The plastics in a mobile can last for hundreds of years in landfill. Every phone contains 0.25g of silver and 0.04g of gold. The 15 million phones upgraded every year in the UK contain a total of almost four tonnes of silver and 600kg of gold.
From http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has criticised IT manufacturers for doing too little to make components easy to recycle and re-use.
At the launch of a report entitled Greenpeace Electronics Survey 2007, the organisation also criticised companies for the continued use of toxic chemicals in their products. All of the products surveyed contained brominated flame retardants (BFRs), toxic chemicals which make components impossible to recycle.
"We're finding toxic BFRs in the blood of people working dismantling the products," said Zeina Alhajj, campaign co-ordinator for Greenpeace International. "Mountains of e-waste shipped and dumped in China is being dismantled piece by piece. Currently most products have built-in obsolescence."
Alhajj said many companies manufacturing desktops, notebooks, mobile phones and PDAs — including Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung and RIM — do not have a high level of recyclability in some products due to the use of BFRs in components, which in turn pushes up manufacturing costs.
"If there were no BFRs in products, companies could reuse copper and gold, and wouldn't have to buy it again," said Alhajj. "This type of manufacturing is heavily reliant on resources which are limited. Prices of resources are going up, so the bill is going up and up."
From http://news.zdnet.co.uk
From http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware
A mountain of e-waste at a Chinese recycling plant
At the launch of a report entitled Greenpeace Electronics Survey 2007, the organisation also criticised companies for the continued use of toxic chemicals in their products. All of the products surveyed contained brominated flame retardants (BFRs), toxic chemicals which make components impossible to recycle.
"We're finding toxic BFRs in the blood of people working dismantling the products," said Zeina Alhajj, campaign co-ordinator for Greenpeace International. "Mountains of e-waste shipped and dumped in China is being dismantled piece by piece. Currently most products have built-in obsolescence."
Alhajj said many companies manufacturing desktops, notebooks, mobile phones and PDAs — including Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung and RIM — do not have a high level of recyclability in some products due to the use of BFRs in components, which in turn pushes up manufacturing costs.
"If there were no BFRs in products, companies could reuse copper and gold, and wouldn't have to buy it again," said Alhajj. "This type of manufacturing is heavily reliant on resources which are limited. Prices of resources are going up, so the bill is going up and up."
From http://news.zdnet.co.uk
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