Taking a Crack At Recycling E-Waste

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a New York Times article being hosted at News.com. It touches on a new initiative in upstate New York to deal with the problem of e-waste. The Town of North Hempstead has positioned helpers at the dump the last four weekends, assisting people with a flood of old monitors, keyboards, laptops, word processors, and even a Pong game or two. Besides the obvious benefit of getting this junk out of our homes, the article highlights why this should be a growing concern around the country. From the article: "While federal law regulates the disposal of electronics by businesses and government agencies, it does not affect individual consumers, who account for more than half the e-waste produced annually, according to the federal agency. Every old computer monitor contains about four pounds of lead, and other parts are filled with heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, cadmium and chromium. They have toxins that hover in the air after incineration or leach into the water supply when buried in landfills. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh say that dumps around the nation's major cities, including New York, hold more than 60 million computers."

Why not...

[b0s0z0ku]

just keep computers longer and not toss them every 2 years. My HP Kayak Station ca. 1999 works just fine for word processing and 'net surfing. Which is all fully half of users probably need.

-b.

Is this new?

[pe1chl]

Are the United States really so far behind in environmental issues?
I understood from Bush that he does not really care about the environment (relative to other issues), but I would think that lower levels of government would already have acted more responsibly.

Over here, the separated collection of waste, including separate places where electronic waste (computers, household electronics) has been in place for many years.
We even pay a small fee on new equipment to pay for the recycling of old equipment.

I think the US should change from "we only care about economics and hate to pay for others" into something more responsible.

$100 Computers

[mykepredko]

While probably not solving the problem but displacing it, how about using old computers for the $100 computer initiative for developing countries.

They would definitely use more power than the $100 computers designed for this purpose but chances are they would provide the same amount of processing power, better graphics, more hard drive space and would have available monitors and network/WiFi adapters.

As I said, that this is displacing the problems as now the developing countries will have to deal with the waste at some point in time. But, it could give their economies & education systems a much needed boost.

myke

Re:"word processors"????

[kfg]

What am I missing?

Age.

KFG

E-waste

[akar_naveen]

At first sight the word e-waste looked like it meant waste data. Does anyone else think it's a misnomer?

It could be just me. I was just shopping online for a second external hard drive after the first one got full, with some useful but mostly 'can't delete yet-might need in future' kind of stuff.

Re:Microsoft's monopoly is probably the problem...

[undeaf]

2k isn't being sold anymore either, and it was expensive and AFAIK there aren't all that many copies out there among consumers, and then there's the question of how many of those that have it would want to part with it. Most people haven't even heard about linux, and most of those that did probably think of it as "something only for crazy nerds" or something along those lines.

Yes, recycling computers is definitly doable, the problem isn't how hard it is for someone who actually wants to do it, the problem is that it's not being done much.

Re:$100 Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

While probably not solving the problem but displacing it, how about using old computers for the $100 computer initiative for developing countries.


The $100 computer will be a nearly solid state device with a standard software and OS package. The documentation for both hardware and software would be completely open and readily available. It would be relatively easy for someone with little or no computer experience to use and maintain one of the machines-- or a hundred of them.

Compare the logistics of that, to dumping a hundred assorted used machines from different manufacturers (and even different eras.) Each OS install would have to be tweaked for whatever , and once they are running it would be a nightmare to maintain "in the field" (the field being a third world country where parts for old machines would have to be shipped from elsewhere.) Meaning, where in the first case a relief worker with general computer knowledge can maintain dozens of machines (and the recipients can learn for themselves quickly), in the latter you would need to send Geek Squad along with the crates of random used computers.

(Someone else brought this up too but the power is also a concern... The $100 machine is designed to be used with spotty third world power sources, a used machine is designed to be plugged into a reliable first world wall outlet. It can pretty much be assumed that finding African power supply cords for a 1999 eMachine will be impossible, so a converter would also be needed for each of the used machines, and as anyone who has used them can attest these converters are not 100% reliable-- particularly the cheaper ones-- and should certainly not be used as a permanent solution sensitive equiptment in a place where brownouts and surges are common.)

fundamental problem

[v1]

The funadamental problem with computers is the nature of their design, or rather, the current easiest/cheapest methods. Take a look at a lot of the current day products and how easy some of them are to recycle. A lot of kids toys are made of one giant piece of plastic, all the same kind of plastic. Most food containers are now that way too. Computers can't be made that way. They are a very diverse collection of parts, assembled in ways not meant to be disassembled, and the parts are so small and so numerous that even if you wanted to take them apart it would be very difficult work. I can't imagine how long it would take someone to take apart a motherboard into recyclable pieces. Optical drives, power supplies, fans, none of these lend themselves well to recycling. We can't just keep burying our trash, that doesn't make the problem go away, it just pushes it off on the next generation to deal with. Eventually we are going to have to deal with all our trash.

Really it would not surprise me if in say, 50 years, there is an entire industry of waste reclamation, where a company bids on and BUYS a landfill, and sends in machines to process the garbage and make a proffit off what's reclaimed.

Reuse before recycle

[drwho]

Instead of just grinding up 4 year old computers, they can be put to other uses. There ought to be more effort put into reuse before recycle. For instance, if you have some old computer you need to get rid of, at least post it up on the free section of craigslist or freecycle first. You don't even have to make a big fuss about it. Just tell people to pick it up off your porch, or say you've put it on the curb for the trash collectors the next morning, someone hurry and get it if they want. Just communicate! It doesn't take much effort.

This doesn't go for just computers. You might be surprised how easy it is to get rid of everything from old clothes to building material to cellphones.