TLUG and government grants

Evan Leibovitch evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org
Sun Dec 4 05:36:57 UTC 2005


Meng Cheah wrote:

> According to the Montreal Gazette,
> http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/specials/story.html?id=d5744066-6256-4ddc-9b0e-96fd6726b96a 
>
> >
> > Alberta became the first Canadian province to launch a mandatory
> > electronics recycling program in March, 2005.

Having a mandatory recycling program does not guarantee that the 
province knows what to do with all the "recycled" materials. In many 
cases computer recycling means "let's see how much we can repair/rebuild 
and get into the hands of the poor, and ensure that there are no toxic 
materials in whatever's left over before it hits landfill". The article 
you pointed to above indicates just such a program. While it certainly 
has merit -- even just separating out the batteries is a good idea -- it 
doesn't really keep most electronics from being buried along with 
everything else. Certainly this program doesn't go as far as extracting 
gold from circuit boards, the environmentally-hostile process being done 
mainly in China which was discussed earlier.

- Evan

PS: A really nice decomposition of the general issue of recycling can be 
found in Episode 18 of the excellent Penn and Teller TV series 
"Bullshit". Too bad that series -- shown on Showtime in the US -- hasn't 
been picked up by any Canadian station. Even if you don't agree with 
their Libertarian-biased scepticism, it's an interesting watch.
--
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