Vista's waste problem

Brad Plumer at The New Republic Online writes [free reg. required, or go here] about an unintended effect of Vista's launch: The 10 million un-upgradeable computers that will be discarded and converted into pure POISON.

...A recent survey by Softchoice Corporation found that only half of all business computers in North America meet the minimum requirements for Microsoft's new operating system. Many of those machines can be upgraded, true, but many will just get replaced entirely. In the United Kingdom, analysts estimate that only about 5 percent of household PCs are capable of enjoying the "full Vista experience"--whatever that entails--and so more than 10 million computers will be tossed out in the next two years alone...
 
...About half of all discarded computers (and a large number of "recycled" machines) simply get shipped off to developing countries like China, India, and Nigeria, where salvagers and scavengers use appalling means to "process" the waste--burning lead-tin circuit boards, dipping parts in acid to retrieve gold, and pouring out the resultant sludge into rivers and streams. Since the regulations for treating waste over there aren't exactly cutting edge, toxic materials like lead, cadmium, and mercury get dumped into the environment in alarming qualities, leading to a rash of health problems.

The rest of the story goes off into the kind of specifics only a Green Wombat could love.

I have to say I find the premise dubious. Not the fact that electronic waste can be harmful, but the idea that Vista would provoke a sudden landslide of it. The article doesn't give any baseline for the number of computers discarded each year to compare with the unnamed UK analysts's figure of 10 million over the next two years, so I hit the Google. I found this 2005 TechSoup article claiming that the US alone discards 48.5 million computers a year. And Microsoft themselves said that 118 million computers were "decommisioned" in 2004. I can't be sure if I'm comparing apples to apples, but an extra 5 million a year (even assuming that Vista-related trashings are above and beyond the normal count, which is  doubtful) is looking like the proverbial drop in the bucket.

If anyone out there can set me straight on the actual numbers, and is aware of this UK analyst study, I would appreciate it. Until then, I'll just point you toward the article's menu-bar headline: "How Microsoft Vista could destroy the planet." I wouldn't be surprised if it did, but if so, I bet it will be more of a WOPR or SkyNet kind of deal.

Comments

[lenny]

i think that since we are throwing half of our waste in those countries we should at least make recycling plants there. kind of like how we have Electronic Recyclers
here we should make one there too.

[karen]

that is a very good idea, ive heard of a CRT crushing system which is Utilization of the most technologically advanced CRT crushing system in the recycling business, which is capable of crushing a CRT every 3 to 5 seconds. something like this would be very helpful if electronic recyclers built one in one of the developing countries.