Can greener gadgets save us from e-waste?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=can-greener-gadgets-save-us-from-e-2010-02-28

Feb 28, 2010 10:00 AM in Technology

Can greener gadgets save us from e-waste?

By David Biello

One laptop per child seems a simple slogan, chock full of benefit. What could go wrong when you put the power of the Internet and solar cells into the hands of children in the developing world? After all, not only does it train the global underclass in the tools of modern production, it also unleashes a creativity that may allow them to leapfrog the old, dirty, industrial development that has fouled the planet.

Unfortunately, those very laptops may end up doing that last thing. "What is the entire country of Uruguay going to do with all those laptops" at the end of their useful life, asked Jeff Omelchuck of the Green Electronics Council at the Greener Gadgets conference in New York City on February 25. "They are a very resource intensive product to make. Will there be recycling? Did we also extend the gift to put in a closed loop infrastructure?"

More than 1 million such laptops have already been distributed, from Kenya to Uruguay, according to Yves Behar, a designer at fuseproject. In fact, every child in Uruguay now has such a laptop and the program is expanding into high schools. And the designer has begun to work on the next iteration of the machine, one potentially sporting two screens, thin like an iPad, and made completely from plastic: dubbed the XO3.

Even the cheapest laptop has "more precious gems and metals than any Pope has had," noted Leonardo Bonanni, founder of Sourcemap.org, at the conference. His Web site allows users to track the constituents of any gadget, from a laptop to the carbon footprint of a bomb. "There is no excuse not to know where things come from and what they're made of, especially if you're buying them," he said.

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[malakai2]

1. Maybe fewer gadgets can

Less mining and waste up front, less electricity use during the useful life, and less waste at the end.

Instead, we could continue making gadgets, using plastic and an assortment of metals, using lots of electricity, and then dumping them on third world nations when the gadgets reach the end of their useful lives, to be replaced with...more gadgets with built in senescence.

I get this mental image of a guy on a treadmill, running faster and faster to stay where he is. Anybody else get that image?

[jwirr]

2. We already dump much of our e waste in those countries. It would

make more sense to create libraries in those countries with access to computers and other educational sources. Something like out school resource centers.