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Manufacturing 1 PC Takes 1.8 Tons Of Raw Material

Posted by: Jim_ on: 03/08/2004 07:40 PM [ Print | 11 comment(s) ]

I noticed this interesting story over at Slashdot regarding the amount of raw materials required to build a modern PC and monitor.

According to the study, the manufacturing of one desktop computer and 17-inch CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor requires at least 240 kilograms of fossil fuels, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water. In terms of weight, the total amount of materials used is about equal to that of a mid-size car.

Isn't that amazing? I have to ask the question... what about a duallie? [Ed - This is the first news post written entirely in Daedalus.. woot!]

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i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19

#5293 Posted on: 03/09/2004 01:03 AM congrats on getting daedalus up and running. I guess your decision is made. As for the raw materials, thats amazing. The only thing I would imagine is that the majority of computer components are recycable so maybe it isn't as greenhouse unfriendly as it first appears Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse!

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scheme SMP user Posts: 259 Joined: 2002-01-18

#5294 Posted on: 03/09/2004 01:37 AM Originally posted by i_wolf congrats on getting daedalus up and running. I guess your decision is made. As for the raw materials, thats amazing. The only thing I would imagine is that the majority of computer components are recycable so maybe it isn't as greenhouse unfriendly as it first appears I would disagree, a lot of the stuff used to make components are toxic. The chemicals used to etch, manufacture and process chips, boards, hard drives, etc. all tend to be fairly toxic and carcinogenic. IBM is currently being used by workers in it's hard drive factory who have had children with birth defects or who have gotten cancer.

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i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19

#5295 Posted on: 03/09/2004 01:50 AM Again I'm no expert on whats recycable or not . I was just assuming since there would be glass in monitors, plastic in boxes, i would have thought that silicon could be melted down etc... I had no idea that the toxicity of chemicals used to manufacture the components would stop manufacturers from recycling! I guess I assumed that it would be similar to the way polystyrene is recycable but highly toxic in its liquid form! I guess, the same logic doesn't hold through for computer components. Thats tragic about the children of IBM workers. Has there ever been a suit taken by these workers against IBM for this ?? Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse!

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Calum Running on empty Posts: 1916 Joined: 2002-10-11

#5296 Posted on: 03/09/2004 04:08 AM I wouldn't say it was interesting about the chemicals, I'd say it pretty scary. Computers are remarkable things but they come at a high price to our environment My Computers|2CPU.com SETI@Home Stats|My eBay feedback|My Heatware|Have you seen the future?

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Erik Olofsson Aspiring Duallie Posts: 86 Joined: 2001-10-21

#5297 Posted on: 03/09/2004 05:13 AM When you think about it it isn't that much. You easily use at least double the amount of water every day. The fossile fuel consumption is about equal to driving your car about 3200 km (2000 miles). I guess many ppl would drive about that long in about 2 months time. 22 kg of chemicals easily make up the weight of the finished product, and while it would be nice if more of it could be recycled it isn't suprising. Server Cube black case + 2xAthlon MP 1800+ + ASUS A7M266-D rev 103 + AX7 coolers + 3 GB Reg ECC Kingston

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scheme SMP user Posts: 259 Joined: 2002-01-18

#5298 Posted on: 03/09/2004 12:07 PM Originally posted by Erik Olofsson When you think about it it isn't that much. You easily use at least double the amount of water every day. The fossile fuel consumption is about equal to driving your car about 3200 km (2000 miles). I guess many ppl would drive about that long in about 2 months time. 22 kg of chemicals easily make up the weight of the finished product, and while it would be nice if more of it could be recycled it isn't suprising. I find it hard to believe that the average person uses 3000 liters of water a day (2*1500kg used by a computer). The average person drinks about 16 Liters at most a day and probably only uses at most 200L in addition (this is assuming that you do laundry multiple times a day, use a dishwasher a lot, flush the toilet a bunch, take long showers and water the lawn a bunch as well). The problem with the chemicals is a lot of it is nasty toxic stuff. It's usually a mixture of various solvents with assorted heavy metal contaminants. It's the sort of stuff that you don't want leaking and contaminating water supplies and the environment. Stuff like cadmium, arsenic, lead, methyl chloroform, benzene, etc. Although a lot of it can be reused, at some point someone has to deal and get rid of it and that's where the problems arise.

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stanmanfoo WWTFSMD? Posts: 1296 Joined: 2003-05-27

#5299 Posted on: 03/09/2004 12:17 PM in comparison to the amount of energy required to manufacture an automobile, I'd say this is small beans. Think of the energy required to melt iron for steel auto frames. Now, does that mean it isn't a problem still? certainly not. most organic wastes these days are catalytically burned and ion exchange stacks used to collect most of the solids that would have been put into the air. My Heat "Hey baby, wanna kill all humans?"

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Erik Olofsson Aspiring Duallie Posts: 86 Joined: 2001-10-21

#5300 Posted on: 03/09/2004 12:39 PM Originally posted by scheme I find it hard to believe that the average person uses 3000 liters of water a day (2*1500kg used by a computer). Ok, that figure was the average per capita when accounting for all water usage in society. So if I buy a new computer every 2 years that would account for 0.1 % of my water usage. Server Cube black case + 2xAthlon MP 1800+ + ASUS A7M266-D rev 103 + AX7 coolers + 3 GB Reg ECC Kingston

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Calum Running on empty Posts: 1916 Joined: 2002-10-11

#5301 Posted on: 03/09/2004 01:16 PM Cars can be (and are) fairly easily recycled. Computers on the other hand, are not. They just end up as very long lasting landfill... My Computers|2CPU.com SETI@Home Stats|My eBay feedback|My Heatware|Have you seen the future?

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rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26

#5302 Posted on: 03/10/2004 12:23 AM The average modern car has almost as much (unrecyclable) electronics in it as a computer. RMN ~~~

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jamesavery22 Registered User Posts: 1567 Joined: 2002-08-07

#5303 Posted on: 03/10/2004 01:07 AM I am no chemist either but as for the amount of chemicals used in creating computer parts I was under the impression many of those chemicals used are reused... found this googling. http://users.rcn.com/rexa/Projects/CuCl_ech.html They never mentioned stuff like that. I remember my electronics class in highschool that talked about how way back in the eniac days places that made circuit boards had huge amounts of waste and how modern day places are completely different. Id imagine it has something to do with those "No waste disposal problems" and "Simple regeneration of spent solution" points in that article. edit--- a good highlight Unless this bath becomes contaminated with undesirable materials (such as organic solvents, which can soften resist coatings), it will never require waste disposal. If you think about it there would be no way in H E double hockey sticks any environmental agency would allow any company to dump 1.8tons of waste for every computer made... LINK 132.4 million computers were sold last year Im guessing there isnt a 230 ton landfill somewhere thats JUST computer waste. Articles like this always tend to blow stuff out of proportion just so people will read it :rolleyes: But for the fossil fuels used... I have no idea. My Heatware