news feature

Having a personal computer (PC) at home once seemed like a distant dream. Now those PCs are being cast off as newer, faster and flashier models appear.

Old PCs are ending up in junkyards all over the country and awareness is slowly growing about the environmental and health hazards of the decaying machines.

Manufacturers and local governments are taking steps to promote electronics recycling - but many activists say they are not doing enough.

Electronics manufacturers, they say, should be made to pay for the reuse or recycling of their products. Such pressure would force companies to produce eco-friendly computer designs.

While most businesses and about half of US households own personal computers, most PC users have no idea that their machines could eventually cause major health problems if they are not properly recycled, according to a series of recent reports.

"Although government regulation (of electronic waste) should come from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the current administration hasn't seemed to go against industry much, particularly regarding environmental issues," said Scott Ribble, a policy associate at the non-governmental group Californians Against Waste (CAW).

E-waste

Electronic waste consists of appliances ranging from refrigerators to stereos to sophisticated medical equipment, but personal computers pose the greatest threat because unlike most other appliances they become obsolete after an average of only two years.

Computers contain cathode ray tubes (CRTs), like those used in televisions, which are coated in about four pounds of lead, as well as smaller amounts of other toxic materials such as arsenic and mercury, according to 'Poison PCs/Toxic TVs', a report by three California-based environmental groups - Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), Materials for the Future, and CAW.

When personal computers that are dumped in landfills crack, the materials in them leach out and contaminate drinking water supplies and the air.

Potential adverse effects from the 'e-waste' include DNA damage, asthmatic bronchitis, and mental retardation in children.

"Electronic waste is a very serious problem for three reasons," said Michael Alexander, a senior research associate at the non-governmental National Recycling Coalition. "Use of personal computers and other electronics is very widespread. Many of them have a very short life span. Many of them contain very toxic materials."

While 75 percent of obsolete computers remain stockpiled in homes and offices, the ones that are thrown out tend to come from households and small businesses rather than large corporations.

Toxic landfills

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which became US federal law in 1999, makes American businesses - but not households - liable if they improperly dispose of hazardous waste such as CRTs.

Large corporations that buy hundreds of computers every year tend to be more aware of RCRA laws than small businesses, and more willing to spend the money to recycle their machines, according to Alexander.

Because households can legally dump their obsolete electronics in the trash, and because in all states but California and Massachusetts it is legal for municipal collectors to put CRTs in landfills, household computers often end up there.

Over 3.2 million tons of e-waste ends up in landfills every year, and 6,000 computers become obsolete in California every day, according to Ted Smith, the executive director of SVTC.

Only 11 percent of computers discarded in the United States were recycled in 1999, according to a report by the National Safety Council, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to helping people adopt practices that promote health and a clean environment.

"The electronics industry is already the largest and fastest-growing and wealthiest manufacturing sector in the world," said Smith. "So it seems that they have some real responsibility for cleaning up the mess they made with their products."

'Poison PCs/Toxic TVs' estimates that the cost of safely recycling all the obsolete computers stockpiled in homes and offices in California alone could approach one billion dollars.

Smith suggests that the state of California, and eventually the federal government, draft laws modeled on those passed by the European Commission on Jun 13. This requires electronics manufacturers to pay for the reuse or recycling of their products, prompting them to add the cost of eventual recycling onto initial prices.

"If the manufacturers are required to take full responsibility for the life-cycle of their products, that will send some economic signals back to designers," said Smith. "If you have to pay, you're going to quickly learn that it will be cheaper to recycle products that are designed to be recycled."

Recycling unpalatable

Mark Small, vice president of corporate environmental affairs at electronics manufacturer Sony, said that for industry to embrace recycling initiatives, they must be profit-oriented. "Over the past few years, we found ways of recycling our products and generating revenues, which is crucial," he said.

The Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA), a national trade group representing more than 80 percent of the electronics industry, is launching a consumer education website and a year-long pilot programme which will test different methods of collecting and recycling obsolete computers.

Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Sony, IBM, Dell and Xerox are among manufacturers that already have take-back and recycling programmes.

Critics point out that most company-run recycling programmes require consumers to pay a fee of 25 to 50 US dollars to recycle their obsolete electronics, and that they must also transport their machines to a recycling centre themselves, making recycling unpalatable.

They say a much more aggressive nationwide campaign is needed to educate consumers about the urgency of recycling electronics, and about the various ways to do it.

The above article was first written for the Inter-Press Service (IPS).