Sometimes wonderful things are discovered when one wanders off the
path..... and, it's Friday.
-Chris




                       Camille Good
                       <[log in to unmask]>          To:   [log in to unmask]
                       Sent by: Leadfree                 cc:
                       <[log in to unmask]>                Subject:    Re: [LF] Mandated recycling of
                                                           electronics - a lose-lose-lose
                       04/01/2005 03:07 PM                 proposition
                       Please respond to
                       "(Leadfree Electronics
                       Assembly Forum)"; Please
                       respond to Camille Good







While I do find the discussion about this to be
interesting, shouldn't this be moved to the Environet
forum?  I think the discussion has wandered a bit
from lead-free or even RoHS/WEEE.

Just a suggestion,
-Camille Good
Portland, Oregon
--- "Davy, Gordon" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> The lack of technical grounds for restricting
> certain hazardous substances in electronic products
> as is required by RoHS has been discussed in this
> forum and is widely accepted. The lack of technical
> grounds for recycling electronic products as is
> required by WEEE has also been discussed, but
> without the same level of acceptance. Now a major
> study (38 pages) of this topic has been published:
> "Mandated Recycling of Electronics - A
> Lose-Lose-Lose Proposition", Feb. 1, 2005, by Dana
> Joel Gattuso of the Competitive Enterprise
> Institute, available at
> <http://www.cei.org/pdf/4386.pdf>
> http://www.cei.org/pdf/4386.pdf. Following the
> publication of this study, Ms. Gattuso has written
> shorter pieces based on her findings. I've copied
> below an excerpt from an article that appeared in
> the Orange County Register on March 7, available at
> <http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04431.cfm>
> http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04431.cfm.
>
> As I have argued before, recycling electronics, now
> being coerced by the EU and by an increasing number
> of states in the US, is not noble, but wasteful.
> It's your money that is being wasted. I encourage
> subscribers to read what Ms Gattuso has written (at
> least the following paragraphs) and then consider
> the extent to which their attitudes towards coerced
> recycling might have been influenced by activist
> propaganda.
>
>
>
> Haste maketh waste, and in the fast-paced world of
> technology, there's a lot of it. In <?xml:namespace
> prefix = st1 />California, home of the technology
> revolution, 10,000 home computers and TVs are
> retired daily. While that amounts to a tiny fraction
> of the state's total waste stream, the issue is
> creating heaps of hype and hysteria about what to do
> with the growing amount of electronic waste or
> "e-waste." <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
> "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
>
> The widespread panic is based on misinformation
> spread largely by powerful eco-activist groups who
> believe the growing amount of electronic waste
> reflects the ills of a "throwaway" society and that
> recycling e-waste is our moral obligation to achieve
> "zero waste tolerance." Among the myths bandied
> about are that e-waste is growing at an
> uncontrollable, "exponential" rate; and that heavy
> metals contained in computers are leaking out of the
> landfills, poisoning our ground soil.
>
> In reality, e-waste has remained at only 1 percent
> of the total municipal waste stream since the U.S.
> EPA began calculating electronics discards in 1999.
> Furthermore, the annual number of obsolete home
> computers is expected to level off at 63 million
> this year and will then begin to decline. While that
> still sounds like a lot of computers, it's not an
> unmanageable amount. Our landfills are fully
> equipped to handle all our waste-e-waste included.
>
> Nor is there any scientific evidence that e-waste in
> landfills presents a health risk. Landfills are
> built today with thick, puncture-resistant liners
> that keep waste from coming into contact with soil
> and groundwater. Timothy Townsend of the University
> of Florida, a leading expert on the effects of
> electronic waste in landfills, conducted tests in
> 2003 on 11 municipal landfills containing e-waste
> from TV and computer monitors, along with other
> solid waste. He and his associate Yong-Chul Jang
> found concentrations of lead far below the safety
> standard and less than 1 percent of what EPA's lab
> tests had predicted. "There is no compelling
> evidence," according to Townsend, that e-waste
> buried in municipal landfills presents a health
> risk.
>
> Similarly, a yearlong, peer-reviewed study released
> last March by the Solid Waste Association of North
> America concluded "extensive data show that heavy
> metal concentrations in leachate and landfill gas
> are generally far below the limits established to
> protect human health and the environment."
>
> The real problem is for state lawmakers who, based
> on misplaced fears, banned TVs and PCs from
> municipal landfills in 2001 and now don't know where
> to put the mounting discards. But mandated recycling
> is not the answer. The costs, ultimately passed on
> to consumers in the form of taxes and higher
> purchase prices, are staggering-$500 a ton of
> e-waste to recycle versus $40 a ton to landfill.
>
>
> Gordon Davy
> Baltimore, MD
> [log in to unmask]
> 410-993-7399
>
>
>
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