When the end really comes

[Pearl Louis]

On Monday 06 Jan 2003 9:30 pm, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Michael Still wrote:
> > On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, David Gibson wrote:
> > > So, is there anything I can do with the corpse, which doesn't involve
> > > throwing it, with whatever PCBs, heavy metals and other nasties it
> > > contains, straight into landfill?
> >
> > Foot stool. Garden ornament. Door stop.
>
> Local scrap metal merchant.

Unfortunately the main problem environmentally is the electronics not the 
case.  It contains all sorts of nasty things like mercury, chromium and 
brominated flame retardants (apparently scrap electronics has taken over 
batteries as the primary source of mercury in landfills).  If you send it off 
to a scrap metal merchant they are likely to recycle the metal case and then 
just throw the elecronics into the bin where it will end up as landfill 
anywhere therefore defeating the entire purpose of trying to be 
environmentally friendly...Incineration also doesn't work well on electronics 
as there are hazardous materials in the plastics that get released in 
incineration unless one is very very careful about how you go about doing it.  
And if was a CRT monitor.  That's so full of hazardous material (isn't about 
a 1/4 of its weight lead?) if I was a scrap metal merchant it wouldn't even 
bother even trying to extract any metal from it and just throw it into the 
nearest bin.

Pearl

>
> > My favourite is: grab the powersupply out of it, and use it for opening
> > those CD ROM drives you always forget to empty before unplugging.
>
> I find there is usually a small hole that accepts a straightened
> paperclip.
>
> > Technical aid for the disabled might also be able to help you.
> >
> > Mikal