All those gadgets have to go somewhere when they're replaced, and the result is increasing contamination of groundwater, soil and air.
A recent Tracy Press article about free pickup of hazardous waste has locals concerned about an adjunct “hazard materials fee” (to be attached at some later date) by Tracy’s Delta Disposal.
The cathode ray tube is having a bad decade.
For years, it was the glow behind Tube-TV, the bulb that gave television screens and desktop monitors their rounded face.
Now it is being replaced by plasma, LCD and other technologies. And “the switch” is expected to accelerate in 2009, when the Federal Communication Commission requires all consumers to convert to digital televisions.
In turn, the environment is suffering the fallout.
The dumping of electronic waste is contaminating groundwater and polluting the air, combining the potential of endangering people in alarming numbers.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 2.6 million tons of e-waste are produced in the United States each year, or roughly 20 pounds per person.
Old TVs and computer monitors are particularly hazardous, because their contents contain lead, cadmium and other so-called heavy metals, which are carcinogenic.
EPA figures from 2005 show that nearly 90 percent of all e-waste — including camcorders, cell phones and iPods — is deposited within landfills or incinerators.
Toxic chemicals and metals then leech into the ground or disseminate skyward.
Coincidentally, the 10 percent that is eventually recycled — about 165,000 tons annually — gets exported to places like China and India, where impoverished workers pick apart motherboards and shattered screens in search of a chip of gold or a bit of copper.
Consumers looking to chuck their old devices have options:
Tracy Delta Disposal (as I understand it) will now pick up anything with a cathode ray tube at no cost to Tracy residents, and rural residents outside city limits may drop off, with no charge, all TVs, computers and cathode ray tube devices at the Tracy Material Recovery Transfer Station, 30703 S. MacArthur Drive.
For those who closely scrutinize their purchase agreements, there are options that allow many items made by Dell and Apple to be taken for recycling by the company, as long as the purchaser promises to buy a new Dell or Apple product.
Yet, even without lead-soaked cathode ray tubes, other worries are already arising.
The bulbs on the flat-panel HDTVs, for example, it turns out, contain mercury.
• Kurt L. Vosburg lives and works in rural Tracy.
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You and I are thinking on the same lines with this subject as well.
All to often that new technology to reduce our problems succeeds in creating another.
Such is the case with the tube you mention in the HDTVs coming out today. The reason is because it is mainly fluorescent and all florescent lamps, from the long tube everyone is familiar with to the CFL lamps we screw into the lamp socket, have a mercury component.
But in addition to mercury, the manufacturing processes used to create these devices also significantly contribute to the process.
I have long wanted to see a technical "cradle to grave" analysis of the "carbon footprint" and "hazardous waste footprint" on these types of devices, comparing them to the technology they replace.
For one is the incandescent bulb versus a CFL lamp of the same rating in a broad spectral output as derived by an incandescent bulb? I will admit CFLs use less energy than the incandescent bulb but do they really, considering the manufacturing and disposal process?
Even the same is true for LED lamps. Yes, they consume less energy when in use, but what is the total impact of their use when you consider what they are made of and how they are manufactured and disposed of.
Quick fixes are sometimes necessary in any system but they usually cost you more in the long run as you start to discover the negative side of the equation.
Good article and food for thought.
Dave Hardesty