[sdiy] RoHS

[Harry Bissell Jr]

when was the last time you thre a MiniMoog
  in the garbage can...
  
  The problem is not in the 'lead' or 'cadmium'... its in the
  mentality that we need a new cell phone THIS week and
  another, newer one next week.
  
  The computers you throw into the landfill are the problem.
  The consumer crap, designed from the start to be non-repairable.
  Just buy a new one.
  
  Contrast this with our situation. we bring our products back from
  their very graves...
  
  Bob Pease put it well in his book "Troubleshooting Analog
  Circuits". He said he has several cans of fluorcarbon 'freeze
  mist'.  He mused, so if I throw out the cans, they end up in a landfill
  and the fluorcarbons hit the atmosphere even faster... and without
  being of any use to anyone. Now if I use them up and don't buy
  MORE of the the fluorcabon ones... they still end up in the 
  atmosphere.
  
  RoHS is a disproportionate burden on small manufacturers who do
  NOT account for the majority of the pollution. Essentially... I cannot
  be in business, but Motorola, Nokia, etc can.
  
  I'd like to see exemption limits by either total weight, or dollar (euro)
  volume etc.
  
  Remember...we have exempted the MILITARY from these guidelines
  so they are still free to ruin your environment. Depleted Uranium, anyone ???
  
  H^) harry  (lead-free flamesuit :^)

Benjamin Henry <henrybg at gmail.com> wrote:  It's not just about lead.  Have you been to rural China?   There are some nasty chemicals in the boards we design and build on,  and in the components we use every day.  Not only that, but the  process to fabricate ICs is not efficient or economical by any  means.  RoHS is attempting to address this.  
  
  I don't know if you have been to school for technology, but they're  teaching kids ethics now-a-days, and one major aspect of EE and CmpE  ethics classes are involving environmental issues.  Issues with  the FCC, UL, and with local environments.  If we keep thinking  that the only want to succeed is the way our parents parents did  things, we can never progress or feel comfortable knowing there is a  whole lot of people with a ton of our waste just on the other side of  that sea...angry as shit that they are the ones getting diseases  because of our "technology".
  
  Anyway.  I do agree that it's going to be a difficult hump to pass, but what isn't?
  
  
  -BENRY  

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