Quake3World

Electronic waste: we must design gadgets that don't poison the planet
We discard huge amounts of electronics every year, creating a toxic wasteland – often in the poorest countries

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Just wondering what your thoughts are here?

Me, well I hope to enjoy a few more years on this planet but you?
You will probably outlive me and what of our children/grandchildren?

Maybe global warning or a global virus won't be the end of mankind as we know it? Just maybe we will poison ourselves sooner

Discuss.

From under 10m tonnes of e-waste generated in 2000, it has now reached nearly 50m tonnes, with every sign that this will increase by 33% in the next five years. Britain will discard over 1.3m tonnes of electronics this year, much of which will be buried in landfill, incinerated or exported.

.... and I was worried about the plastics polluting our oceans

Yeah, it's one of the reasons why my next phone (which I'll receive in January) is going to be a Fairphone.

Fairphone is a Dutch organization that aims to do something about the unfairness surrounding the production of electronic devices. They specifically aim at phones because these days, especially phones are throwaway devices (we want a new one every 2 years, if not every year). The current batch of Fairphones is by no means fair yet, but it’s the first result of an ongoing process. They focus on the entire life cycle of the phone: from mining the required raw materials in countries like Congo all the way through production and an end-of-life plan.

They regularly write blog posts about the whole process, making it transparent to the world, showing where the problems lie, what they’re doing about it and, also important, what they’re not (yet) doing about it. There’s also a blog post specifically about e-waste here.

When I'm dead it won't matter any more...

ecosmart

unlimited potential to upcharge for nothing but pacifying promises

Yeah but if we didn't pollute the planet we wouldn't get the latest iPhone. Half this forum would jump off a bridge if that were so...

We really need to figure out how to mine other moons and planets but lol science...

In a previous occupation we went to extreme lengths for e-waste disposal. An example routine comes to mind.

Employees were not permitted to discard simple dry cell batteries into bins. When they needed replacements they came to me as the Chemical Coordinator and I gave them new ones on a one for one basis.

Batteries both old & new were kept under lock & key

Funniest part is, that when I had a quantity of dead batteries for disposal and that was about 2 pounds/a kilo I called a specialist chemical disposal company and we paid for them to take them away. It is called deniable responsibility - the contractor did it.

As we were in the central business district parking was at best difficult and I was sometimes seen on the footpath with a brown paper bag (sometimes an envelope) of dead batteries for disposal and handing over to a passing car.

Here in the Netherlands collection of old batteries is a public service, just like the collection of recyclable glass, paper, plastic and clothes. There's just bins everywhere that you can dispose those things into.

Growing up in Finland, some city buses had battery disposal bins. Finding anything similar in Canada is a challenge in itself, meaning lazy morons will just toss everything in the garbage.

Eraser wrote:Here in the Netherlands collection of old batteries is a public service, just like the collection of recyclable glass, paper, plastic and clothes. There's just bins everywhere that you can dispose those things into.

Fags...

I applaud well intended initiatives like this, but then quickly get cynical again.
Seems like such a futile, insignificant effort, when the main onslaught to the environment, overpopulation, dwarfs any other threat.

Yes, entirely.

I was reading somewhere the other day that one volcanic eruption spews out more greenhouse gases than all the savings we have made to date.
Perhaps an urban myth?
Searches.... ..

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort we have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time - EVERY DAY..

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Here's an article that refutes that.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.

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Your thoughts?

My thoughts?

Again =>

The main onslaught on the environment, overpopulation, dwarfs any other threat.

We are a virus on this small sphere