That's a telling statistic... I wonder how many fractions of an ounce of
lead are in a cell phone... maybe what percentage of the overall weight is
lead... or even the volume...
Compared to the other elements in the phone, how much of it is lead?

If we knew the potential lead content and totaled it all up how much lead
returned to the earth would 130 million cell phones be? And how spread out
over the earth's landfills would it be?

When you think about it... it probably poses much less threat to us than the
chlorine they put in our water to kill harmful bacteria...

Bill Brooks - KG6VVP
PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I.
Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510
Datron World Communications, Inc.
_______________________________________
San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council
Communications Officer, Web Manager
 <http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/> http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/
 <http://pcbwizards.com> http://pcbwizards.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack C. Olson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 11:22 AM
To: (Designers Council Forum); Brooks,Bill
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC] Just say 'NO' to RoHS is plain wrong?


Yes, 130 MILLION cell phones will be discarded this year.

I read that the owners of incinerators turned down the heat to save money,
and the waste was not being burned properly and spewing lead into the
environment.
and that's how this whole thing started.

I have no way to verify the truth of that,
but I thought it was interesting that they didn't simply REGULATE THE
INCINERATORS
rather than forbid the use of one of the more comment elements in the
universe!

seeya,
Jack






"Brooks,Bill" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: DesignerCouncil <[log in to unmask]>
08/08/2005 12:40 PM

Please respond to
"(Designers Council Forum)" <[log in to unmask]>; Please respond to
"Brooks,Bill" <[log in to unmask]>


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Subject
Re: [DC] Just say 'NO' to RoHS is plain wrong?




Caterpillar: Confidential Green        Retain Until: 09/07/2005
Retention Category:  G90 - General Matters/Administration


Interesting comments and opinions, I want to hear more... I'm not convinced
yet that this RoHS thing is even slightly 'sane'... give me more proof.

I thought the campaign of 'Just say 'No' to drugs' here in the US was pushed
via the media very well and had an effect on the kids to some extent... but
it was not completely affective in stopping people from selling drugs or
using them anyway... It feels like somewhat futile to protest... I guess the
futility I feel in watching the electronics industry go though this change
is related to the lack of its necessity... I really think this is
unnecessary and does nothing to improve the environment. In fact the
landfills will be fuller, and more electronics will end up there due to tin
whisker failures.

On the other hand, I think recycling makes a lot of sense... that's what the
WEEE initiative was supposed to be all about right?  Electronics products
ending up in the landfills is the argument that is used to justify the RoHS
banning of lead in solder. But if folks do throw away those defective cell
phones and laptops and don't recycle them, the landfills will be full of all
the other materials in the manufacture of the products as well... and more
often will folks be buying a new cell phone and throwing away the old one
because the Tin whiskers are making them fail sooner... sounds like the
reverse of the intended reduction of materials in the landfills. But if we
recycle them maybe we can take the pain out of this to some extent.

If we make reliable products that can last many years, they get handed down
to a family member or repaired before actually disposing of them, they stay
out of the landfills longer, and people don't need to buy as many of them...

Maybe they save lives longer, and don't fail at critical times when we need
them the most... Do you want tin whiskers growing in your pacemaker? Or in
the circuit cards in the Boeing 747 you and your family are traveling in?

Why are we taking this risk and focusing on this lead issue rather than
restricting the dumping of mercury into the rivers and streams and lakes and
oceans? I'm all for environmental protection and responsible recycling...
but this ROHS initiative is political and economic... not and environmental
protection like what it purports to be. I agree with Happy Holden on this
issue too... I think we need to wake up and take a hard look at what we are
getting 'snookered' into here. Who really stands to gain from this
initiative... I think we need to follow the money...

Our jobs, markets, product reliability and livelihoods are at stake... Let's
them produce the science that proves we are making this large sacrifice in
the electronics industry before signing up to spend our hard earned dollars
on some scheme that doesn't improve our products one bit. Doesn't it in fact
make them less reliable? less manufacturable? and more expensive and costly
to build? How is that an improvement?

The other thing that bothers me a lot is the exporting of manufacturing to
3rd world countries where the people there are being exposed to hazardous
chemicals and pollution that would result in fines and cleanup activities
here in the '1st world' that has environmental laws that prevent dumping of
waste products from manufacturing in our countries... If they can't dump
here... they just export it to somewhere where they look the other way.  The
Chinese and Mexicans, and Taiwanese, and Koreans, and folks living in
Africa, Shrilanca, Indonesia, India, Russia, South and Central America and
the Philippines... heck most of the unindustrialized nations don't know what
they are in for... They are not restricting these companies that come there
with dollars to invest in their countries and they let them dump the
chemicals, heavy metals and even raw sewage into the rivers and streams and
oceans and nobody stops them... why do you think the world class
corporations are moving all the manufacturing overseas? It's not just low
wages... hmmm... They will dump the etching solutions and plating solutions
out into the streams... it's cheaper for them...

You know, I do believe in recycling, and maintaining a clean world, not just
at home but abroad as well... I don't like the fact that the Japanese are
over-fishing the oceans, The oil companies are too cheap to build thicker
hulled tanker ships that don't spill their oil in our bays and oceans
killing wildlife or how the multinational corporations are building chemical
producing plants in impoverished nations to pollute without restrictions so
they can cut manufacturing costs... The mercury poisoning in fish that we
are sold over the counter in stores is way out of control(this is a hot
button topic for me and my wife as we have kids that were diagnosed as ADD
and ADHD)... and responsible for so many, many misdiagnosed health
problems... I bet the Pharmaceutical companies don't mind that a bit...
keeps folks buying their remedies that don't cure anything but symptoms and
never cure the source of the problem... that's the current money making
trend.. make it in large quantities, make so it doesn't last long, and make
it so they have to keep coming back to buy more of them... it's all so
ironic. It sounds just like the drug dealers...

But this RoHS thing still makes no sense... I don't see an up side to it
other than the spurring of engineering to try to come up with a solution
that works... I just don't think we have found one yet.

I think if more of us resisted the rush to adopt the RoHS we could see the
tide turn, alter the course of this silly rush to the 'precipice' and bring
back sanity to a really insane trend. I don't mind learning more about it...
in fact, if it was going to make products better, more reliable and help the
environment I would be more enthusiastic to support it... now I just educate
myself about it and it's potential for hurting the electronics industry and
increasing the dumping of PCB related manufacturing chemicals and poisons
into the rest of the worlds waters... where it gets into the fish, and
plants and food that we get imported right back into our country and put on
our families tables to eat....which poisons us and our children... It just
doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Let's make some sense...

Bill Brooks - KG6VVP
PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I.
Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510
Datron World Communications, Inc.
_______________________________________
San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council
Communications Officer, Web Manager
http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/
http://pcbwizards.com

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