hardware recycling

[Jamon Camisso]

Dave Mason wrote:
> Evan Leibovitch wrote:
>> It's easy to imagine. There are areas of China that have destroyed the
>> local water supply for generations because of the chemicals used to
>> extract precious metals from circuit boards and other IT parts.
> 
> Yes.  One could argue that that is actually *our* disposal practice,
> since North America and Europe have been the source of the vast majority
> of those e-parts.
> 
> I agree with Evan's comment that the real cost of sending computers to
> the "3rd world" hasn't been calculated, and would likely be surprising
> along several vectors.
> 
> But I'll stop contributing to this thread since it's clear that a lot of
> people here don't want to think of environmental costs until they have
> to.  I find that sad, cuz I like to think that techies are more
> responsible and aware than most, but that's my problem.

If we were to be as responsible as we'd like to think we should be/are,
we'd likely reconsider purchasing new equipment altogether based on the
environmental impact of manufacturing our shiny new PCBs, never mind
their disposal. For all the parts that are recycled, those same
chemicals to which Evan alludes were used in the manufacture of said parts.

It strikes me that while recycling is an important issue/topic for
discussion and practice, focusing on recycling is a rather effective way
to avoid considering just how what it is we recycle gets made in the
first place.

I read a few years ago that PCB manufacturing takes an enormous amount
of raw material to produce a single motherboard (I recall as least a few
hundred lbs...) I can't find the figures though so I trust no one will
take my word for it. I'll try searching a little more.

Jamon
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