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1.0 What is this all about?·What to do with that old PC
·How big a problem is this, really?
·What's really in my PC?
| | | It's fairly well-known that there are substantial amounts of lead and other non-environmentally friendly products in computers and monitors. How do you safely dispose of old computers and other related equipment? Sure, the dump will take it, but that isn't exactly a real good idea. (Massachusetts recently made it illegal to get rid of computer monitors and televisions sets in landfills or incinerators.)
According to a 1999 report published by the National Safety Council’s Environmental Health Center, by the year 2004, there will be 315 million obsolete computers in this country. That means someone is going to have to find a way to deal with the 1.2 billion pounds of lead (your monitor contains somewhere between 4 and 8 pounds of lead), 2 million pounds of cadmium, and 400,000 of mercury, not to mention the more than 1 billion pounds of plastic that are contained in more than 300 million computers.
These days there are two ways to get rid of that old PC — you can donate it or recycle it.
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by KeysCapt  | | | Lead can cause brain damage in children and can damage our kidneys and central nervous system. Lead can enter our drinking water by leaching from landfills, contaminating the clothes of workers at improperly regulated recycling plants, or reach our homes from crushing CRTs in landfill. Significant amounts of lead ions are dissolved from broken lead containing glass, such as the cone glass of cathode ray tubes, when mixed with acid waters that commonly occur in landfills.
About 70% of the heavy metals (including mercury and cadmium) found in landfills come from electronic equipment discards. These heavy metals and other hazardous substances found in electronics can contaminate groundwater and pose other environmental and public health risks.
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by KeysCapt | | | This image speaks for itself:
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