Gordon,
The TCLP is not unrepresentative of the conditions right beside a rotting tomato, but it certainly is unrepresentative once you (or the lead  :)  ) are/is a few centimeters away.  The problem occurs when people take the results for the EPA test and think that is what would be leaving the actual landfill.  As I, you, Brian Ellis and many others have shown, this is chemically not the case.

New topic to stir the pot.  :)
I think earlier someone had a few disparaging words to say about BAN.  For those of you that don't know, they are a ground roots eco group in California. They have produced a sensationalist, but gripping documentary about waste electronics taken to China for "recycling".  The images are horrifying for anyone, but especially for a chemist - open burning of PVC coated cables to recover the copper, broken CRT tubes dumped in the open, a man with no more extra protection than rubber boots pouring aqua regia over printed circuit boards and circuit packs to recover the gold.  Certainly the entire landscape of China has not been decimated, but around the five or six villages in the area where this is going on things are pretty bad.  I do not believe we can lay all the blame at the feet of the big, bad West full of consumers and not all the blame can be laid at the feet of the Chinese - there is enough for both!

I am sure that most people do not know that a large proportion (and we can argue about percentages) of electronic stuff they honestly think is being recycled ends up in little villages as I describe above.  So certainly we cannot lay the blame here on the individual consumer.  If you want to talk about consumption itself, well that is another chapter. Certainly some blame can be given to Canada, the US and Europe as political entities that are breaking their own treaties by sending this stuff out of their individual countries.  Expediency and greed are alive and well.

But certainly this is not foisted on the Chinese, they want this stuff.  And it is they that chose to treat the material in such a cavalier fashion.  China is not some dirt poor African nation taking low level radioactive waste for cash because they are absolutely desperate. We are talking about one of the oldest civilizations in the world; with a revived, fast growing economy; a country with many well-trained scientists and engineers.  Again greed is alive and well there too.

So personally I thank BAN for making the film, even if it uses scare tactics.  I will certainly be asking my regional authorities how they plan to deal with electronic waste.  And I think the Chinese authorities need to wake up and think of the long term consequences and not just about the next buck.

Let the games begin.

Opinions are my own, not those of my employer, etc., etc.

And, Brian, this is about lead and I don't have time to subscribe to too many bulletin boards, so I have posted it here and not on your enviro site.  We can discuss it until Jack tells us to stop.  :)

Bev Christian



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