Wasted Lives

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• Waste(d) Lives

Dr Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt Fellow, Resource
Management in Asia Pacific Program The Australian
National University
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Some numbers

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five
  computers. Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM,1943
• and the rest is history
• Number of computers disposed in 2005 100 million
• Number of computers land filled in 2005 70
  million
• Number of personal computers purchased in 2005 gt
  1 billion
• Of 2 billion PCs in 2015, according to a
  researcher, 775 million will be in Russia, China,
  India and Brazil.
• Sources Griffith University IT Newsletter 2006
  Science Portal

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Computers who uses where
Data 2006
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India launches its first cheap PC (lt200 in 2005)
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The result .

• In 2007, number of PCs in China and India was
• China 120 million
• India 50 million
• and growing exponentially

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However, . In China

• Hewlett-Packard Co. has begun recycling PCs and
  other products for Chinese consumers and small
  businesses, expanding a free program that already
  existed for large companies.
• "We've offered recycling to corporate and
  enterprise customers in China for many years, and
  now we're extending this to consumers and small
  businesses in response to customer demand," said
  a spokesman of HP
• Source PCWorld 2007

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And in India, .

• Our hardware recycling standards require our
  vendors to reuse, recover or recycle materials
  and components where practical. We require
  vendors to store and process materials to prevent
  releases to the environment and prohibit the
  exportation of materials without our approval.
  Vendors must account for materials processed, and
  allows HP or our designee to perform assessments
  to verify compliance with our standards.
• HP India 2007

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Outside of corporate spin .

• Toxic Links, "although hard numbers are difficult
  to come by since most of the imports are
  illegal," close to 40,000 tons of used electronic
  equipments are dumped in India every month, much
  of which, according to Greenpeace International,
  end up contaminating the country's environment
  with toxic organic compounds and metals. Indeed
  imports of obsolete electronic equipment that
  have been discarded for recycling in the
  "developed world" (read the US and Europe) have
  become a lucrative business in developing
  countries like India. But the problem is that
  with authorities paying no heed to the influx of
  tons of toxic e-waste along with lax local laws,
  India is also turning into a deadly dumping
  ground that is threatening to be catastrophic
  over the next few years if left unaddressed.
• Physorg.com, 2006

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No-waste? One form of recycling
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Recycling redefines waste
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Waste(d) lives