 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group ComputerAid and the Landfill Menace Ray Beatty raybea@melbpc.org.au |
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ComputerAid has shone the light, for Melb PC members, on the problem of computer waste. Even working at ten times the rate we have currently achieved; even shipping computers to Africa and Asia by the container load, we cannot hope to make a scratch on the surface of this growing problem. Take a look at the facts:
If Australia does nothing in the next 10 years to recycle, reuse or dispose of its redundant computers, 1.7 million cubic metres of obsolete computers will need to be stockpiled or buried.
To put that into context, it would be enough computers to cover an area 35 kilometres in diameter - that's from the Bolte Bridge to Hoddle Street, and from Brunswick Road in the north to the West Gate Freeway in the south. All buried under computers, one metre deep.
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These statistics are a calculation of what will happen if we continue to
have no plan to deal with obsolete modern technology such as computers and mobile phones - added to the fact
that most Australians are reticent to dispose of something for which they paid a lot of money only a few
years ago. (Those garden sheds are going to start to bulge.)
People will stack them thinking that some day someone will come along and offer them a few hundred dollars.
Of course that day will never come and in fact, "What will happen is that eventually people will have a
spring clean and just throw them out with the rest of the garbage", said Christine Wardle, Principal
Environmental Engineer at Meinhardt Australia.
The problem is that computers contain materials that most waste disposal sites have not been designed to
accommodate. Lead, zinc, nickel, cadmium, mercury. Even worse are computer monitors because they contain
soluble lead which can leach into the soil and into waterways.
Meinhardt has investigated the problem and has produced a report, Computer & Peripherals Material
Project for Environment Australia. It recommends a wide-ranging approach from manufacturers, businesses
and consumers into reusing and recycling computers.
The report estimates that 900,000 computers were dumped in landfill in Australia last year. Yet that makes
up just 3.5 per cent of how Australians currently dispose of their computers. The report says that 69 per
cent are stockpiled, 26 per cent reused and just 1.5 per cent recycled.
Of course, Australia is a minnow of the computer market. We make up just 1.9 per cent of worldwide
consumption, so if you think we have problems, take a look at the rest of the world.
There is no easy solution to this crisis. At the moment there's no money in recycling computers in Australia
- at best it's marginal. In theory everything in a computer can be recycled. What makes it difficult is that
there are so many different materials used in making a computer that isolating them to recycle is a major
problem.
For example, plastic. Today's computers use about four different types of plastics; older models use many
more. To compound the problem, none of the plastics in a computer are labelled. How is a factory worker
supposed to identify different plastics? To improve the situation, manufacturers are now looking at labelling
all components, so when they are recycled they can be identified.
One of the headaches facing ComputerAid is reuse of software. We saw the crushing effect of legal action by
the world's richest company on little PC for Kids in Geelong a few months ago. Until things are
clarified, we are avoiding the problem by loading shareware like Linux and Star Office, from publishers who
are anxious to see their product widely used.
Christine Wardle's report recommends that the whole product life cycle of computers be reviewed
including
- designing computers using more environmentally friendly materials and
- having recycling options that make it easy for business and individuals to better utilise obsolete equipment.
Reprinted from the June 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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