In 2008, seven million PCs will be available for recycling. Of those, just 500,000 will be recycled, 1.6 million will be sent to landfill, and the remaining 5.4 million PCs will collect dust in garages. ZDNet Australia asks why Australians treat old PCs like last night's leftovers by covering, storing and deferring the purge until the item's value flatlines.
Digital relics die hard: 5.5 million waste away in garages
Credit: Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia
2007 should have been the year Australians seriously set about recycling their old PCs -- initiatives such as Sustainability Victoria's Byteback program were established, offering Melbournians free PC pickup and recycling, while state governments across the country imposed recycling clauses in procurement contracts.
2007 should have been the year -- yet over five million of them rest in the hidden wasteland of Australian garages, leaving PC-recycling businesses lacking PCs to recycle.
Recycling outfits such as MRI -- the company Dell uses to fulfil its promise to take back and recycle its end of life PCs -- remain supply-constrained, according to its managing director, William Le Messurier.
The supply problem could be solved if the five million PCs stored in garages around the country were sent or sold to recyclers, Le Messurier told ZDNet Australia.
Yet, if Australia suddenly woke up from its "store, defer and dump" slumber, the country would still lack the processing capacity to handle both the volume of PCs and certain types of toxic materials they contain.
"If we were able to access that, our industry would be flooded. It's scary," Le Messurier said.
Le Messurier gets AU$1,000 per tonne for circuit boards.
Credit: Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia
"Putting a PC in storage is holding you back from getting more utility out of the product from its useful life. Storage is not really a good option, because it devalues the item and as time goes by it becomes less and less useful," he said.
The hoarding complex
So why do Australians keep hoarding PCs? Do we have a hoarding complex? Does the same mentality that causes people to wrap tonight's leftovers in plastic and wait until it expires in the fridge before binning it, cause them to cling to a PC until its value flatlines?
Francine Garlin, a marketing lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney who specialises in consumer psychology, said hoarding can be addressed if people understand the impact of their consumption and disposal choices.
Mounting e-waste pressures
According to Environment Australia, between the years 1980 and 2011 Australians will have purchased 45 million PCs. Over that time 5.5 million will be stored and 7 million computers will have been recycled.
But the majority, 24 million PCs in total, will end up in landfill, representing 2.2 million cubic metres of waste -- enough to fill 1,000 Olympic swimming pools -- some of which is toxic and 30 percent of which is plastic.
In 1984 622,000 new PCs were purchased, with just 500,000 becoming obsolete in that year. But in 2011, 2.29 million PCs will be purchased while 2.25 million PCs become obsolete.
"I think there could be a lack of awareness on the consumers' part -- about how they can recycle and why they should recycle PCs," said Garlin.
"Australia has tended to be reasonably good at recycling but the issue of government intervention is going to become more significant if we're going to be moving more quickly towards the goals we're trying to achieve as a society," said Garlin.
Garlin is optimistic recycling rates can be improved -- even in the absence of economic incentives.
"There's a growing awareness of exactly what PCs being dumped means in terms of the environment. We know that there is a lot of toxic material in PCs that are not good for the environment," she said.
PC manufacturers, following the example of some Scandinavian car makers, must take responsibility for the disposal of their brands, argues Garlin.
"[Manufacturers] need to be innovative in the way they address the issue of disposal. This includes looking at also ways in which they try and promote this as a benefit to the consumer as well. That's only going to be a benefit if they tap into consumer's motivations," she said.
To an extent, this form of "product stewardship", whereby a manufacturer takes responsibility for their products through better design and disposal, has occurred in Australia via Victoria's Byteback program. HP, FujiXerox, IBM, Fujitsu, Epson, Dell, Canon, Apple, Lexmark and Lenovo contribute to it by funding the recycling of their own products under the program.
Can Australia salvage the wreck? See page 2.
I have lots - and they all work - and are doing things in my network - from an ancient 2650 system, through a Z80, 8080 (v20 version) 286, 386, DX4/100 - all just pottering away doing their tasks - reliably - in dos and linux.
I dont need to follow the endless upgrade path - these do what I want, when I want.
Sure - one day they will fail - but some have been running flawlessly now for 25 years - so I suspect they will out see my life.
When that happens - I will be happy to will them to the recyclers.