Comment Where it all ends up without the right fix (Score 5, Interesting) 284
Unfortunately what they don't tell you is that about 80% of the collected e-waste is shipped to third world countries. See export harm at:
http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash. htm
Dell uses prison labor to do their recycling. Recycling is usually pulling some parts which have little value and sending the rest overseas and to landfills.
However, there are systems such as plasma torch processes at ~8000 degrees C that are non-polluting
(everything is closed cycle) which can recover all the raw chemicals. Japan has these plants for household waste. Unfortunately no venture capitalist in the U.S. will back one (~10M) since they only have good profit returns rather than 10X returns in 2 years. I know, I wrote a business plan for one and found out disinterested they are in plants with just 'good' profit returns. My own university 'venture office' laughed and said come back when I had a biotech or computer idea.
http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash
Dell uses prison labor to do their recycling. Recycling is usually pulling some parts which have little value and sending the rest overseas and to landfills.
However, there are systems such as plasma torch processes at ~8000 degrees C that are non-polluting
(everything is closed cycle) which can recover all the raw chemicals. Japan has these plants for household waste. Unfortunately no venture capitalist in the U.S. will back one (~10M) since they only have good profit returns rather than 10X returns in 2 years. I know, I wrote a business plan for one and found out disinterested they are in plants with just 'good' profit returns. My own university 'venture office' laughed and said come back when I had a biotech or computer idea.
