Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hi there, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polett. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor here at How Stuff Works. Sitting next to me,
Speaker 1: as always is senior writer Jonathan Stricklands. How do you, folks?
Speaker 1: And Uh, we'd we'd like you to stay with us.
Speaker 1: We we hate for you to leave, because that would
Speaker 1: be a waste. Uh. One of your infamous segues already
Speaker 1: transitions intros and and one of my classier ones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is a rough topic we're about
Speaker 1: to talk about. We're gonna talk about electronic waste today,
Speaker 1: which is a very serious issue. Um, and it's more
Speaker 1: serious now, I guess than ever before because just when
Speaker 1: you think about how how the electronics industry kind of works.
Speaker 1: If you've bought a computer in the last five years,
Speaker 1: then you know this already. As soon as you get
Speaker 1: at home and you hook it up, you find out
Speaker 1: your computer is obsolete. And the commercials on computers and
Speaker 1: seem to indicate that you know, you're a complete loser
Speaker 1: unless you go out and buy the next great computer. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you do with your old computer? You know,
Speaker 1: even if you resist that urge and you wait a
Speaker 1: year or two, eventually you're gonna build buy a new machine.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're probably not just gonna keep upgrading your
Speaker 1: old one, because eventually you will get to a point
Speaker 1: where you can't you can't go any further with the
Speaker 1: equipment you have, and you want to stay current, especially
Speaker 1: if you're an early adopter. Um, so you go out
Speaker 1: and you you buy a new machine, But what do
Speaker 1: you do with the old one? And? Uh, this is
Speaker 1: becoming a really important question because that turns out there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in these machines that we should
Speaker 1: not allow to get into the environment because they're very,
Speaker 1: very hazardous both to humans and to to other animals
Speaker 1: and to two while you know, just plants and uh,
Speaker 1: water supplies. I mean, it's it's serious stuff. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about some of those are Writer Jessica
Speaker 1: Toothman did an article called how e Waste Works, and
Speaker 1: in it she says that these things are all to
Speaker 1: be found in electronic waste. You already we got lead,
Speaker 1: we got lead, mercury, arsenic cadmium, copper, beryllium, barium, chromium, nickel, zinc, silver,
Speaker 1: and gold, and uh, you know a lot of those things,
Speaker 1: especially things like lead and mercury, are definitely not something
Speaker 1: you want in the even cadmium, yeah, you don't want.
Speaker 1: And none of those is particularly good for you. You know,
Speaker 1: there are some that are worse than others. And of course,
Speaker 1: if you go older electronics, you know, pre you know,
Speaker 1: the mid seventies or so have PCBs worry about that
Speaker 1: serious stuff too. I Now, granted you don't find that
Speaker 1: in electronics nowadays because of their their actual regulations against it.
Speaker 1: But these are all chemicals and toxins that can be
Speaker 1: very hazardous and they're in your tronics now. While they're
Speaker 1: in your electronics, they're they're pretty much inert. You don't
Speaker 1: really need to worry about lead sneaking out of your
Speaker 1: laptop and strangling you as you sleep, unless you're Stephen King,
Speaker 1: in which case I would probably be a pretty good book.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, uh, you know, you don't need
Speaker 1: to worry about that. But but when you throw things away, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, things get crushed, things get broken, Uh, stuff
Speaker 1: leaches out. I mean if it's if it's in an
Speaker 1: open environment, it's it's subject to the elements, so rain
Speaker 1: and can leach out harmful chemicals and a lot of
Speaker 1: these places, the landfills, they'll actually burn the waste, which
Speaker 1: makes the things that are in your computer are even
Speaker 1: more toxic and harmful. Yeah, now when we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about throwing stuff away, um, that that's probably let's go
Speaker 1: step number one. Don't just chunk in the trash when
Speaker 1: you're done with it, because that's exactly what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's gonna get churned up by by a giant crushing
Speaker 1: machine and uh, you know if they camp out, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly a furnace either way, right exactly. And and so
Speaker 1: that's you know sep Number one. You need to find
Speaker 1: someplace to recycle it, and a lot of computer manufacturers
Speaker 1: will take back there there merchandise or even computers from
Speaker 1: other people. Um. For example, my wife and I just
Speaker 1: got new iPods because hers was no longer functioning as
Speaker 1: it should and they offer Apple offers to take back
Speaker 1: the old iPods and will give you a discount um
Speaker 1: towards the new iPod, which is which is a nice thing.
Speaker 1: But the question is and you know this goes for
Speaker 1: all the manufacturers. Where does it go when they take
Speaker 1: it away? Are they actually getting recycled or are they
Speaker 1: getting dumped in a landfill? Right and and sixty minutes
Speaker 1: did a really good expose a on this issue recently, UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that the group of journalists
Speaker 1: did was they actually went all the way to China
Speaker 1: to go to a massive landfills supposed to be a
Speaker 1: recycling center, but it turned out to just be a
Speaker 1: gigantic landfill, and there was this enormous pile of electronics
Speaker 1: just smoldering. You can see the smoke rising from the pile.
Speaker 1: And this releases tons and tons of carcinogens into the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: which means all the people that work in and around
Speaker 1: that area are all at risk of of of getting
Speaker 1: cancer just for living near there because these chemicals are
Speaker 1: being released into the atmosphere. Yes, I was actually reading
Speaker 1: an article on grisp dot org, which is a very
Speaker 1: cool environmental site. UM. And from from what I understand
Speaker 1: a lot of times, what they'll do recycling outfits will
Speaker 1: pay villagers in countries in Africa and Asia, UM, and
Speaker 1: what they'll do to get the metals and things. They'll
Speaker 1: actually stick circuit boards over a fire or over a
Speaker 1: burner and try to get the metal smell. So that's
Speaker 1: releasing toxins into the air. Um. You know, they're probably
Speaker 1: touching some of that stuff with their hands, is leaching
Speaker 1: through their skin, you know, getting to the groundwater, and
Speaker 1: they're just sitting on vast heaps of this stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, as a matter of fact, that that sixty
Speaker 1: minutes are report that you were referencing a moment ago,
Speaker 1: they actually some of the people attacked the journalists who
Speaker 1: had come to from CBS to do the reports. It
Speaker 1: turned out that that some of the local businessmen who
Speaker 1: were in charge of this, uh, this landfill, had employed well,
Speaker 1: I guess there's really no other word for it other
Speaker 1: than gangsters to kind of act as muscle to keep
Speaker 1: people away from this landfill. They don't want the information
Speaker 1: getting out because this is a huge money maker for
Speaker 1: them and UM. As a result, the journalists were harassed
Speaker 1: and pushed and essentially told that if they didn't leave
Speaker 1: they were going to get beaten up. UM. And they
Speaker 1: were able to keep the camera that the gangsters did
Speaker 1: try to wrestle the camera away, but they the journalists
Speaker 1: got away with it. They did lose a soil sample.
Speaker 1: They had taken a soil sample to test and a
Speaker 1: laboratory later, but that was taken by the gangsters. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like serious business. And and here's
Speaker 1: the thing is that China can offer, like people in
Speaker 1: China can offer these these services, these so supposed recycling
Speaker 1: services for a much lower price than say a legitimate
Speaker 1: recycling center can because recycling is expensive. It's not it's
Speaker 1: not a really cheap efficient process. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: work that goes into recycling something safely, so it's less
Speaker 1: profitable for the person who has to recycle something. It's
Speaker 1: it's more expensive for them to do it. There's less
Speaker 1: of a profit margin there. So from a revenue perspective,
Speaker 1: it's more attractive to go with one of these shady
Speaker 1: recycling outfits because you're gonna save more money that way.
Speaker 1: But in the end, you really are just doing more
Speaker 1: harm than good. So more and more companies are trying
Speaker 1: to be more responsible about this. I mean, it's for
Speaker 1: one thing, it's good press. For another, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: I think genuinely have a desire to make sure they
Speaker 1: don't impact the environment in a harmful way. So I
Speaker 1: don't think it's just them saying, hey, we don't want
Speaker 1: this black mark on our records. We want to actually
Speaker 1: do the right thing. So you have more and more
Speaker 1: centers that are are taking these steps to make sure
Speaker 1: that the recycling has done in a responsible way. But
Speaker 1: it does mean a lot more work, that's true. And
Speaker 1: you might be asking where the federal government is coming
Speaker 1: in on this. The e P, a environmental protection agency
Speaker 1: that is UM, has been criticized for not doing enough UM. Recently,
Speaker 1: they came out with a document called Responsible Recycling Practices
Speaker 1: for Use in Accredited Certification Programs also known as are
Speaker 1: too for Responsible Recycling UM. It's pretty neat because it uh,
Speaker 1: it basically takes into account the workers health and safety, UM,
Speaker 1: the environmental environmental mobile practices like the abominable as it
Speaker 1: is exactly UM and basically it says, anybody who's disassembling
Speaker 1: or recycling used electronics, these are guidelines that they can follow.
Speaker 1: The key word in there is can. It's a voluntary practice.
Speaker 1: So UM, really there's nothing that uh. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: environmental groups UM are going to be more interested in
Speaker 1: a you know, restrictive piece of legislation, a set of guidelines. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are some things that you can do UM
Speaker 1: to reclaim this. I actually saw an article in the
Speaker 1: New York Times on on November twelve that was talking
Speaker 1: about a group in New England. And let's see the
Speaker 1: name of it is UM on one second, the name
Speaker 1: of it is E Scrap Destruction there in New York.
Speaker 1: And uh. The people who founded the company, father and
Speaker 1: son team, had actually been paper recyclers and they we're
Speaker 1: trying they were looking at the problem of e waste
Speaker 1: and what they do. They actually treat it like they
Speaker 1: would paper. Now, when you recycle paper, you shred it,
Speaker 1: destroy it, you know, break it down, uh, and then
Speaker 1: basically reform the paper. Well uh, for they're sort of
Speaker 1: taking our que from that because they had a giant
Speaker 1: shredder built. So they run the electronics through the shredder
Speaker 1: and then use you know, the stuff that comes out.
Speaker 1: And this you know, obviously, if you run a hard
Speaker 1: drive through a shredder, you're also completely uh destroying the
Speaker 1: hard drive to make it the data any data left
Speaker 1: on it's safe, it's nonrecoverable in that case exactly. So
Speaker 1: this this is an added benefit of this. But what
Speaker 1: they'll do is they'll take out they run magnets over it,
Speaker 1: and that pulls out anything that's ferriss um, and they
Speaker 1: send it to another organization that can pull out the
Speaker 1: bits of glass and other things. And they they separated
Speaker 1: out piece by piece, sort of like a single stream
Speaker 1: recycling go through and pick got all the copper and
Speaker 1: all the lead and all the glass which can be
Speaker 1: reused and recent and their their policy is that nothing
Speaker 1: goes into a landfill. Everything is reclaimed, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty neat way. This is the first time I've actually
Speaker 1: seen anybody do this, so, um, it's pretty awesome stuff.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. And and so if you are looking at
Speaker 1: recycling some of your electronic devices and whether that be
Speaker 1: you know, a computer or a handheld device, a phone,
Speaker 1: cellular phone, something like that, make sure you do a
Speaker 1: little research into the various recycling programs that are that
Speaker 1: are available to you, and uh and make sure that
Speaker 1: it's going to the right place, because I mean, what's
Speaker 1: the point otherwise you can just toss it out if
Speaker 1: if it's gonna end up in a landfill anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: do a little legwork. See if you can find any
Speaker 1: reports on on how, um, how the recycling center handles
Speaker 1: its materials. Uh. And of course the other option is
Speaker 1: always to try and find a way to reuse whatever
Speaker 1: it is that that you have that's become obsolete. Some
Speaker 1: people convert old computers into a really you know, cheap
Speaker 1: server or just a storage device, so they keep it
Speaker 1: in use. They're just not using it as their primary
Speaker 1: machine anymore. That's true. UM. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: my my wife's aforementioned iPod, the screen went bad, but
Speaker 1: it still works great as a as a portable hard drive,
Speaker 1: So you know, you strip the music off of it
Speaker 1: and it's it's still functions as a hard drive. You
Speaker 1: just can't see. You can't use as a nipod anymore
Speaker 1: because you can't see the information on the screen. UM.
Speaker 1: And uh, Honestly, what what Jonathan is saying to UM,
Speaker 1: I think is that consider what you're doing with it.
Speaker 1: If you can make your computer or your electronics last
Speaker 1: a little bit longer, um, that's also helping keep it
Speaker 1: out of the out of the landfill. So if you
Speaker 1: can reuse it in some other way or you know,
Speaker 1: a simple upgrade, then you're you know, changing one board
Speaker 1: instead of the entire machine. Right, you could even be
Speaker 1: a hand me down, you know, you could. You could
Speaker 1: instead of just throwing away your computer, if someone else
Speaker 1: needs it, you could always donate it to them. Um,
Speaker 1: and make sure you wipe off any information on that
Speaker 1: computer before you give it to anyone else. I just recently,
Speaker 1: for instance, as a personal example, I purchased a used
Speaker 1: Xbox to have a second Xbox at home. Don't judge me,
Speaker 1: and uh, I needed a second Xbox, and I did,
Speaker 1: and I got home and I plugged it in to
Speaker 1: make sure it worked, and it was working just fine,
Speaker 1: and I thought, hey, you know what I should do.
Speaker 1: I should check and see if whomever owned this before
Speaker 1: me had an Xbox Live account and see if their
Speaker 1: information is still on here, because that would be irresponsible
Speaker 1: of them to do that, and I should, as a
Speaker 1: responsible person, deleted if that's the case. Sure enough, there was,
Speaker 1: there was all this information on there. There was an
Speaker 1: account information I could have possibly activated that account through
Speaker 1: the Xbox Live and and the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: I've got free Xbox Live. Until the some realizes they're
Speaker 1: being charged for something that they're not using. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely wipe your information before you whether you're going to
Speaker 1: recycle it, throw it away, give it to someone, wipe
Speaker 1: your information first. You don't want that getting in the
Speaker 1: hands of somebody. And and don't throw it away. Recycle
Speaker 1: it or give it away, but don't throw it away.
Speaker 1: But and you know, I'm looking at using an old
Speaker 1: computer that I have as a possible media PC now, um,
Speaker 1: mainly as a storage device because I've got an old
Speaker 1: CPU just sitting around not doing anything. And uh, I thought, well, hey,
Speaker 1: you know that would be a good way to to
Speaker 1: put to you. So since we had our little podcast
Speaker 1: about media centers, I thought, hey, why why am I
Speaker 1: not doing this? So I may actually do that. You
Speaker 1: got inspired, did you? All right? Well? Um, oh, we
Speaker 1: were going to mention one other update. We did talk
Speaker 1: in a previous podcast about a pretty nasty material that
Speaker 1: is found in things like plasmid displays and solar panels,
Speaker 1: even to produce the panels. Correct, Yeah, you're talking about
Speaker 1: nitrogen trifluoride. Yes, our old friend nitrogen trifluoride. That now,
Speaker 1: if you recall, if you listen to that podcast, we
Speaker 1: mentioned that nitrogen trifluoride is seventeen thousand times more powerful
Speaker 1: at holding in heat than carbon dioxide and the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere and that. But but because for the
Speaker 1: longest time, most people thought there wasn't really that much
Speaker 1: of it in the atmosphere at all. No one really
Speaker 1: thought about it in terms of global warming. They just
Speaker 1: thought it was it wasn't a player in the global
Speaker 1: warming scheme of things. Um, But it turns out that
Speaker 1: there is some in the atmosphere. And recently Fox News
Speaker 1: broke a story that there's more than we thought, four
Speaker 1: times more of it in the atmosphere than we thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so four times the amount of what of a gas
Speaker 1: that is seventeen thousand times more harmful than carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: from a global warming perspective. So that's another good reason
Speaker 1: to make sure that you find a way to recycle
Speaker 1: your electronics. Also, it just means that manufacturers have to
Speaker 1: be careful and try and find different ways to produce
Speaker 1: these electronics without creating these toxic materials in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Do you have anything else said
Speaker 1: for this wonderful topic? I am too. Well, if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more, you can read how e ways
Speaker 1: works at how stuff works dot com. That's live right now,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you again soon For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
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