Electronic Waste 2

[BJCooperIT]

We have all heard of toxic waste dumping, but this was news to me:

India e-waste:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...17/tc_afp/india_tech_environment_030617071043

$1.50 a day:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/25/computer-waste.htm

Questionable practices:

http://quickenexcite.com.com/2100-1040-844195.html

And last but not least, the government's stand on e-cycling:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/plugin/index.htm

Hopefully we can discuss this topic without the personal
rancor that has caused several interesting threads to be
deleted as of late. How does your company dispose of
electronic waste? The state government here destroys old
computers and the pieces go in the trash!

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[jrbarnett]

At a former employer, old equipment that was still in working order, but not good enough to be used for running current software was refurbished by computing staff and sent off to Africa, where they were more than adequate for running Word 97 etc.
Anything that wasn't functional was scavenged for reusable components which were used to either upgrade others or kept in the spares bin, and the remains were sent off to a computer recycling organisation.

John

 

[dgillz]

I favor a computer recycling operation for this. PCB boards are FULL of hazardous materials, as anyone who has ever been invovled in manufacturing them can easily attest.

I remember in the late 80's or early 90s an article in the Orange County (CA) Register about people taking old computers and getting the gold out of the hard drive - about $30 worth back then. Today they are making computers with considerably less precious metals, but from the articles still there is enough value there for there to be an interest in this, especially in 3rd world countries.

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[pmonett]

No surprise here.
This is SOP since the industry was born.
Whatever you do, if the neighbors notice, pretend to do something about it and ship it farther.
Great ecology scheme. Paves a wonderful way for the future.
I wonder if, one day, international companies will actually be held accountable for the harm they do to the environment.
I expect to be dead before that happens. My great-grandchildren too, I suppose.

 

[xutopia]

I like the German law that makes product makers responsible for disposing of their products after the customers are done with it.

Forces the designers to think of better recyclability (I just invented a word) for their products so they can reduce costs and facilitate the recycling process. Though it needed some regulations it made most TVs, Cell phones an other electronic equipement easier to recycle.

On a side note I saw a report on TV from a very popular French speaking show called "Envoye Special". They showed how many European countries, US, Canada and Japan disposed of waste with contractors.

These contractors would lie to the compagnies in these countries and ship all the waste to some secluded part of China.

The really horrible part was that the only way to differentiate unrecyclable plastic from the recyclable was by burning a bit of the plastic smelling it. So kids were hired to do this dirty job getting high on plastic fumes all day for a mere buck a day. As a result I decided to upgrade my computer only once every 5 years instead of the usual 2.

Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
********************************

 

[Tarwn]

I dunno, I'll still upgrade at least every two years. The again, I have a closet full of components I will never use again, so by the time they start recycling this stuff in a practical manner I'll be about ready to clear out one of my closets for more space

-Tarwn

[sub]01010100 01101001 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101111 01101011 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 [/sub]
[sup]29 3K 10 3D 3L 3J 3K 10 32 35 10 3E 39 33 35 10 3K 3F 10 38 31 3M 35 10 36 3I 35 35 10 3K 39 3D 35 10 1Q 19[/sup]
Do you know how hot your computer is running at home? I do

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[sleipnir214]

xutopia:
You have a point about recyclability [good word]. Some of the ancilliary reading I've been doing points to the fact that system designers can sometimes use 20 different types of plastic in a single notebook, which makes recycling the plastic tough, if not impossible.

Here's a link which talks about material recovery efforts by a Canadian recycler and how design problems make their job harder:

http://www.omnimag.com/archives/features/old_machine/helter.html

Here's a link to the Noranda site:

http://www.noranda.com/

Noranda has to facilities in California specifically dedicated to materials recovery from electronics:

http://www.micrometallics.com/

Interestingly, one of the "value-added" services of the MicroMetallics facilities is that the first part of the process is shredding all the electronics provided by consumers. They've recognized the ongoing problem of folks recovering sensitive data from your hard-drive after disposal -- MicroMetallics is actually using that as part of the marketing on their web-site.


BJCooperIT:
There may be light at the end of the tunnel. If Noranda can make a go of it recycling e-waste, there is money to be made. That can attract others to the industry or inspire Noranda to open more facilities like MicroMetallics elsewhere in the U.S.


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[lionelhill]

Xutopia, you made a serious point about upgrading of equipment every year or two. The world as it is at the moment strikes me as insane: a lot of us simply use our computers to type letters, surf the web (64K modem and modest requirements for jpeg pictures and text), and check our e-mail. The occasional excel spreadsheet. Frankly I could do all this with a machine from 10 years ago. But the problem is that I have to be able to read other people's letters to me, which are written in Word 2008 or whatever, which uses a format my old word won't open, so I have to keep buying a new copy of word. And that has so many new features (none of which interest me) that it will only work if I get more memory, a higher processor speed, and a bigger hard disk. And my old mother board can't cope with any of that, so I need a new mother board too, so of course I end up buying a complete new computer. I can't even recycle the screen, because it's not worth it.

Added to that, I notice in what I hear about corporate environments, that the computer is very much like the chair: the directors have to have the biggest, not because their bottoms are bigger (or their computing needs), but to indicate that their importance is bigger. The techy trying to work with big picture files has to make do with the chief's cast-off, while the chief checks his/her e-mail on a 128Giga-MegaHerz supercomputer with a 48 inch paper-thin flat-screen monitor and a 3000dpi full colour printer and enough memory to keep half the library of congress.

Fifty year old tape-recorders still play sound as well as they day they were made. Why can't we learn to treat our machinery as a long-term thing; get over this desire to keep upgrading the software, and just stick with what we have? Maybe we'll need to aquire adaptor programs that re-translate Word2008 to word 6.0, or maybe we'll have to get heavy with people who don't like RTF? But surely it's possible.

(some people do. My French teacher still produces her handouts on a dot matrix attached to an early stand-alone word processor. It does the job).

 

[TheVampire]

Once I upgrade to my new PC, My old PC will be used to answer my phone and screen my messages and forward them if necessary, as well as run my home alarm / automation system and record video surveillance.

This isn't the solution for everyone, but it is for me.

Robert

 

[xutopia]

Lionell,

I use OpenOffice and sometimes find it hard to read some files that people send to me.

An effective way is to use an easily copied and pasted message to answer anyone that sends you an Office file that is incompatible with your word processor. You'd be surprised how people are unaware of what they are doing and actually excuse themselves when they realize. I found this short text on the GNU site and is really effective :

"You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so I cannot read it. If you send me the plain text, [red]RTF, (added by me)[/red] HTML, or PDF, then I could read it.

Sending people documents in Word format has bad effects, because that practice puts pressure on them to use Microsoft software. In effect, you become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly. This specific problem is a major obstacle to the broader adoption of GNU/Linux. Would you please reconsider the use of Word format for communication with other people? "

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
********************************

 

[sleipnir214]

lionelhill:
And to add to xutopia's comments about upgrades, it is often the case that businesses require vendor support for the software they run. As Mi¢ro$oft, for example, comes out with new operating systems and software, they orphan the old software.

This forces businesses who want to maintain vendor support to upgrade. Unfortunately, particularly in the case of Mi¢ro$oft's software, each successive generation of products requires more resourses to run -- which forces hardware upgrades, which produces the eventual obsolescence of hardware.


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[guestgulkan]

Sleipnir214 wrote ....This forces businesses who want to maintain vendor support to upgrade. Unfortunately, particularly in the case of Mi¢ro$oft's software, each successive generation of products requires more resourses to run -- which forces hardware upgrades, which produces the eventual obsolescence of hardware....

I cannot totally agree with tihis statement. Microsoft cannot write an OS for non-existent possible future hardware.
Hardware manufacturers are always pushing the envelope - and when new hardware is introduced the hardware manufacturers have to provide the drivers because the OS is not aware of
these new developments.
These drivers tend to be manufacturer specific because each is writing to it's own ideas. Eventually there is some convergence to some common standard, and support gets incorporated into the OS.

IMO the OS is usually playing catchup with the hardware.

 

[jrbarnett]

To everyone using the "proprietary format" argument which competitors have written their own convertors:

You could always install a copy of the free Word Viewer (as well as the Powerpoint and Excel ones) for those that OpenOffice can't read properly. It will let you view, print and copy to the clipboard (so you can convert to OpenOffice format).

If interested, take a look at

http://office.microsoft.com/Assistance/9798/viewerscvt.aspx

John

 

[xutopia]

jrbarnett,

Thanks for the link I'm gonna see if I can run that under Wine!

Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
********************************