ENVIRONMENT
Computers are getting better all the time, and that has Ted Smith worried. The head of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, citing National Safety Council numbers, says that by 2004 there will be more than 315 million obsolete computers in the US, many of them headed for landfills. The problem is that most computers contain mercury, cadmium, and up to 7 pounds of lead - toxic elements that can leak into groundwater.
So Smith is shifting the role of his group - best known for handing out annual "report cards" that grade tech companies on their green practices - from watchdog to rabble-rouser.
SVTC (www.svtc.org) is working with environmental organizations like Greenpeace to rally support from activists across the country. Smith believes that mobilized consumers can force high tech to do what it's so far resisted: stop using toxic materials and assume a primary role in the recycling and disposing of their products.
"I think once consumers realize that these old machines are very toxic," he says, "they will demand alternatives."
Only one state, New Hampshire, has passed a law that phases out mercury in manufactured products, but more than a dozen others are considering similar legislation. Meanwhile, a European Union directive eliminates the use of mercury, lead, and cadmium in consumer products by 2008.
Smith says the long-term goal is not legislation but better design - for instance, replacing soldered or superglued computer parts with simple fasteners and finding alternatives to mercury switches.
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