The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says 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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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says
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.
Piles of circuit boards, not exactly
bio-degradable
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A study says making the average PC requires 10
times the weight of the product in chemicals and
fossil fuels.
Many of the chemicals are toxic, while the use of
fossil fuels help contribute to global warming
And the short lifetime of todays IT equipment
leads to mountains of waste, the UN University
report says. As computers become smaller and
more energy-efficient, their environmental burden
might be expected to decrease - but the study
suggests that the opposite is happening.
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It found that manufacturing a 24kg PC with
monitor needs at least 240kg of fossil fuels to
provide the energy, and 22kg of chemicals. Add to
that, 1.5 tonnes of water, and your desktop
system has used up the weight of a sports utility
vehicle in materials before it even leaves the
factory.
Compare this with cars or refrigerators, which
use only between one and two times their weight
in fossil fuels, and it is clear that making more
than 130 million computers worldwide has a
significant impact. - BBC lthttp//news.bbc.co.uk/2
/hi/technology/3541623.stmgt
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A typical hardware refresh period for Microsoft
Windows is 3-4 years. A major UK manufacturing
organisation quotes its hardware refresh period
for Linux systems as 6-8 years. A significant
differencea doubling even, of the lifetime of a
computer.
computer dump in beautiful Asia
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PCB solder contains Pb
CRTs contain lots of Hg
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China is plagued by E-waste
A mountain of keyboards
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A widespread switch to Linux could prevent
millions of tons of waste from going into
landfills. Every computer not needed would
prevent the use of 240 kg of fossil fuels. Spread
that out over the 17.5 million computers that
wouldnt be going obsolete every year and Linux
could deliver the world a much more sustainable
future.
The good news is, the world looks like its
increasingly ready to upgrade from Windows. Most
of Asia has switched, as least in part, to Open
Source Software (OSS) Cuba has reported a 500
percent increase in Linux installation in two
years.. Big Blue is giving a specific tutorial
to switch from Windows to Linux, and two out of
three Dell customers are now demanding that The
Bird be pre-installed.
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Many versions of Linux will run on a Pentium 1
with 128MB of RAM, while Slackware can run on a
486. Its also generally free, and available for
download, so theres no packaging or shipping
associated. Linux, it turns out, is far and away
the most green way to run your home computer
system. And, these days, its as simple, as
usable, and almost as pretty, as OSX or Vista
anyhow. - Ecogeek lthttp//www.ecogeek.org/content/
view/459/index.htmlgt
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Bill Gates in 1984, back in the days when an OS
would fit on two of those low-capacity disks
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Q1 Where does all this E-waste get recycled?
Q2 How many tonnes of waste could the US
potentially export to China?
Q3 How does just moving this waste add to the
Greenhouse Effect?
?
Q
Q4. List some of the materials recycled.
Q5 List some of the toxic products in a PC. Why
are they toxic?
Q6 Explain why supporting OPEN less demanding
operating systems are better for the environment