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By Terence Chea
Associated Press
March 5, 2006
ROSEVILLE -
This is where computers go to die a green death.
Inside the Hewlett-Packard Co.'s cavernous recycling plant in
the Sacramento suburbs, truckloads of obsolete PCs, servers
and printers collected from consumers and businesses
nationwide are cracked open by goggled workers who pull out
batteries, circuit boards and other potentially hazardous
components.
The electronic carcasses are fed into a massive machine that
noisily shreds them into tiny pieces and mechanically sorts
the fragments into piles of steel, aluminum, plastic and
precious metals.
Those scraps are sent to smelting plants, mostly in the
Sacramento area, where they are melted down for reuse.
The computer industry is ramping up its campaign against
electronic waste, a dangerous byproduct of technology's
relentless expansion. HP and Dell Inc., which together sell
more than half the country's PCs, are earning praise from
environmentalists for using more eco-friendly components and
recycling their products when consumers discard them.
"The computer companies are definitely embracing the idea
that they need to deal with their products at the end of their
useful life," said Barbara Kyle, who coordinates the San
Francisco-based nonprofit Computer TakeBack Campaign.
"There's been a complete turnaround."
But activists say far too much of the nation's electronic
garbage - not only PCs but also TVs, radios, batteries and
other materials - still ends up in landfills or gets shipped
overseas to poor countries, where it pollutes the environment
and exposes workers to dangerous chemicals.
"The United States is not responsibly managing this waste
stream," said Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action
Network, a Seattle-based group that seeks to stop the spread
of hazardous waste. "We're allowing it to go offshore and
poison developing countries."
The push to recycle reflects a broader greening of the tech
industry.
In addition to recycling and eliminating toxic chemicals, more
companies are making their products energy efficient, using
eco-friendly packaging and offsetting their carbon emissions
to curb global warming.
"This focus is good for business," said Carl Claunch,
a computer industry analyst at the technology research company
Gartner Inc. "There's a growing pool of customers who
value environmentally friendly products."
Still, e-waste is a growing environmental and public health
concern as the world becomes more wired and companies
introduce new products at a faster pace. Discarded computers,
televisions, radios, batteries, cell phones, cameras and other
gadgets contain a stew of toxic metals and chemicals such as
lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, brominated flame retardants
and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that
American consumers generated nearly 2 million tons of
electronic waste in 2005. Gartner estimates that 133,000 PCs
are discarded by U.S. homes and businesses each day.
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