
The e-waste mountains – in pictures - endswapper
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2016/oct/18/the-e-waste-reduce-waste-old-technology-mountains-in-pictures
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staticelf
This is fucking crazy and why the world should really switch economic systems
asap. Why do I have to buy new shit if 1 thing gets broke? Repairs should be
the standard.

Why are all phones bought as one piece? Laptops? I want to have the components
as modules that is easy to switch or upgrade.

The problem with this in our economic system is that it's not rewarded and
actually not feasible due to lack of profit. More stuff like the fairphone
([https://shop.fairphone.com/en/](https://shop.fairphone.com/en/)) please.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
It may be six of one, half dozen of the other, but the important issue isn't
rewarding repairable and durable goods. It's that we need to penalize
externalizing costs. The electronics, energy, and meat industries come to mind
first.

I could get behind modular phones if they weren't 50% bigger than an
integrated alternative and more expensive.

~~~
weavie
I guess every one is different. I would happily take a 100% size increase if
it meant I could upgrade and fix it myself.

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grownseed
Perhaps we could start by penalizing companies like HP that actively
participate to this waste by producing stuff like their shitty disposable
printers (where buying new cartridges can cost more than buying a whole new
printer). Likewise, we could also penalize phone providers who keep pushing
new phones on people for absolutely no good reason (other than to line their
pockets). Or maybe, and I know this is some kind of wild idea, we could
require manufacturers to make interoperable parts that can actually be changed
and switched between devices, regardless of brand. I don't know...

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nsxwolf
These pictures don't do anything to indicate the scale of the problem. I could
probably fit all of that junk in my house (from floor to ceiling)

How about some comparisons? Would the total pile of e-waste be Mt. Everest
size, etc?

~~~
danso
My thought exactly. I know that in a photo essay of things like a massive
California wildfire, it's important to include people-level shots, but unless
I'm missing a Next Page button, all of these photos are taken at such a
limited perspective that they could originate from any small town municipal
dump. When I read the headline, I expected to see mountains and mountains of
e-waste, with the affected residents looking like mere ants among the heaps.

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gshakir
The manufacturers should add in the cost of recycling and also process
recycling themselves as part of the product lifecycle. Not an easy thing to
implement.

~~~
adrianN
Shipping to third world countries and letting the local "recycling" companies
handle the dirty work is the way these regulations are currently complied
with.

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endswapper
First, e-waste is not a "problem" it is a reality.

Second, electronics manufacturers create, operate and pay for sophisticated
e-waste recycling programs. These programs are built in to their business
models and they are not externalized.

Processes depend on the waste stream, but generally speaking waste is
collected, disassembled, processed and separated then processed again in to
raw materials. The program includes audits that ensure the materials go in to
new products or raw materials rather than being landfilled.

E-waste is a resource that deserves proper stewardship.

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gravypod
I wish there was a way to sign up and say "I'll take your crap" for everything
electronic.

I just pick stuff up when I find it but it's pretty hard. If people could just
say "I'm throwing out a powersupply" I'd head over and pick it up.

Just pulling caps out of that and selling them at hamfests could make you some
nice pocket change.

~~~
cdubzzz
So you've got the caps taken care of. What about the remaining parts of the
power supply? Say you do sign up and get 1,000 power supplies. What do you do
with them?

~~~
gravypod
Sell them for parts, sell them as working-refurbished, or build bench-top
power supplies with them and sell those to hobbyists on the cheap?

Also I don't need to take all of them and I'm surely not the only one
interested. If 500 people take and use 2, that's all of the 1k saved.

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snake_plissken
What's the feasibility of something like an arc furnace mixed with a fractal
distillation tower mixed with a co-generation facility? You could throw all of
the e-junk inside. The arc furnace would melt everything down, the metals
would be separated via density differences, and then you use the excess heat
to generate steam. For the plastics and PCB boards, which I imagine would all
turn to gaseous forms, you could route the gas somewhere and precipitate out
the various components.

~~~
1123335644546
Wow!

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runeb
Chrome will not let me visit theguardian.com due to broken HTTPS
(net::ERR_CERT_REVOKED)[1]. Anyone else seeing this?

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/i3bvo](http://imgur.com/a/i3bvo)

~~~
pi-rat
Same problem, and I've been having the same issue with other sites. It's the
after effects of Global Signs major screw up a couple of days ago [1]. They
managed to revoke one of their own cross-signing certificates by mistake.
We'll be seeing problems like this for a few more days until cache clears.

[1]
[https://downloads.globalsign.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLanding...](https://downloads.globalsign.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/2674/p/p-008f/t/page/fm/0)

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knightofmars
[http://thegeekchurch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/Futurama...](http://thegeekchurch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/Futurama-clip.png)

