MP 7,1 MPX module - a proprietary dead end?

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

If everything in a System is super-glued , super-soldered and super-non-upgradable , our landfills will only get that more filled up in super duper double speed time .

It'll be like a WALL-E world made with mountains of obsolete servers and workstations 😧 .

I didn't know that there were any locations that still landfilled electronics given how valuable they are to recycle. Many older landfills are being mined for stuff that was once garbage and is now worth it to reclaim. A "post WWII but pre-aluminum recycling" landfill is highly likely to contain aluminum in higher concentrations than a bauxite mine. Not to mention anything else they might find along the way.

WALL-E was a fictional movie, not a documentary.

 

[blackadde]

It's MUCH better (both environmentally and economically) to just keep electronic waste out of the recycling / dump in the first place. Reduce and Reuse are the first two R's, after all.

Some information from the World Health Organization:

With the usage of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) on the rise, the amount of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) produced each day is equally growing enormously around the globe. Recycling of valuable elements contained in e-waste such as copper and gold has become a source of income mostly in the informal sector of developing or emerging industrialized countries. However, primitive recycling techniques such as burning cables for retaining the inherent copper expose both adult and child workers as well as their families to a range of hazardous substances. E-waste-connected health risks may result from direct contact with harmful materials such as lead, cadmium, chromium, brominated flame retardants or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), from inhalation of toxic fumes, as well as from accumulation of chemicals in soil, water and food. In addition to its hazardous components, being processed, e-waste can give rise to a number of toxic by-products likely to affect human health. Furthermore, recycling activities such as dismantling of electrical equipment may potentially bear an increased risk of injury.

 

[Snow Tiger]

I didn't know that there were any locations that still landfilled electronics given how valuable they are to recycle. Many older landfills are being mined for stuff that was once garbage and is now worth it to reclaim. A "post WWII but pre-aluminum recycling" landfill is highly likely to contain aluminum in higher concentrations than a bauxite mine. Not to mention anything else they might find along the way.

WALL-E was a fictional movie, not a documentary.

True , WALL-E was a silly fictional movie , but still an environmental warning in the same way 1984 ( Orwell ) , Brave New World ( Huxley ) , Fahrenheit 451 ( Bradbury ) and Cat Country ( Lao She ) were fictional political warnings as well .

A lot of recycled electronics waste from the West gets sent primarily to two places - sub Sahara Africa and mainland China .

In Africa , it gets illegally classified as reusable goods ( so it can be exported ) and thrown into big piles . They don't know what to do with it and have trouble economically processing it . So it gets burned in the open by individuals , mostly for the copper . Or it just rusts away ...

Africa's electronic graveyards where the world's 'e-waste' ends up

'Millions of tonnes' of electronic waste from western nations like the UK are being exported to African countries like Ghana where they are dumped in huge landfill sites (pictured).

www.dailymail.co.uk

In China , a much more successful attempt will be made to reclaim the precious metals . They'll strip down the products for their PCBs and toss them into small stoves to be melted . They're after the gold and silver , but the workers are not protected from the toxic smoke . Older article , but have things changed much ?

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-11/16/content_14104157.htm .

Recently , China has been cracking down on this for trade war reasons , so it literally must be piling up locally .

Unintentionally , WALL-E introduces us to the solution ( robots ) . Electronics recycling is dangerous and this is one job robots should be doing . Not humans .

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

Africa's electronic graveyards where the world's 'e-waste' ends up

'Millions of tonnes' of electronic waste from western nations like the UK are being exported to African countries like Ghana where they are dumped in huge landfill sites (pictured).

www.dailymail.co.uk

Why didn't you link to the actual report? Why didn't the Daily Mail (*cough*) link to the actual report? Have you read the actual report?

In China , a much more successful attempt will be made to reclaim the precious metals . They'll strip down the products for their PCBs and toss them into small stoves to be melted . They're after the gold and silver , but the workers are not protected from the toxic smoke . Older article , but have things changed much ?

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2011-11/16/content_14104157.htm .

Recently , China has been cracking down on this for trade war reasons , so it literally must be piling up locally .

For one, the article is from 2011. For two, the ewaste it talks about originates in China. It literally says it comes from brokers who go from door to door in large Chinese cities soliciting ewaste. This is not a problem of the west dumping its stuff on China.

Please make sure that the problem you are touting up actually still exists. The Cuyahoga is not on fire any more. Please fix your attention on the problems that actually exist today.

Besides, whether CPUs are soldered or not will make not one damn bit of difference to ewaste streams.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Why didn't you link to the actual report? Why didn't the Daily Mail (*cough*) link to the actual report? Have you read the actual report?

If you really want to know , around four years ago I had a chat with one of these gold recyclers from China . He was actually happy to have a job from the countryside , despite its dangerous nature . He was only wearing one of those anti smog face masks at work , worthless against toxic fumes . I thought he was nuts because if he kept that up it'd kill him . For a while , I actually stopped recycling because I thought it was doing harm to innocent people .

"For one, the article is from 2011. For two, the ewaste it talks about originates in China. It literally says it comes from brokers who go from door to door in large Chinese cities soliciting ewaste. This is not a problem of the west dumping its stuff on China."

Does it really matter where the waste comes from or where its piling up ? At MR , we have an international audience . A lot of what we discuss in the forums helps to keep , at least , Apple products useful longer , so they don't have to be recycled yet .

In my Midwestern city , we have an extensive and local municipally run recycling program for waste paper , plastics and glass . It's so efficient it actually makes the city a small profit . But we aren't sophisticated enough to handle electronics . It all goes elsewhere ... where , if not to some Asian or African country ? It's so expensive to recycle electronics in the West I'm quite certain a lot of rules are being bent .


"Please make sure that the problem you are touting up actually still exists. The Cuyahoga is not on fire any more. Please fix your attention on the problems that actually exist today.
Besides, whether CPUs are soldered or not will make not one damn bit of difference to ewaste streams."

Please don't put words in my mouth . I never claimed that site in Africa was on fire . Just that piles of waste were growing because the locals can't efficiently handle the recycling issue . That was just two years ago .

And yes , it does matter very much if servers and workstations can be cost effectively upgraded and repaired . LGA sockets are important because BGA is the early kiss of death . I work with this gear and I know how incredibly over-engineered and over-manufactured business machines are compared to consumer products . Most of what Apple makes are consumer products . Some are in the quasi-enterprise classification ( the PowerMac G4 , G5 and Mac Pros ) . The durability of these products is amazing . I still service three PMG4s for commercial clients . One of my air cooled PowerMac G5s still is the beating heart of the oldest radio advertising firm in the MidWest . The lifespan of these rigs , properly maintained and upgraded must be around 25 years . A number of my Mac Pro builds have been in service for more than a decade and show no sign of needing retirement . All this gear doesn't have to be recycled yet because it still is cost effective and can do the job . And much of this gear would have wound up prematurely in the 'ol ash heap if everything is soldered and glued tight .

Apple moving in this direction is about as anti-green as can be imagined . They talk about virtue but have trouble practicing what they preach . Telling people how great a program they have for recycling something that is designed to prematurely become functionally worthless doesn't cut it in my book . It's a form of planned obsolescence and I , as a former manufacturer , think that's just a wrong world view .

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

In my Midwestern city , we have an extensive and local municipally run recycling program for waste paper , plastics and glass . It's so efficient it actually makes the city a small profit . But we aren't sophisticated enough to handle electronics . It all goes elsewhere ... where , if not to some Asian or African country ? It's so expensive to recycle electronics in the West I'm quite certain a lot of rules are being bent .


"Please make sure that the problem you are touting up actually still exists. The Cuyahoga is not on fire any more. Please fix your attention on the problems that actually exist today.
Besides, whether CPUs are soldered or not will make not one damn bit of difference to ewaste streams."

Please don't put words in my mouth . I never claimed that site in Africa was on fire .

You live in a Midwestern city, are presumably environmentally aware, and yet think the Cuyahoga is in Africa, and don't recognize the "on fire" significance. Where is that smell coming from?