GreenClips

Computer and electronics makers increasingly factor a product's destruction into its creation. The trend is driven in part by environmental regulations, but also by shorter product cycles and a consumer culture in which obsolete gadgetry stacks up quickly. At Panasonic, designers conduct a 40-step review that looks at the ability to recycle materials used in their prototypes, and how quickly products can be taken apart for recycling. Because plastics are more difficult to recycle, designers are encouraged to use metals. Designers also try to reduce the number of parts or materials used in a single product, making it simpler to sort and recycle. Designers at Hewlett-Packard look for ways to avoid gluing product parts together because adhesives contaminate the recycled materials and make sorting next to impossible. They also try to cut down the number of screws in favor of parts that snap together. If screws must be used, designers use the same type of screws, all oriented in the same direction, so they can be removed in rapid succession, using one tool. Silicon Salvage, a recycling company in Anaheim, dismantles electronic devices. A pound of circuit board can sell for as much as $1, thanks to tiny amounts of gold, silver, copper and palladium. Copper wires sells for about 35 cents a pound and metal case will fetch 50 cents a pound. "But printers are very much throw away items," said Silicon Salvage owner Chuck Hulse. He ticks off their liabilities: too many types of plastic in a single printer, too much paint, and they're contaminated with fire retardants. HP eliminated paint from many of its products because dyes can contaminate and weaken the underlying plastic when recycled. Dell engineers are researching water-based paints that can be easily dissolved. "We want to create designers who are responsible," said Karen Hofmann, coordinator of the materials lab and a design instructor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The school is retooling its labs to research and teach the environmental proper! ties of materials.
The Seattle Times, 07 Feb 07, 05, Alex Pham

WILL KYOTO POSE A COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE FOR EUROPEAN AND U.S. BUSINESSES?

Jürgen F. Strube, chairman of the supervisory board of BASF—the world's largest chemical maker, which is based in Germany—responds with a hint of impatience when asked how European industry plans to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. As the agreement took effect on Feb. 16, worries about its fairness became mixed with mild resentment. Europeans have set some of the most stringent targets for reducing greenhouse gases. The pressure, says Strube, should be on the United States, which generates a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases but is staying out of the Kyoto system, or on nations with rapidly growing economies like China and India, which approved the agreement but are not required to reduce emissions—even though together, they already account for 14 percent of the world's total. Michael G. Morris, chief executive of American Electric Power, the largest electricity generator in the United States, acknowledges that the unevenness of regulations could pose a competitive disadvantage for European companies. For the same reason, he says, American concerns could be handicapped compared with Chinese or Indian competitors, because environmental regulations are stricter in the United States, even without acceptance of Kyoto requirements. Still, there is little evidence that multinational companies are seeking to locate plants mainly in countries that do not adopt the protocol. Environmental regulations are one of several factors taken into account by businesses in making decisions on new sites, but they are less important than matters like labor costs. "Companies like Dow and DuPont are keeping their overseas operations, and are learning to live with Kyoto," said Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for Environmental Defense, an advocacy group based in New York. What concerns BASF is the next round of regulations at home. So far, European authorities have limited mandatory cuts to emissions-intensive industries like power generating and cement making. But it could expand that to include chemicals, affecting more BASF opera! tions. S trube and others are urging officials in Brussels to focus on luring new countries into participation rather than leaning harder on industry.
The New York Times, 16 Feb 05, p C1, by Mark Landler

TWO-THIRDS OF COMPUTERS AREN'T SET FOR SLEEP MODE

As part of their research into making electronic products more efficient, Bruce Nordman and other energy-use analysts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory prowl around late at night studying the secret lives of office machines. Among the printers and photocopiers, things are not very lively. About three-quarters of these machines automatically slip into power-saving mode after their users leave for the day. However, in a typical office, Mr. Nordman said, about two-thirds of the computers hum the night away, drawing full power. There are a number of reasons many computers remain at full power. But Mr. Nordman thinks a major factor is the poor job the computer industry has done making power-saving modes easy to use. In late December, after nine years of study, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a nonprofit professional group, published a set of voluntary standards largely crafted by Mr. Nordman. They propose a common set of names, colors and symbols for the power states of computers in aan effort to end consumer confusion. Andrew Fanara, with the Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR program, estimates that a typical desktop computer draws about 60 watts of power, with a conventional cathode-ray tube monitor adding another 50 watts. By contrast, a typical computer in power-saving mode draws about five watts. Many companies, including Apple, call it "sleep," a term that has a wide following in the office machine universe. But Microsoft prefers "stand by." There is also the issue of what Mr. Fanara calls "myths" about the harm to computers that comes from repeatedly powering them down or off. "But it's sort of academic," he said. "The reliability specs of these systems have such a huge number of cycles that you're ready to buy another computer long before you reach the end."
The New York Times, 10 Feb 05, pE5, by Ian Austen
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