Our glorious EU, some years ago, "evolved" a plan to ensure that all electronic equipment would be recycled. This was called WEEE. As in little pigs.
The main reason for this cunning plan was because previously, electronic equipment, soldered together, was being landfilled. The lead in the solder leached out and poisoned the landfill.
So, simultaneously with WEEE, they introduced RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), so solder had to be made out of something other than lead. Now it is. Problem is, it doesn't stick properly like lead used to, so most electrical equipment now has a life of maybe 2-3 years, then it fails. And you can't landfill it, because of WEEE, even though RoHS says there's no "HS" in it.
That is the EU. This "legislation", produced by lawyers and environmentalists, is reported to have cost TRILLIONS (that's million of millions) Euros to enact and accomplish.
Here is the funny bit, though. Electronic components generally have metals in them. Many different kinds. They are mined, from the ground, or produced from ores found in the ground.
Metals are elements. Such as Silicon (for chips etc), Gallium (for LEDs), Tantalum (for capacitors), and so on. You can't make them, because nobody has yet invented the philosopher's stone, except for Harry Potter.
And they are going to run out ("no shit, Sherlock," I hear you cry).
Possibly as soon as 2012.
Teh Funneh. See the irony there?
4 comments:
Asteroid mining, you know it makes sense.
I hear that now the old electro kit goes to be mined as ore, although from what I see on TV, which never lies, that mostly means that African kids hit it with fuck off big hammers. YMMV
There's some Russian who already has dibs on mining the moon. :)
Ah yes.. The Eurocrat twatocracy striking gold whilst others get the shaft. No recession for them and their precious metal lined existences.
Pity about the overtaxed, over regulated and overlooked saps in the private sector that pay for their professional idiocy.
The current meltdown in the euro zone doesn’t affect them as their high plain bluesky clean green environment tick boxes protect them in fact insulate them from the shock wave of predicted folly on this and other grandiose plans.
There’s statistics, lies, damned lies and then there are the over eager public sector types telling us what is good for us and what is not.Though it does seem to have gone bit tits up in the euro zone and beyond.
There are too many people in gov depts with titles like innovation director, technology czar, change guru and other such guff. Most of who seem to have an absence of commercial experience aligned with an abundance of jargon filled edicts that in most cases seems to be shorthand for thinking up anything original.
The euro zone is a busted flush, a house of cards with a domino effect that is coming to topple economies near you soon.
Don’t listen to experts listen to people who own and run SME’s as they are the ones who will tell you what is actually happening.
WEEE are in for a bad economic time.
whizzo eureka
Firstly, Silicon is not a metal but a metaloid. Just being pedantic.
Secondly, its good that electronics are being recycled. There's money to make out it. Its surprising how much gold is in old kit. I've heard of a case where someone bought an old military super computer from Russia and made a profit after melting it down for its gold connections.
Thirdly, I think there will come a time when we will mine old landfills for the metals and other elements.
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