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From: riddle@woton.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle )
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Environmentally safe computers?
Message-ID: <2242@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 20-Jul-87 14:14:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2242
Posted: Mon Jul 20 14:14:12 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jul-87 00:43:48 EDT
Sender: taylor@hplabsc.HP.COM
Distribution: world
Organization: Shriners Burns Institute, Galveston
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

I've been hearing more and more criticism of the purported benefits of the
"computer revolution" lately from those who point out that the electronics
industry, despite a lot of claims to the contrary, is a very dirty one.  As
one book I have read recently complains:

    Communities dominated by the computer industry are plagued with
    severe groundwater contamination from cyanides, arsenic, toxic heavy
    metals and a wide range of carcinogenic chemical solvents, all
    essential ingredients in the manufacture of silicon computer
    chips... 
    
    The electronics industry claims a rate of occupational illness two to
    three times the average for manufacturing industries, with frequent
    complaints of severe acid burns, chemical-induced disorders of the
    nervous system, kidneys and liver, menstrual irregularities and
    frequent miscarriages.  The most routine and the most hazardous
    operations are often moved to countries in Latin America and
    Southeast Asia, where local water supplies are routinely destroyed
    and young women workers find their eyesight and reproductive health
    to be permanently damaged after just two or three years of assembling
    computer chips. 
    
    [Source: "The Green Alternative: Creating an Ecological Future" by
    Brian Tokar, 1987.  The author cites as his sources a March, 1985
    issue of "Science for the People," an article in the November, 1984
    issue of "Sierra," and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, 277 W. 
    Hedding St., San Jose, CA 95110.]

My question is this: are these problems inherent in the manufacture of
computers, or are there trade-offs involved?  Assuming that there were a
desire to do so, would it be possible to manufacture computer components by
environmentally safe processes, given certain increases in cost and decreases
in performance?  And for those of you with a taste for a good deus ex
machina :-) , are there any breakthroughs looming on the horizon which might
create a shift to clean computer technology? 

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Shriners Burns Institute.
--- riddle@woton.UUCP  {ihnp4,harvard,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!woton!riddle