Recycle your computer

When new software or a new PC model hits the market, the urge to upgrade is palpable. Estimates suggest that most PC owners upgrade to a new computer within three to four years, hardly considering the fact that the old PC has as much computing power as before, and is far away from its end of life.

Estimates also show that manufacturing one PC requires about 240 kg fossil fuels, 1.8 tonnes of materials, 22 kg chemicals and about 1,500 liters of water. That’s one of the most environmental-resource-intensive production processes.

What’s more, disposing of a computer, without causing harm to the environment or to those involved in the disposal process, is a very expensive job. A computer is made of several precious metals and chemicals. Many of its components contain toxic substances and carcinogens, such as cadmium, lead, chromium, flame-retardants and mercury. Unsafe methods of disposing of computer components include landfills, burning to extract metals such as copper from printed circuit boards, or breaking and throwing components such as CRT monitors. In all these methods, toxins are released into the air, soil, and groundwater.

Considering the cost to the environment of both producing and disposing of computers, it makes complete sense to use each computer to its optimum, and to think of destroying it only when it is really useless.

A great way to do this is to encourage reuse and to put in place recycling processes for safe and effective disposal of e-waste. In parallel, production processes need to be redesigned to reduce environmental costs.

Several Western countries export their e-waste to countries in Asia, because the labor and cost of recycling is lower. Though this is a profitable activity and there are several licensed companies that recycle computers and their components; there are also many other companies who are not authorized, and which subject their workers to very hazardous environments while recycling computer parts.

Many leading computer-manufacturing firms accept all parts of PCs for recycling at a much lower cost. Countries like China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan have taken the responsibility to recover and recycle e-waste. India, however, lags far behind in this area.

To reduce the environmental cost of computers, they should be recycled only when there is no further use for them. Computers that are displaced due to upgrades often have more than enough computing power and can be used for several years. Such PCs can be donated to government-aided schools or institutions, to help impart computer skills and IT literacy to students, who wouldn’t be able to learn it otherwise. Such initiatives require the support of people and corporates, without which the problem of e-waste cannot be solved.

MSN