Conscientious Computing

Chances are that a new computer will top many wish lists this holiday season. But with sales booming and average computer life spans paring down to only two years, it's a costly proposition for our pocketbooks, the environment, and our health.

What's not covered in the users' manual are the toxic chemicals and heavy metals that go into a computer and the waste its manufacture generates. While there is no evidence that these toxins harm casual computer-users, recent studies of workers who extensively use computers show possible health risks. And proof is definitely mounting that the air and water pollution generated by computer manufacturing and disposal threaten the health of the public at large, as well as high-tech industry workers. Due largely to discharges from high-tech plants there, California's Silicon Valley hosts the most Superfund contamination sites of any county in the nation. A 3-fold increase in birth defects was detected in a neighborhood there where chemicals had contaminated the water supply.

"Most people are stunned to learn about the volume of toxic chemicals that are used in the manufacture of computers, and that end up becoming a real problem when the equipment is obsolete," says Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), formed in 1982 following the discovery of local groundwater pollution from chemicals used to make semiconductor chips. Of the approximately 1,000 different substances included in a typical PC, "Every computer contains 5 to 8 pounds of lead," he says. Exposure to lead and other toxic ingredients, such as mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants, and some plastics, may harm developing brains, disrupt hormone functions, cause cancer, or affect reproduction.

Three epidemiological studies to date have found higher miscarriage rates in women who manufacture semiconductor chips. And brominated flame retardants, which may disrupt hormones and cause cancer, have been detected in the blood of computer recyclers at levels 70 times higher than average. "There are many safer alternatives to brominated fire retardants," Smith says.

Chemicals in computers may also affect people who use computers extensively. Brominated flame retardants also turned up at higher-than-normal levels in clerks working full-time at computer screens, a 1999 study in Environmental Health Perspectives found. And some computer users suffer from headaches, itching and nasal congestion when computer monitors release another flame retardant, triphenyl phosphate, into the air as they heat up during normal use, a September 15, 2000 study in Environmental Science & Technology reported.

But it's where computers end up that could eventually create the most widespread health threats. Since manufacturers don't accept most computers for recycling, only 14% of the over 24 million computers that were thrown away in the U.S. in 1999 were properly disposed of or recycled. The rest are releasing toxins as they decay in landfills or are burned in incinerators. By the year 2004, the National Safety Council estimates, the U.S. could house around 315 million old computers. If discarded, they would contribute a total of roughly 1 billion pounds of lead, 4 billion pounds of plastics, 1.9 million pounds of cadmium and 400,000 pounds of mercury to the environment.

In a hopeful move last April, Massachusetts became the first state to ban the dumping of computer screens and TV sets, instead setting up collection centers around the state for refurbishing and recycling. The European Commission proposed in June that manufacturers be required to take back and safely dispose of spent electrical products, and that they gradually phase out some of the industry's most toxic components. But many more changes are necessary to make a significant dent in the computer industry's toxic waste stream.