in amplifiers, that'd be awesome. (And if you could afford to sell it for $5-600, people might even line up for it.)

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

60 watts of current?

Re:Tit for tat

[antdude]

Yep, my old 20" Sharp CRT TV is still kicking arse from 1996. The only thing broken is its power button on it. Its old remote control still works. I am curious how much longer this baby has left. I will replace/upgrade my TV when it dies or starts having problems. I also still have my VCR from dotcom days too.

Re:Tit for tat

[antdude]

If it is under warranty, then have that fixed (send a repair guy to fix it for free).

As for shoddy caps, have their been any improvements on this? I am getting sick of these cap problems! :(

Re:Tit for tat

[Tiger_Storms]

I agree with the bad caps, they are everywhere my Westinghouse monitor blew almost all 4 of it's caps and sadly none of the shacks out here sold the right kind of caps. Thankfully there's lots of people out there who are trying to make a bit of money off of selling kits because when you try to buy them direct from the people who make them they normally ask the orders be 1,000 units or more. We shouldn't be considered about e-waste they should just look in to alliterative means of making the devices bio degradable over time. I know that there's lots of different kinds of plastics today made from corn. We shouldn't be looking at the now we should be more worried about what's going to happen to it in 10 years in a land fill. Has anyone ever thought that maybe the reason the ocean's are getting larger is because we're putting more shit in them, rather than the ice caps melting?

Re:Tit for tat

[Narmi]

Do you know what solid state means? It generally means that the circuit uses transistors instead of vacuum tubes. I'm pretty sure all TVs use transistors today.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to see what electronics looked like when it was engineered with an actual lifespan in mind? The Tektronix 547 oscilloscope. Or any 500 series scope from the 1960s-era. The stuff was built with discrete components, and while it may look ancient, even naive, by today's standards, it's still a 50MHz mainframe that accepts a wide variety of plugins for different tasks. With the right plugins you can have a (crude) spectrum analyzer that can go to 10GHz, or a 3.9GHz RF sampling system. It's quite nice, and mostly repairable. With the recent flood of Russian surplus tunnel diodes, you can probably keep them going for a century. I'm already on 50 years with the one I have. A scope is a scope, 50MHz is still good enough for many things.

Of course, as our energy situation worsens, we might no longer be able to supply a steady 600W to look at waveforms, but then, we won't have the energy to cheaply manufacture massively powerful semiconductors anymore either. So I'll hang on to this monster. Maybe in 50 more years, it'll be a relic of a cheap-energy society but still usable.

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

Product lockdown is a very specialized argument that sort-of applies to a very few specific pieces of old gear, such as phones that trade some functions in exchange for funneling all your money through Apple. But it has little to do with television sets or other products.

If you're going to work so hard to find a specific example where longevity is somehow "good" because it trades some fairly insignificant features for some other fairly insignificant features; you should know it's a lot easier to find many, many counter examples where product longevity seriously increases your risk of injury or death.

Any car built in the 1970s is far less safe than its modern counterparts, thanks to safety improvements made over time. If you are still driving a 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass (on the off chance it didn't rust through by 1980), a head-on collision is much more likely to ram a steering wheel column through your chest than a modern car. Or it's going to crush you inside the passenger compartment, instead of absorbing the energy in computer-designed crumple zones. Or it's going to smash you hard against the dashboard, instead of against a collapsing airbag cushion triggered by a computer chip. Even if that car had amazing longevity of the mechanical components, its safety over time never improved. Cars built in the 80s and 90s were much improved, as their crash survivability was improved. Cars built in the previous decade were better, because they had safety features that helped maintain control in an accident. Cars built in the current decade are even better still, with active systems to help the driver avoid the accidents in the first place.

If you bought a prescription for Vioxx in 2002, do you think it would be a good thing to have stocked up on a lifetime supply of pills? What about buying a drum of long-lasting DDT? Or painting your rooms with gallons of lead paint, because it's so much more durable than latex? Insulating your house with asbestos, the miracle fiber that didn't degrade or rot? At what point did your durable 1970s TV stop emitting X-Ray radiation at its viewers? Does your 1970s vacuum cleaner with its cloth bag filter out harmful particulates, or just recirculate them into your lungs?

Any building erected a decade after another building has had its safety improved by improvements to codes and in building materials and construction practices. The newer the building, the more its occupants are protected against fires, flood, mold, radon, toxins, and/or collapse.

All those old products were shown to cause much more physical harm than their modern counterparts. Longevity simply means you are exposed to more risks over their lifetimes instead of replacing them with safer alternatives.

Closer to your contrived cell phone example, a cell phone from 1991 emitted 600mW of RF energy right next to your skull. Depending on what studies you read, there may or may not be a correlation to cell phone usage and brain cancer. Modern phones are more limited in the amount of energy they're permitted to radiate. The ability to use earbuds and headphones to move the radiation even further away from your brain is now a common option that was not even present on your 1997 Nokia, yet you are claiming that phones like it are somehow better than an iPhone because they're older and lasted longer.

The bottom line is still very simple: longevity does not automatically make a product better. Longevity is not the only attribute you should consider if you're trying to determine quality.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not be old enough to remember tvs in the early 60's to the early 70's. They were NOT AT ALL reliable. Yes, sometimes you could swap out a tube and get them to work, but many times you would need to wait a while for the tube to be ordered. Also tuner cleaner would work for a few times, but then you started to need a new tuner. The tuner would cost most of the cost of a new TV. Also remember picture tube brighteners. Maybe it is because I lived in the house with a smoker, but once the tuner started to go, you needed to start looking for a new TV.

When the solid state TVs came out, that is when they started to put reliable parts in them. They were forced to put mechanical tuners in them that would last more than three years. The old tube TVs just did not last more than about 7 years tops in a house with kids in it. 5 was more likely. Kids would come to school and complain about missing shows because the TV was broken all the time.

I am old enough to remember when a remote control was implemented with tuning forks and you could sometimes change the channel by jiggling some keys.

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

as parent says, look for bulged or leaking caps (badcaps.net has some examples of what it look like).

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

I just extended the life of a few more 10/100/1g switches by replacing all the electro's, just all of them, whether they are visibly bulged or not. placed an order for 'low ESR' caps from digikey, mouser or similar place, unsolder the older, install new and you now can *count* on that gear working 7x24 for the next 5-10 yrs. no kidding. brand name known good caps will do that. the rest of the design is usually fine, its the caps (with the 'vent seals' on top, those are what you look for) are where most of the modern problems are.

I have gear from 20 and even 50 yrs ago that still works (even with very old electrolytics). but new ones, sheesh, they die in a year. if you put good ones in, that gear will now last, essentially, forever.

you can take a $20 linksys crap switch, upgrade its caps and now its a $1k high reliability switch. you can't *buy* quality like that, even in an enterprise cisco switch. you can only get it if you do your own DIY fixes. its a shame but no vendor spends the money on good caps anymore. all gear is designed to die ;( the only way to fight it is to bulk replace parts - beforehand - before you install it. then you can know its 7x24able, so to speak.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotes? I lost three CRTs in the same lifespan as one of my LCDs. One started to show junk on-screen, one simply stopped, one filled the entire house with blue smoke.

Re:Tit for tat

[TheGratefulNet]

yes, stereo. for a hint, net.grep('lcduino'). its the front-end for a whole series of audio boxes. its the controller side, but there is some really clean analog circuits behind it that we are currently using (one approach is a relay step-attenuator with discrete transistor buffer/follower; another is the burr-brown PGA23xx attenuator chip that is SPI controlled).

you can audibly exceed even the best AVRs with a setup like this. especially on headphone listening (this will include a dedicated phones amp built-in).

all open source hardware, firmware (src+build kit), remote serial/usb interface (web, etc) and designed from the start to be fixable and built with brand name non-import parts. this is just unheard of, today, of course. but, we are going to give it a short manufacturing run and see if there's a market for such a thing. an 'open source stereo system' might actually be fun for quite a few people.

Re:Tit for tat

[godel_56]

Did they also mention that a 21" TV (which was mostly bezel...) in the 50s cost closer to two month's salary? Compare that to the two days salary for a 21" viewable screen you'd pay today...

Because of the 16:9 form factor of modern widescreen TVs and the fact that a TV's size is measured on the diagonal, a modern 21" TV is only the same height as a 17.1" old-style 4:3 ratio CRT TV.

Re:Tit for tat

[Sulphur]

as parent says, look for bulged or leaking caps (badcaps.net has some examples of what it look like).

Had a scanner radio with memory loss.

The five volt supply was reading 3 volts.

I put five volts on and a tantalum cap complained.
I cut one lead, and problem was gone.

I did not even replace the cap.

That was the cap that decided that it wanted to be a Zener when it grew up.

Re:Tit for tat

[1u3hr]

But pixel mapped displays should last longer than scanning tubes. The electron guns, valves and other components in a CRT display degraded over time.

My CRT TV is well over 10 years old. 20 years is not uncommon for CRT TVs to be still working reliably. I only upgraded my 1999 17" Studio Display CRT monitor last year when it finally gave out. (And the problem could probably have been fixed with a bit of soldering, but cost more a new LCD monitor.)

CRT is a very mature technology. It's pretty reliable. Only the high humidity here kills a lot of electronics causing condensation and shorts and mould, and bugs.....

Re:Tit for tat

[Khyber]

LCD doesn't use phosphors. The LED backlighting almost certainly does, but it's based on quantum-dot phoshor tech which is much more reliable in maintaining color temps.

Re:Tit for tat

[Khyber]

Most large LCD screens don't use a CCFL, they use a T4 or T5 HO lamp. That's what's in my 32" Samsung LCD, I've had to replace the tube a couple of times and next time I'm ripping out the inverter, replacing it with a DC power supply and tossing a pair of LED tubes in instead.

Re:Tit for tat

[Khyber]

The phosphors don't degrade because they're more reliable quantum-dot phosphors instead of the array of tri-phos used in CFL/LL/TX fluorescents.

The electron beam is actually LESS damaging, but of course this depends on whether or not there is a static image on screen.

Re:Tit for tat

[Khyber]

Actually (I work in this industry) RGB LEDs are quite often used for displays and white light, since they are easily controlled to create a desired color temp. The color gamut on an LED display can reach near-CRT levels due to advanced quantum-dot phosphor tech producing a fairly-even distribution of light across all wavelengths (The spectral lines on good LEDs today are almost indistinguishable from a typical blackbody radiator in a spectroscope picture.)

Re:Tit for tat

[Khyber]

"And with a 16:9 aspect ratio, you see the original movie without the funky pan-and-scan reediting needed to shift perspective to the most important on-screen action."

Actually, you see less still. Film is done typically in 1.85:1 or 2.39:1, which is wider than a 16:9.

Re:Tit for tat

[boombox]

Exactly, but a lot of older measurement equipment is repairable. I cant imagine a person with very little electronics engineering knowledge repairing current electronics. SMT components everywhere and no tools available at a hobby shop to service them (hot air soldering station, precision tweezers). Having schematics at the inside would like in the old television sets would be a great help (plus board layouts), but this is never going to happen.

But most of the modern equipment that fails, it is usually the power supply that breaks. Either bad capacitors with too high ESR or fried switching transistors.

You use a 547? How do you deal with the HV transformer rot that happens to a lot of post 1960 500 series oscilloscope? I have the single timebase variant of the 547, the 544 that I use for measurements that are too dangerous for my digital or analog scope, but I cant use it longer then two hours before the HV stops working and the screen goes.

Surplus russian tunnel diodes? Where do you get these?

Re:Tit for tat

[ShakaUVM]

A drum of DDT, assuming it is still potent, would be worth more now than in the 70s due to the ban. Contrary to what most people think, DDT doesn't harm humans. It was banned due to its effects on birds.

Likewise, while asbestos caused lung disease if you get exposed to it, it actually is very effective at preventing fires.

My old landlord would love to find a box of Vioxx lying around, since only Vioxx and morphine worked for his arthritis of the spine, and morphine makes him sleep 2/3rds of the day.

His apartment also had asbestos, and we were probably exposed to it from the giant hole in the drywall and acoustic tiling caused by the property manager's egregious lack of maintainance, so it's not like I'm arguing the past was a paradise, but it's not always so cut and dried.

Re:Tit for tat

[maxwell demon]

Did they also mention that a 21" TV (which was mostly bezel...) in the 50s cost closer to two month's salary? Compare that to the two days salary for a 21" viewable screen you'd pay today...

Because of the 16:9 form factor of modern widescreen TVs and the fact that a TV's size is measured on the diagonal, a modern 21" TV is only the same height as a 17.1" old-style 4:3 ratio CRT TV.

Yeah, as a rule of thumb, if you want a 16:9 with the same height as a 4:3, add 20% to the diagonal.

But of course that doesn't make for a factor of 30 (two months/two days).

Re:Tit for tat

[TeknoHog]

I've brought motherboards and power supplies back from the dead with repairs like that.

I wonder if it's just a coincidence, but my repairs have also been mainly motherboards and power supplies. As opposed to displays, for example my 2004 LCD monitor is doing great, and I only bought it to replace a smaller CRT that was alive and well.

My particular gripe is with power bricks; replacing caps is the easy part, after you've pried open the glue seams, and then you have to glue it back together. I wouldn't bother with any random power bricks, but the ones around 100 W that you use with PicoPSU and the like are usually worth it.

It's funny that we are supposed to reduce hazardous waste, by making electronics increasingly single-use and disposable. As other people have pointed out, a CRT full of lead is not leaching into the environment while it's being used. Besides, leaded solder is easier for repairs.

Re:Tit for tat

[Vegemeister]

The 'problem' is not that repair has gotten more expensive. It's that replacement has gotten far cheaper. Believe it or not, trouble-shooting electronics has always been labor intensive.

Re:Tit for tat

[bemymonkey]

You'd be surprised at the difference compared to when your device was new. CCFL backlights don't age nicely, which is why many older laptops have yellowish screens.

Depends a lot on the usage, of course... my backlights all look more or less like new, but I'm not one of those people who runs 'em on 100% brightness all the time (33% right now in a moving car).

Re:Tit for tat

[Evtim]

Its either that or you use twice as much energy to reprocess waste into raw material then re-manufacture it (a process called recycling).

But if you recycle you don't need to extract and purify materials for a new one. Are you sure the energy cost of mining and refining is lower than recycling? I am not...and even if it is comparable better use the waste than mine finite resources...

People forget the three "R" and most importantly forget the order which indicates their profitability:

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

Sure, recycling is the least effective but still better than manufacturing anew. And all this "planned obsolesce" we discus here works exactly against the most potent "R" - reduce!!

To add my anecdotal experience.

TV "Ruby" made in USSR (29 inch, color), weights 65 kilograms, worked for 30 years with minimal maintenance.
TV Orion 4:3 CRT 25 inch, bought early 90-ties, still operational.
16:9 CRT Samsung 31 inch, bought 2003, dies 2008
Panasonic plasma 42 inch, bought 2009 - still working

Kitchen appliances (oven, cooking plates, refrigerator, washing machine) - bought by my parents 6 years before I was born from USSR and Yugoslavia. All are still operational; I am pushing 40 years old!

Kitchen appliances bought in the west around 2002 - washing machine gone, oven gone, refrigerator still operational

PC's - power supplies and motherboards are exchanged with a rate 2:1 compare to other components. MP3 players - pretty tragic - 3 models for 8 years gone. GSM's - goddamn awful (many could barely run for the duration of the subscription - 2 years). Nokia, Simens, Sony Erickson (2 types) and HTC. The one model that worked and still works like a charm is the W810 Sony Erickson Walkman. And even there they planned the obsolesce with the incredibly flimsy (and proprietary) input connector for charging and communication with PC. It is quite difficult to charge it these days.

  What a shame, what a criminal waste!!

Re:Tit for tat

[DrXym]

This would be the first device built in the last decade that lasts longer than ones built 30 years ago.

Rose tinted glasses. I doubt there is anyone above a certain age who hasn't had a CRT TV or monitor go on the blink in one way or another, either losing sync, becoming magnetized, burned in, or otherwise becoming kaput. I can certainly recall whacking a few TVs which went on the blink.

Perhaps there are examples still going which survived these long years but I don't believe for a second that a 1980's TV was any more reliable than a modern LCD, or that it lasted longer thereafter either. It may be fair to say they were simpler to service which is just as well given how flakey TVs could be, but that doesn't mean it would be cheap to service so the net effect is the same - a broken set which needs to be junked. And even if it did survive, that doesn't mean much as standards evolve. Chances are even if you have a CRT set you need a digital STB to actually watch something on it and the picture quality is inferior too by virtue of downscaling, cropping etc. and being pushed over analogue.

Re:Tit for tat

[IrquiM]

My 42" LCD is over 4 years, and has probably been on for half of those - picture is as good now as it was when I bought it. Only reason to upgrade is that I want LED back-light strips and bigger screen area.

Re:Tit for tat

[IrquiM]

Buy LCDs sold in Europe. Here in Norway we've got 5 years warranty against manufacturing issues, so they'll have to be built to last! Keep away from the nonames.

Re:Tit for tat

[karnal]

I had a dead pixel in the dead center of an NEC 21" monitor back in my early PC support days. Company wouldn't replace it for me because it was still "good" - but it annoyed the crap out of me.

Re:Tit for tat

[fafaforza]

I would guess that something ending up in the trash isn't due to wearing out or being faulty. It's people upgrading to the newest and bestest tech, the higher res, the better refresh, etc.

Sure, you'll have the used sales, but even with that, you'll have many people tossing perfectly good stuff due to not wanting the hassle of reselling.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the tube breaks, which they do. Not to mention all of the Cadmium and phosphorus in the tubes as well.

Re:Tit for tat

[unitron]

I wouldn't count on that Radio Shack cap being a whole lot better or long-lived, in that application, than the one with which you replaced it.

And if one of the original ones went bad, it's probably just a matter of time before another or three do the same.

Typically the caps that go bad in those monitors, TiVo power supplies, and computer motherboards, among other things, are being used in switching power circuits, and need to be Low-ESR, high temperature tolerant versions, i.e., better rated than what you find in the drawer at the "Let me sell you a cell phone" store.

lcdalternatives sells cap kits made up for lots of different model LCD displays at reasonable prices. You go to their site and plug in your make and model. I'm writing this on a monitor someone down the street left out for the trashman thanks to a cap kit from them.

As for these new screens filling the landfills less, that's somewhat offset by their tendency to head there a lot sooner than the older gear.

Re:Tit for tat

[Opportunist]

I didn't say it's the only attribute when considering the value of an item. But longevity means more than just "no need to buy a new one". It can also well mean "more useful".

DDT is actually a pretty potent insecticide, actually more so than many contemporary ones. Yes, it is maybe contributing to the development of cancer, but as usual it's a matter of dosage. The reason why it is no longer available over the counter is the same that antibiotics aren't over the counter medicine (at least where I live): Overuse is potentially very dangerous, and people often subscribe to the notion of "much helps much". DDT is still used to combat insects that transmit various diseases, where it's better to accept the risk of cancer rather than risking the spreading of deadly diseases.

Cars are actually a good example where "new=good" usually fits. As it does with many other devices, no doubt about that. But the old notion of "new = better" is not true anymore by default. More and more the creed is rather "new = better for its maker". Which doesn't necessarily mean that it's better for you, the user. After all, the maker of a product profits more if he can sell you something that breaks early (so you have to buy a new one), that locks you into his addons and consumables (see memory cards and printer cartridges) and that forces you to use the product only in the way the vendor designed (see cellphones).

Re:Tit for tat

[twidarkling]

I would believe it, but at the same time, I can't help but note that there's tons of design decisions in products that serve absolutely no purpose but to make it more difficult to repair. Using special screws, spot-welding cases, inner cases that can't be opened without cutting, and more. I also have to note that replacement part costs haven't fallen at anything close to resembling the rate that total replacement has. Replacing a laptop screen assembly costs in excess of $200 on most models, but they only cost about $400 to purchase new. So really, it's both cost of repair has remained roughly constant while replacement has gotten cheaper, but the cost of repair has been at least partly inflated purposefully.

Re:Tit for tat

[unitron]

lcdalternatives probably has a cap kit already made up for your Westinghouse for $10 to $20.

(my only connection with them is having been a customer)

Re:Tit for tat

[unitron]

60 watts of current?

I'm sure they actually meant 60 watts of voltage. ; - )

(or was it 60 amps of wattage?)

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

You really haven't got the slightest clue about how much power a TV is using... There are no 300 to 400 Watt 25" CRT sets
A 25" TV set draws at most 100 to 150 watts, and standby power in the order of 60 Watts ??? If you really have a bad set it would draw about 10 Watts, the last built CRT sets used less than 1 Watt.
Instant on does not mean the filament is continuously powered, it just means that the tube filament is started up on a higher current.

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is more 'wtf I am buying another damn tv thought I had done that just a couple of years ago'. Yeah people want their crap to last awhile. ESPECIALLY when they drop 2500 on something...

For many people 2500 is a whole months wages. For some it is 2-3.

Also a 25 inch tv from the 70s != one from today. To get the same size tv you need to buy at least a 30. Just use Pythagoras's theorem to figure it out. For example I just recently bought my first LCD/LED tv. I really like the thing. But the 36 inch TV it replaced I would need at least a 45 inch to replace it with. You have just gone from 300-400 bucks to 800-1200 bucks for a tv.

Now yes the newer TVs are better all around environmental wise, however the quality is for crap. I have seen ones in the store where protective plastic is de-laminating off the glass. I often hear about 'the thing stopped working after a year'. I hear about backplanes burning out over the littlest thing. Quality that seems to be missing. With the 'oh its cheaper than it was now so quit your whining you can buy 10 of these for what the old one cost 30 years ago'. I dont care what the old one cost. I care about now.

Also you would be rather surprised at the power consumption of most of the cheaper LCD/Plasma TVs. Many of the ones I looked into used FAR more than my old 36 inch tv. It wasnt until you got up into the 1500+ range that they competed. Now that was last year and prices have come down more. I saw a ~40 inch 6 months ago that used 20w standby and nearly 400 on. It was probably about 300 dollars cheaper than all the ones around it for the same size.

I will also bet cold hard cash that the old 36 inch tv out lasts the one I just bought. It wasnt '1970s' model either. It was a top of the line late 90s one.

The thing is the early TVs had a huge infant mortality rate too, (why there was a good business in fixing them at that time). Radio shack had a good side business selling tubes to replace in them. It wasnt until the 70s, nearly 30 years after their introduction. That quality really started to get into the things. They were built like tanks and lasted as long. We are *just* starting to see the beginnings of quality in the LCD/Plasma arena. As for the past few years it was just 'cool' to have one. A TV like I have now would have cost 15,000 at least 10 years ago. And people who drop that sort of coin on a TV do not care if it craps out they just get another one. Now people are starting to look for other things such as 'it doesnt crap out after a year'. The TV manufactures will start to put quality in for their own sakes or they will have a deluge of junk showing back up on their doorstep.

What is my point of this rant? If I have to throw away 10 tvs for the same amount of time my old tv lasts. Do I really help anything at all? No I just got a huge pain in the ass (in getting new ones and getting rid of the old broke ones) and nearly double the amount of waste. Also 'lasts' is important to people. It should be important to the manufactures too. As if you build a crap product word gets out...

Re:Tit for tat

[mpe]

This would be the first device built in the last decade that lasts longer than ones built 30 years ago.

What proportion of "consumer grade" electronic devices from the early 1980's are still in use now?

Re:Tit for tat

[brunes69]

The reason your parents sent a TV for repairs had a lot less to do with how well they were built, than how much TVs cost (WRT someone's salary). A TV used to be a MAJOR PURCHASE - along the likes of an appliance. When my parents bought a new 27 inch set back in '91, they spent $499. I remember this price because I went to help them pick it up. Nowadays you can get a very decent 42" set for $400. That's a way better set, for 20% LESS money, despite over 20 years of inflation.

TVs are comparatively cheap nowadays - very cheap. Did your parents send a toaster oven out for repair? No, they just bought a new one. A TV costs the same in today's dollars as a toaster oven in 90's dollars.

Re:Tit for tat

[Dr_Barnowl]

Part of that is of course, that automated assembly (or cheap labour) puts the labour cost of construction so low, then the object is imported into a country where the labour to repair it costs a lot more, which is in contrast to the previous era, where the appliance was made in the country that consumed it (and consequently cost a lot more).

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

I grew up with a circa 1970 Magnavox console TV of the kind everyone says was built in the good old days. Peering through the ventilation holes in the masonite back, I could certainly see ALL the tubes glowing when it was "off". In those days, instant on literally meant the filaments were kept hot the entire time it was plugged in. And the cabinet was always very warm, far more than 10 watts would have emitted. Turn it on, and the cabinet itself went from warm to hot.

At this time, the utility companies were still running advertisements for electricity being "penny cheap". Nobody cared how much power they used.

Re:Tit for tat

[powerlord]

As for these new screens filling the landfills less, that's somewhat offset by their tendency to head there a lot sooner than the older gear.

Agreed, but a large part of that (I hope), is that its a semi-new technology (compared to CRTs).

I hope that once LCD manufacturing has matured more, we might get better lifetime estimates out of the sets. Of course, once the market/manufacturing matures, if the bean counters will move in we might also have sets with cheaper parts and more built in obsolescence, so it might not be as good.

(fingers crossed for quality :D)

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

HDTV = 16:9 = 1.777.
SDTV = 4:3 = 1.333.

It's not perfect, but 1.777 is much closer to 1.85 than 1.333. It's not exactly "less still". Or did you mean "you still don't see the whole picture, even with HDTV"? I'd say the 4% missing portion of the image is almost insignificant, compared to the 28% of an SDTV picture. I would agree that useful detail still goes missing when you're talking about 2.35:1, but those films are not as common. In 2009 more than twice as many DVDs were listed as 1.85:1 than in 2.35:1. (According to IMDB for as recent as the wayback machine recorded the page at http://web.archive.org/web/20090624175845/http://www.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs/AspectRatios/ )

But regardless of the technical quibbling (I know, that's why we come to Slashdot), the point is that HDTVs produce a superior quality viewing experience to SDTVs. Long-lasting is only one aspect of a TV. Image quality is another.

Re:Tit for tat

[adolf]

Thanks for all the verbiage.

The cap I bought from the "let me sell you a cell phone store" is low-ESR and has a higher temperature rating than the one it replaced. It also is, accordingly, just a bit larger (but there happened to be plenty of room for it).

I had alluded to that earlier when I declared that it was better, but apparently you felt I was unqualified to make such a statement.

Just because Radio Shack is overpriced does not mean that it is always both overpriced and junk. In particular, I detect nothing at all wrong with their electrolytic capacitors, aside from high prices and limited selection.

If I wanted to pay more for shipping than I did for RS markup and wait a few days to get things put back together, I very likely would have ordered exactly the same Nichicon part from Mouser or Digikey as I bought from Radio Shack.

(What were you going on about, again?)

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see... should I trust the Consumer Electronics Association to inform me about anything having to do with toxic waste in the environment? I think not...

No mention in the fine article of worldwide consumption rates, product longevity, obsolescence or patterns of consumption. No mention of population growth or rate of accumulation for these popular new products. And no mention of cradle to cradle manufacturing legislation, even though its the most reasonable tool we have to alleviate pollution, and it's one of the biggest political bug bears for the "conservative" morons who place these all but worthless fluff pieces into publication.

Worldwide, we are just beginning to come to grips with the need to treat the environment as a priceless asset and not a sink for the toxic byproducts generated by our pathological patterns of consumption.

Who is Julie Bart, anyway? And what qualifications does she possess that make believable spokesperson on environmental issues?

Re:Tit for tat

[oursland]

leaded glass will not leech

That is false. Please don't spread misinformation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass#Safety

Re:Tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

unless, of course you're buying a lighter - zippo all the way.

Re:Tit for tat

[Moridineas]

IIRC, warranty was one year. This was maybe 1.5 years after I bought the TV.

Re:Tit for tat

[plover]

the old notion of "new = better" is not true anymore by default. More and more the creed is rather "new = better for its maker". Which doesn't necessarily mean that it's better for you, the user.

I completely agree with you here. Newer is not a guarantee of better, although I still think it is generally true for the majority of products.

In TFA's context of television sets, that is where I am arguing that modern technologies are indeed far better for the consumers. We can even consider the case of 3D TV, a feature of a subset of newer TVs that is definitely "better for its maker" in terms of revenue, but potentially worse for its consumers in terms of health. If it's decided in the future that 3D causes eyestrain/headaches/pimples/whatever, concerned users can simply tune into the 2D channels. But the overall TV that remains is still a much higher quality device than any CRT ever was, even if the longevity isn't the same (which has yet to be proven, by the way; all people have offered here are anecdotes that the TV in their mothers' basements used to work for 20 years.)

Re:Tit for tat

[unitron]

When something comes from the factory with capacitors that aren't good enough, you can replace them with capacitors which may be better but still not be good enough, hence my failure to perceive your level of expertise.

That, and apparently you've got much better Radio Shacks in your area than any in any of the places where I have lived.

Re:Tit for tat

[adolf]

The first cap lived for about 5 years of being on 24/7, and likely died so "quickly" due to heat (it was at the very top of the PSU board, which had its own little poorly-vented housing inside the display). The replacement is rated at 105C instead of (IIRC) 85C, which is a fairly substantial difference, and Nichicon is not generally known for producing junk. If it lasts 7 years instead of 5, it's a win. (I'll let you know in another half-decade how it's working.)

I don't think my local Radio Shack store is all that special -- it's just just a typical corporate-owned place, of the same type that has been in a lot of malls and similar places for a decade and a half (or whenever it was that they switched almost completely over to being a cell phone vendor, after their brief stint at trying to be a toy store).

I also buy little 1:1 audio transformers from there, quite on purpose, even to the point of ordering them from radioshack.com. They perform very well for what they are, and behave consistently (and always have -- they've never, ever changed). I use them for everything from driving long balanced lines (sometimes tens of miles) to isolating telephone circuitry from audio circuitry. For these applications, I don't care much what it costs, since I'm just reselling them anyway, but even at ~$4 each they sure seem like a good deal. I just wish the pigtails were a little heavier so I could use them with telco-oriented IDC connections instead of crimping or soldering...

I have seen a few rather awesome "Radio Shack" stores, but they've all been Radio Shack dealers -- not a segment of the usual corporate entity.

And I rather like their silver solder, which I've been using for at least 20 years where it seems appropriate. It's pretty close to being eutectic, which usually makes for better joints than non-eutectic solder does when doing hand-held work, and the flux is adequate.

To be sure, a lot of their stuff is crap: Their house brand "tuner cleaner" eats plastic pots and should be removed from the shelves, and their "contact cleaner" doesn't seem to do anything at all to metal contacts. But they've also been selling Deoxit DN5 there for awhile, too, which does work, and I simply can't buy that stuff from brick-and-mortar retail from anywhere but Radio Shack.

A lot of what people complain about simply isn't all that true: A few years ago I discovered that I needed a handful of 600 Ohm resistors in the field. The local Radio Shack had some, packed in small quantities for way too much money, but they also had a large assortment of 500 or 600 pieces of various values for about $9 (with more quantity of more common ones, and fewer of more odd values).

With that $9 resistor kit, I solved the problem that I had that day, and have been able to come up with whatever else I've needed ever since. It has paid for itself several times.

YMMV, but in the corner of Ohio that I travel and work in, Radio Shack is about the best I can do. (I've also been known to buy basic parts from local TV repair places and audio shops, if that's handy (it seldom is), but the price for a few resistors or small caps at such locations is either several dollars (ala Radio Shack) or free (not worth the time for them to deal with the paperwork of a sale)).

Re:Tit for tat

[rsilvergun]

Weird, I run at 100% non stop. Maybe my eyes just got used to it and I'd notice the difference if I bought a new monitor...

So quickly dump any remaining CRTs

[Anonymous Coward]

And buy shiny new flatscreens!

Updated units of measurement

[Clancie]

Updated units of measurement: Inchs Ounces Cell Phones Got it...

Re:Updated units of measurement

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the ubiquitous cell phone. Are we talking about the little non-smart monochrome LCD flip phones or the big screen colour LCD screen smart phones with the three times larger batteries so it might last the day?

Should be comparing masses in standard units like kilograms, pounds or stones. It doesn't matter which because they don't change as appreciably as the cell phone has and does over time and across models.

I think that about the 35th dumb thing I've seen so far today; counting poor driving decisions, spelling mistakes on signs and kids texting while skateboarding through stop signs. Was one of the signs of the end times a general shedding of intelligence or is it the shedding of intelligence that leads to the end times?

Re:Updated units of measurement

[Opportunist]

If purchasing power can be measured in hamburgers, waste can be measured in cellphones.

Re:Updated units of measurement

[Anonymous Coward]

Purchasing power can be measured in hamburgers? Seriously? Where?

Re:Updated units of measurement

[heypete]

The Big Mac Index.

The Wikipedia article on the same subject goes into a bit more detail.

Re:Updated units of measurement

[Ryantology]

A tree fell on my neighbor's car last week, destroying it completely and causing as much as 100 kilodroids of waste material.

cell phone units?

[heptapod]

Are they metric or imperial cell phones?

Re:cell phone units?

[Required Snark]

What is that in terms of Library of Congress units?

Re:cell phone units?

[Ironchew]

Let's throw the whole Library of Congress in a landfill and find out!

Re:cell phone units?

[cervesaebraciator]

For that matter, are they "today's flat-screen" cell phones, or yesterday's cell phone bricks?

how much in....

[Anonymous Coward]

how much is a cell phone in libraries of congress?

Re:how much in....

[Anonymous Coward]

Also how would this translate into cubits?

Ya an yar intel-actual me-sure-meants...

[denzacar]

Whadsa me-sure in food-baal feelds?

Speaking of waste...

[Vecanti]

I hope somebody didn't pay for this research. 20lbs of garbage of is "less" than 50lbs or garbage? Wow.

Not convinced

[petes_PoV]

This summary seems to be a rather misleading collection of confused data.

So far as electronics goes, the main board is pretty much the same. The power supply is less beefy, due to not having to provide an EHT supply, though there is an inverter which to some extent takes its place. The CRT is mostly just glass - lots and lots of glass so that doesn't add much to the electronics waste and may have just as many toxic chemicals in it as the CCFLs and TFT of a flat-screen TV.

So, on balance I doubt that there's much in it on a unit-by-unit basis. One thing that does seem to me is that CRT TVs last longer than LCD ones. Our CRTs were bought in the early 90s and only tossed when they were replaced - still working. However, the lifespan of an LCD TV doesn't appear to be much longer than a few years, driven often by the limited number of hours that the CCFLs run for, or the fragility of the screens. Since they're not economic to repair, an LCD TV becomes waste much sooner than a CRT TV ever did.

Re:Not convinced

[stonedcat]

Curious where do you get your information about the lifespan of these newer sets from..
I've had my LCD tv for nearly 6 years now and it's been on upwards of 12 hours a day for the extent of that time.

Re:Not convinced

[wwbbs]

CRT Displays contain high amounts of Beryllium by weight. Beryllium is not good for you. Not sure about leaching into ground water but it is corrosive and reactive.

Re:Not convinced

[petes_PoV]

where do you get your information about the lifespan of these newer sets from

From direct personal observation. 3 * 20 y/o CRT TVs that went to the recycling centre in perfect working order, 2 LCD TVs that followed in the next 5 years. One that simply stopped working - the standard "2 second turn-off" which was not caused by bulging capacitors, but appeared to be a dead CCFL or two and the other was a victim of video gaming (you know the sort: where players are supposed to pretend to throw controllers at the TV screen - and sometimes accidentally do).

It's not scientifically rigorous but since this is the internet it's more than enough to form an opinion from. Especially when backed up by evidence from friends, family and colleagues who tell similar stories of touch-me-and-I-break fragility in screens that break when moved, banged, tipped over or just when they feel like it.

um, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the waste goes down, but when the average TV has a 1 year warranty and technology advances push for new products every 18 months, the number of TVs being disposed goes way up. (We had our first family TV for over 10 years before it blew out.)

Consider projection systems

[fyngyrz]

Projection systems create even less waste, allow for much larger images, and can generally be refurbished with nothing more complicated than a new bulb.

When my family gathers around for a movie, my 200" diagonal display allows me to include several generations. But the actual display hardware only consumes about 1/3 a cubic foot. The "display" is just wall space, which isn't going anywhere or being used for anything else.

Re:Consider projection systems

[carlzum]

Projection systems are becoming more practical, but I wouldn't replace my family room TV just yet. You have an actual movie theater in your home, and that's really cool... only the ultra-rich could afford something like that until now. But you still need a relatively dark room, and maintenance would be expensive with everyday use.

I'm jealous of your setup. I've seen your photo a few times now and always wish I had the space (and not so lazy) to do the same.

Re:Consider projection systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from needing to replace the bulb every 3000-6000 hours, and cheap projectors still being a bit weak on the light intensity and contrast, I don't see anything stopping you.

Projectors aren't very expensive any more. Not to a screen of a quarter of the size anyway.
I'd just make sure it's a DLP one (true blacks) with full HD, lots of lumen, and cheap replacement bulbs, and you're good.

A 5.1 system with a good subwoofer isn't strictly necessary, but truly enhances the experience, and they can be damn cheap anyway. Most of the time you just have to buy a couple of smaller additonal speakers for your existing hi-fi amp, and you're good.

Then just get some popcorn that you can heat at home, and you've got your home cinema.

If your wall is white, and its structure is finer than the pixels will be, don't bother with a projection screen. Iâ(TM)ve watched on ingrain wallpaper and painted grainy plaster (both white, of course) with no visible distortion.

P.S.: Playing games is also great fun on it!! We usually get some alcohol and snacks, and play games like Crysis, Far Cry, Riddick (which somehow are made for the big screen with their colorful and bright appearance), in hot seat fashion.
The trick is to put the mouse and mouse pad on the arm rest of the couch and keyboard on your lap. It works surprisingly better than it sounds.
But for games, as usual, watch the reaction time of the LCD. (A fast refresh rate usually is implemented with some kind of "booster", as you probably know, which unfortunately introduces a 200-300ms lag. Unacceptable for a fast game. Only good for preventing smearing with movies. So avoid those, and get one that has real low refresh rates, without that "booster" trick!)

Re:Consider projection systems

[GodfatherofSoul]

...my 200" diagonal display...

Why not just post an image of your nut sack?

Re:Consider projection systems

[fyngyrz]

Why not just post an image of your nut sack?

Because I wouldn't want your suicide on my conscience. You can buy a projector like mine for less than most LCDs cost, and empty walls are free; but you're permanently stuck with your tiny, squirrely balls and that dwarf dick of yours.

Oh, wait, you were just trolling. Sorry for outing your tiny genitalia. Too late now, though. :^)

Re:Consider projection systems

[fyngyrz]

You should be able to put a 100" display up in almost any room; just take anything out of the way and hang the projector from the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. Screens.... any white wall will do. And any flat (must be flat!) white paint will do.

A really large display is just as easy, but you need a building with almost a 2-story exposure. We were super lucky and got an old, empty church on two lots for almost nothing, but I've been in lots of other houses where it was an available choice. We're huge gamers and movie watchers, so there wasn't much con/discussion once we saw that wall. I suppose if there is more conventional decorating / furnishing that's important to someone, this does require the wall to be entirely clear and that might be a project killer... but for us, it's worth it.

I've got a couple friends that have DLP projection systems with newer, brighter projectors, they're really pretty awesome. And they cost less than LCDs, too. this 135" guy is one of those... he started out with a 720p projector, now has a 1080p one. Check out the integrated cabinet/screen he built.

Even the most basic cabinet/screen building skills can save more money than the projector even costs.

As far as maintainance... we use ours every day, and replace the bulb every few years when it dims. Probably amounts to twenty five cents a day, max.

Dark rooms... nighttime, baby. :^) Seriously, I don't watch during the daylight hours, so it's not an issue. But blackout shades are super cheap down at wham-a-lart if you need 'em.

Lazy, I can't help ya with.

Re:Consider projection systems

[drinkypoo]

And the new bulb costs half as much as the projector, in spite of being fairly ancient technology (an arc lamp.) I have one of these projectors that needs a lamp, I was inspired by a story about someone hacking theirs for LED light with parts from DealExtreme but have too many other projects in need of completion first.

Re:Consider projection systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, gee willickers, a 747 is "fairly ancient" technology (a wing). Maybe it should be free? Moron.

Staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

This reduction in materials has a staggering downstream effect.

Whenever I hear something described as "staggering", I imagine something so incomprehensibly big and stupendous that the very thought of it causes people to stagger around in a drunken stupor, falling over each other, drooling, etc.

This is just the sort of thing to induce that response.

This just in...

[Impeesa]

Small objects still smaller than large objects after being thrown away. More as it develops.

Metric vs Imperial

[TheChromaticOrb]

So, what's the metric equivalent of a cell phone?

Re:Metric vs Imperial

[artor3]

A mobile.

Re:Metric vs Imperial

[couchslug]

More important, how many cell phones to one Library of Congress?

What about longevity?

[lfp98]

If flat panel vs. CRT computer monitors are any indication, the flat panel TVs will fail far sooner, possibly wiping out the effect of less waste per TV.

Re:What about longevity?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I haven't purchased anything new in the last years that has lasted five years. I'm to the point I won't buy new, unless I absolutely cannot buy old and used. The market has failed on so many levels.

Stupid article

[Anonymous Coward]

What they don't mention is the HDTV transition encouraged a lot of people to buy new television sets that may have waited a few more years otherwise. This generated a lot of the old big tv sets in landfills sooner. Any benefit they many have long term is lost on this. If for some crazy reason 3D television takes off, the same thing could happen.

You know what else creates less e-waste?

[PCM2]

You know what else creates less e-waste? Hanging on to your perfectly good older TV instead of buying a newer, bigger TV every time the electronics companies bring them to market. Oh, but let me guess: I bet a 3-D LED TV saves the planet even more than the regular, 2-D kind, right?

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[aztracker1]

Well, I went to an LCD on my desktop after moving 3 times in one year,the old 22" flat panels were way heavy. In the living room, it's when I started into using an HTPC, and gifted the 32" to my grandmother, which she is still using. Not everyone upgrades just because they can... in fact I know far fewer that do, than I know who don't.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[aztracker1]

flat screens, not panels...

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[heypete]

Perhaps, but there's other factors to consider. For example, technology improves: I have a 1920x1080 22" LCD monitor or this computer. It is much more useful to me than an old 800x600 CRT or even my 19" 1280x1024 LCD monitor I purchased in 2003 (it's dimmed and gotten a bit yellow over the years).

In addition to improved technology, a lot of newer devices use considerably less resources to manufacture and operate. The electricity costs of running a CRT monitor or TV are much greater than that of an LCD monitor or TV of comparable size. I'm not sure about plasma, but I don't have such displays here.

Yes, there's a lot of e-waste and people should definitely waste less, but there are several compelling reasons to upgrade equipment over time.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird. I'm using a LCD from 2003 too. 15 inch 1024x768.
The only problem it has is screen burn, which will go away after an hour of so of running milkdrop or a screensaver.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You know what else creates less e-waste? Hanging on to your perfectly good older TV instead of buying a newer, bigger TV every time the electronics companies bring them to market.

Did you type this on your five year old computer?

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. Every time they have a hard waste collection the curbs in my suburb are always crowded with TVs, many just a few years old. As an experiment about 2 years ago I collected a random sample of 20 of these TVs to see if they still worked. Result: 13 working very well over 8 hour test period, 1 wonky picture, 6 in various stages of dead. That's 13 TVs worth of e-waste that could have been saved for the price of a digital set-top box and an owner who gave a shit. 13 TVs worth of pointless, entirely avoidable waste, just so the owner could have a shiny new toy.

Oh, and wanna know another benefit of having an old CRT TV? Even the thieves can't be bothered stealing them when they break in (I found this out the hard way, but at least I could console myself with TV afterwards).

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[PCM2]

Did you type this on your five year old computer?

No, but I'd guess it's at least three years old. It's a Core 2 Quad running at 2.4GHz ... those chips came out in 2007 and I got mine a little later... anyway, seems fine for my needs.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Why did you get rid of your perfectly good computer and generate lots of e-waste?

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[IrquiM]

You know what uses less electricity?

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[karnal]

I received a core 2 quad 2.4ghz running @ 3ghz about 8 months ago due to a co-worker upgrading his system to a sandy bridge capable chip. All that was involved was helping him put the pieces together; he didn't have a need for the machine anymore. Oh yeah, he also threw in one of his gtx 280 cards - he was running SLI but gave the other card to another friend who needed a graphics bump.

Coming from a core 2 duo @ 2.4ghz (couldn't overclock worth a damn) it has been a hell of an improvement for recoding videos and game playing. I don't see anything wrong with this machine and hope to get another 2-3 years out of it unless something WAY better comes along.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much electricity is that 1980s tube using? I'll give you a hint: way the hell more than a modern LED LCD TV of the same size, and the picture is much crappier too.

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[PCM2]

Why did you get rid of your perfectly good computer and generate lots of e-waste?

The old one broke, actually. Main logic board fried, smoke out the back and it wouldn't power up. It was a real hassle to have to replace it, transfer my data from the old drives, and still get my work done. But thanks for asking, and while we're on the subject, how's that sanctimoniousness working out for you?

Re:You know what else creates less e-waste?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It gave me an even better reply than I could have hoped for! Thanks!!

+1 funny

[aztracker1]

Wish I had mod points...

953 cell phones?

[zrbyte]

How much is that in football fields?

Re:953 cell phones?

[petes_PoV]

How much is that in football fields?

it's 12 square buses, or 3.1 olympic sized swimming pools - though I don't know how many of them you'd have to lay end-to-end to get to the moon.

Re:953 cell phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

What generation cell phone? 953 of these could be severe, whereas if they were RAZRs, it wouldn't amount to much.

The Big Mac Index

[tepples]

Purchasing power can be measured in hamburgers? Seriously? Where?

Anywhere there's a McDonald's restaurant.

Measuring units

[Anonymous Coward]

So... How many Libraries of Congress is that?

What the heck?

[kenh]

"The report claimed that an old 36-inch CRT TV generated about the same amount of electronics waste as 5,080 cell phones. However, today's 70-inch flat-screen TV generate the equivalent of just 953 cell phones."

A 36 inch CRT? I think a 24 inch CRT would be a more reasonable size set for comparison...

A 70 inch flat-screen? Most people lose the ability to relate to a set over 40-42 inches.....

Who's throwing out a 70 inch flat screen TV?

Re:What the heck?

[sandytaru]

Somebody in 10 years when they're having the 100" wall unit installed.

Re:What the heck?

[kramerd]

More importantly, who measures electronic waste in terms of cell phones?

Re:What the heck?

[Osgeld]

but it will only be 1 meter tall

Same.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had my TV for nearly seven years, and it's still working like it did when I first bought it. (Including the crappy speaker bar. ;D)

I've also had the same LCD monitor (a 30" Dell) for years. Nary a dead pixel or anything else wrong to be seen.

IMO, these ridiculous claims of, "GUYZ I BAUGHT MY OLD CRT DURING TEH WAR OF 1812 AND IT STILL WORKZ!" are ridiculous luddite FUD.

Apples and oranges...

[Anonymous Coward]

My old 21" 1600x1200 capable Nanao CRT monitor did not last anywhere near as long as our 27" Sony trinitron TV of the same era. The electronics to handle high resolution RGB were a lot more sensitive than for plain old NTSC. And I do even recall old NTSC sets having problems with sync and convergence as they got older.

On the other hand, LCDs don't need high-frequency, high power analog circuits like that... Barring physical damage like a smashed panel or water damage, they usually just have backlight or power supply failure, which could be easily repaired by a new breed of TV repairman. I remember the amazing "new" picture I got after replacing the backlight and inverter on one of my own old Thinkpad laptops, which then meant it had a great screen when I retired it for being obsolete by computational standards. Desktop models usually have much more serviceable backlight components, too.

I suspect that people often want the LCD to die, so they can rationalize a purchase of a newer, fancier unit. We may see this change once people reach the plateau of large-enough 1080p displays being good enough to just repair and keep in service. Or, the marketeers may sustain their feature march to make sure nobody wants the old sets to stick around.

Rear projection sets are fine too

[Shivetya]

Find yourself a good DLP (rear projection) lit by a LED bulb and you can benefit many ways, first your power consumption is magnitudes lower than any Plasma or LED/LCD television, next your image for movies is amazing, and the sets are very light weight. The negatives are summarized as, viewing angles are constrained. However in most setups people never notice. With good seating arrangement you will never know let alone care. If you have the space and the room then a DLP projector is a better solution, but for space limited rear projection makes a good setup

I have both a DLP (Samsung 61) and a LED LCD (another Samsung) in the house and the movie TV is definitely the DLP. The images are the most "picture" like I have seen. There is not "bleed" or blurring. The LED LCD is great where we have it because from any angle it looks the same.

In the Business

[retroworks]

(Cracks knuckles).... First, the CRTs themselves last a long time (and apparently survive heat waves better). More recently, many of the CRT TV are assembled with cheaper tuner boards and speakers, etc., are not "solid state". The failure to last longer was not the cathode ray tube's fault, and most CRTs exported are rebuilt with a new board (see article on exports of used CRT tubes http://tinyurl.com/5wz37u2). So while the Cathode Ray Tubes themselves last much longer than the LCDs fluorescent lamps (don't know about LED), as the CRT market went downscale, quality suffered, and e-waste may increase if we are not allowed to re-export them to have those tunerboards replaced (the same factories which assembled them buy them back, but that's increasingly illegal because Americans assume the factories are paying $10 apiece and then burning them).

What is incredible at our Vermont "e-waste" recycling plant are the number of flat TVs coming in with a small impact crack in the corner. They are called "Wii Screens" by the staff. Apparently, people "bowling" and doing other arcade stuff on the games tend to forget to attach the wrist strap. So the E-Waste jury is still out - the CRT TVs are heavier, but if they have solid state boards will last longer, and they deflect flying plastic "ewaste" satellite gadgets.

So regarding TFA, the moral is that the "ewaste" volume is not going down, but the "ewaste" export we were worried about was not as bad as we thought it was in the first place.

Finally, if the CEA and industry was really concerned, they'd make the LCDs so you could replace the LCD and the fluorescent lamps. The LCD screens appear to us to be designed to make that virtually impossible.

Re:In the Business

[Anonymous Coward]

"Virtually impossible?" On the contrary. I repair a lot of laptop and desktop LCD displays. Some newer LCD panels have CCFLs that slide right out. The big win is LED illumination. Goodbye to CCFL color degradation over time, goodbye to mercury in the CCFLs. Less electricity wasted as heat. Win!

Re:In the Business

[petermgreen]

tend to forget to attach the wrist strap.

Or they may still have an early wrist strap. The initial wiimote wrist straps were clearly based on a camera wrist strap and the cord that attaches the strap to the wiimote was not strong enough to provide protection against accidental throwing. A second generation of wrist strap with a much thicker attatchment cord was produced and Nintendo offered a replacement program but many people may not be aware of it.

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/strapreplace.jsp

There now seems to be a third version of the wrist strap which in addition to the thicker attatchement cord has a lever to lock the strap aduster (presumablly to reduce the risk of the strap slipping off).

Re:In the Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up last sentence of parent!

Re:In the Business

[toddestan]

I've taken apart a few desktop LCDs. Most have a "snap together" type of casing that is not meant to be taken apart. Usually I can't get them apart without marring the case in some way (so always start at the bottom where it won't be visible) and snapping some of the plastic latches. The ones that are held together with screws and come apart nicely are the rare exception.

Re:In the Business

[wallydallas]

correct. It would be nice if our lawmakers regulated "stuff" so that it could be fixed easily. Sadly our lawmakers are owned by lobbyists. Consumes don't care about lobbyists, nor care about things that wear out. This is what happens in capitalism. We trust that consumer demand would regulate things be made with a long life.

Jevons Paradox

[rusl]

...so now we can reduce the inefficiencies that keep us from wasting more!

Sure

[Sycraft-fu]

I have a lab of 50 of them. They are 11 years old now. They were just replaced, but not because they are being taken out of service. They are going to replace CRTs in other parts of the department. They all function perfectly. Their brightness has faded, but that's all.

Also, things do fail

[Sycraft-fu]

My parents have two tube TV sets, never replaced them with LCDs. They are very old, both over 20 years. One is starting to go out, it is losing focus rather badly. I don't know how long it has, but it is going to die and they'll have to replace it if they want to have a TV there. Things don't last forever not even stuff from "the good old days".

I don't plan on replacing my HDTV with a new one, it works fine and if I do get a new TV, the old one will move to another room. However it will not last forever. Some day it will break down and have to be replaced. If it can create less waste when that happens, that is not a bad thing.

From typical rose coloured glasses BS

[Sycraft-fu]

People remember the past too fondly. Also, with goods, they have a skewed view. Inherently the devices, houses, cars, etc that were made long ago and are still around are the good ones. The bad ones broke and went away. So yes, my parents have a working CRT TV from 20+ years ago (as I mentioned elsewhere). However that just means it is a good one. There was another CRT I had as a kid long since in the trash because it stopped working. You don't see that example of failure because it is gone.

Also people forget that you can only have long comparison periods for old goods. Someone once asked me to show him a current washer and dryer that would last for 20 years like his old ones did. There is no way I can do that, of course. I can't know how they will last. I can only know something lasts 20 years when it does indeed last 20 years.

Finally there's a problem of comparing a new tech with a mature tech. 10 years ago desktop LCDs were still somewhat new. They'd reached the point that they were realistic replacements to CRTs for many people, but that was a new phenomena. They'd only come down to that price and performance level fairly recent. CRTs were old hat by that time, in production for over half a century. Gee, maybe a new technology isn't quite as developed as an old one.

My experience is LCDs are extremely reliable. We have some 11 year old ones at work, still going strong. When they fail, it will almost certainly be the CCFL backlight or inverter, both devices easy to replace. The panels still work great and unlike CRTs have lost nothing in terms of focus or convergence or any of that. Of course the backlight issue is being dealt with by LED sets. Those ought to last in the 50-100k hour range.

My bet is in the long run. LCDs end up being the more reliable tech.

Chinese Labor Rejoices!

[gearloos]

But Chinese labor still has a purpose!

Meanwhile...

[MrKaos]

All the CRTs that were ever made in the western world are now landfill

I doubt that a large proportion of those resources are being shredded up for re-use to make new flat screens.

What about lifespans?

[uvajed_ekil]

What do these figures look like if you take into acocunt the lifespans/years of use of CRTs vs new TVs? Do LCDs/whatevers tend to last as long in service as CRTs, and do we even know yet? If they are discarded much sooner then any savings might be lost. Just wondering, since LCD TV backlights don't last forever (and most people seem to throw away rather than repair broken TVs), and I've seen tons of very old CRT televisions in use. Is a 1:1 ratio of CRTs:LCDs correct? Are there more TVs/monitors per person now than in CRT days? Maybe one TV in 2011 means less waste than 1 TV in 1991, but that is not the whole story. lol at cellphones as a unit of measure. My parents would say that is a highly apropriate measure for waste.

But since the design life is about 6-12 months...

[toby]

(before the manufacturers are counting on you throwing it away and upgrading): Does the change happen over this short timespan? And who needs colour accuracy in a *cellphone* anyway?!?!

Macintosh

[toby]

I use Macs that are more than 5 years old, and frankly I'd be surprised if they weren't working in another 20. Mac G5 and Mac Pro (and unibody laptops) are built like tanks. The fans will wear out eventually, but the quality of fans in Macintoshes is better than that in PC (because Apple's reputation depends on it), and you can get spares. Obviously the disks won't last that long, but nobody would be so stupid as to throw out a computer when the disk dies... would they?

What about manufacturing stage?

[Anonymous Coward]

The end product is only a very small part of the whole process we need to examine. The field is called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and it takes into consideration all impacts of a product (or a service).

This sounds like a stupid marketing gimmick. I'm not impressed.

How to repair a dead Samsung LCD

[toby]

Samsung uses poor quality Chinese capacitors (yeah, I know, that's an tautology) that are practically designed to fail just outside the warranty period (e.g. the notorious CapXon). This is a scandalous waste, and Samsung is doing it deliberately since better parts are available.

When they overheat, bulge and ooze, causing well known failure modes, you can easily replace them with higher quality parts - this site has the details.

I'm in the process of repairing two Samsung 225bw screens that were thrown at out work with this fault (4.5 years since manufacture). The parts only cost a few bucks and the soldering isn't too difficult. Getting the case open is probably the hardest part.

Standard units

[GameMaster]

"The report claimed that an old 36-inch CRT TV generated about the same amount of electronics waste as 5,080 cell phones. However, today's 70-inch flat-screen TV generate the equivalent of just 953 cell phones."

Can we get that in a more standard unit like football fields or Library of Congresses

Re:But since the design life is about 6-12 months.

[maxwell demon]

And who needs colour accuracy in a *cellphone* anyway?!?!

Many cell phones these days have cameras built in, and you certainly want to have an idea what the photo you just took looks like.

give me units I can use....

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Library of congresses does that equal?

Better Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

"The report claimed that an old 36-inch CRT TV generated about the same amount of electronics waste as 5,080 cell phones. However, today's 70-inch flat-screen TV generate the equivalent of just 953 cell phones."

953 cell phones? Can you rephrase into something I can relate to better? Such as number of car tires or pounds of CO2?

How do you value your time?

[brunes69]

You have to factor in more than the part cost when deciding to reapir something. When you add up dissassembly, troubleshooting, replacement, and re-assembly, you couldeasily be spending 8-10 hours to repair an LCD.

Add in $50 in parts, and you are valuing your free time at $50 / hour. I certainly value my free time higher than that.

Re:How do you value your time?

[eqisow]

If I could trade in my free time at $50/hour and tinker with electronics during that time, I'd be all over it.

Re:How do you value your time?

[adolf]

It took about an hour, including a trip to buy a capacitor.

And I can't buy a decent 19" LCD with an hour of my time, nor can I trade an hour of my time to motivate someone else to fix a broken one on my behalf. It was, according to your theory, time well-spent.

But moreover, I enjoy that sort of work. I think I'd grow tired of it in a hurry if I were repairing electronics for 40 hours a week, but I don't. Instead, it's a perfectly pleasurable way to kill some time every now and then, get something tangibly beneficial as a result, and maybe learn something along the way.

Do you amortize all of your hobbies? I sure don't. That's why they're "hobbies."

If all of my free time were suddenly worth $50 per hour, I'd also go outside immediately, and tear out my garden, and pay someone else to ferry fruits and vegetables back from the market for me so that I wouldn't even have to spend any of my precious free time dealing with such minutia as food.

But life just ain't like that. So, yeah: I fix stuff when I can. And I grow stuff, even though it's generally cheaper to buy tomatoes and peppers at the store. It's called "free time" for a reason.

Cell phone photography is the bottom rung

[toby]

The colour is terrible anyway, as are most other properties of cell phone shots (poor & dirty lenses, focus, flash, etc). These shots are taken in poor conditions and with very low user expectations. Colour accuracy is for graphic arts activities, not cellphones.

What I wanted to know is: Does colour shift in less than a year? If not, then it's an unimportant design consideration given the lifespans of throwaway consumer gadgets (and the other points above).

Typical cell phone shot

[toby]

This is par for the course for colour, lighting, overall quality. Do you think she cares that her colour balance is screwed? (And it's already screwed, even before she starts to wonder if her display calibration has drifted in the 3 weeks since she bought the phone.)

e-waste is only simple for the simple minded

[wallydallas]

The reader comments are far more intelligent than the original false claim here.

- the lower cost of flat screens has created homes with more screens. same toxicity or perhaps worse per pound.
- the light weight screens of today are not built to last as long as the heavier CRT screens
- flat screens are not made to be modular or easy to repair, and it rarely happens
- even in countries that ban exports of dead flat screens under the Basel Convention, significant toxic waste is exported to Asia and Africa
- about half of the states in the USA don't regulate e-waste
- the USA refuses to ban toxic exports under treaties, we also won't ban landmines etc etc.
- Most ewaste is passed from customers to a series of waste traders. Those "safe" drop off spots have almost no laws that keep the waste from going to Asia or Africa as toxic e-waste
- Auctions of Federal computers often get exported as dead e-waste
- Only one city has any statute to prevent the series of waste traders from unethical export
- E-waste is extremely complex, from the birth and assembly of the components, beyond the death, transport and disassembly of the device. The toxins live far longer than most of us would guess.
http://resource-recycling.com/node/1877
http://ban.org/ban_news/2011/110317_call_to_stop_exporting_ewaste.html
http://www.teachchange.org/ewaste

Re:e-waste is only simple for the simple minded

[wallydallas]

Here is a good page with maps, charts, and data on e-waste
http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2010/08/why-arent-americans-recycling-their-old-gadgets