Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Let's throw the whole Library of Congress in a landfill and find out!
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.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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?
Breakfast served all day!
(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.
Gently reply
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.
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.
you had me at #!