Re: [greenyes] Mining and e waste

["Doug Koplow" <koplow@no.address>]

Couple of points in response to this:

1)  Earthworks (formerly the Mineral Policy Center (www.mineralpolicy.org) has been fighting silly mining policy - especially the Mining Law of 1872 - for years and years.  They are a good resource for information all aspects of hardrock mining policy.  You want to see massive policy failures with environmental damages many multiples of the economic value of produced minerals?  Go no further than heap leach mining, which extract tiny quantities of metals with massive amounts of cyanide. 

2)  Because the ratio of finished product to waste is so low once the entire production cycle is taken into account, policy changes that reduce reliance on these virgin material raw material inputs provide tremendous leverage to environmental protection.  Michele mentions the arena of hazardous waste, but a similar conclusion would apply for many other factors, including water consumption and pollution, air pollution and energy consumption.  

3)  Have there been efforts to apply the CNC programs used to automate assembly of e-waste components (e.g., circuit boards) in reverse, so that recovery could be done with less cross contamination that simply shredding everything together first?

_______________________________
Doug Koplow
Earth Track, Inc.
2067 Massachusetts Avenue - 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA  02140
www.earthtrack.net
Tel:  617/661-4700
Fax: 617/354-0463


>>> Michele Raymond <michele@no.address> 04/06/04 17:15 PM >>>
Greenyesers:

Robin Ingenthron (Good Pint Recycling) always points out that half of our 
haz waste comes from MINING.

I saw a piece on 60 Minutes about a horrible coal slurry that wrecked part 
of W VA and KY -- and Bush tried to sweep it a bit.

Robin also notes that recycling e-waste is 300 times more beneficial for 
environment than mining.

However, I dont see enviros screaming about mining disasters and lobbying 
to get rid of the old Minig Act -- we are subsidizing all hard rocking 
mining because industry doesnt have to pay hardly anything for the rights.

if we were paying what we should for VIRGIN resources, E-waste recycling 
would be much more economic, and local governments perhaps could break even 
on e-waste recycling.

Just a thought.


Michele Raymond
Publisher
Recycling Laws International
5111 Berwyn Rd. #115 College Park MD 20740
301 345 4237
http://www.raymond.com