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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