Originally published January 20 2006
One Laptop Per Child proposal may cause e-waste dilemma
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Providing educational development by distributing $100 laptops has received a great deal of support, but some question if it is worth the environmental and economic cost of the waste that will be produced.
The One Laptop Per Child proposal (aka, the Hundred-Dollar Laptop) generates controversy nearly every time it's mentioned here, whether due to questions about its necessity, arguments about its configuration, or push-back about whether it's really even possible.
But a post today at Triple Pundit points to an even more critical issue: would the success of the OLPC plan result in an explosion of hazardous material waste across the developing world?
Computer hardware can include plastics made with dioxin and so-called "brominated flame retardants," as well as mercury, lead and other harmful metals.
Although the quantities may be small in any single machine, cumulatively, some 20-50 million tons of computer, electric and electronic waste enters the wastestream every year (PDF).
When these materials get into the water supply, they can lead to birth defects and worse.
The two breakthroughs that could make this possible are bioplastics, which use plants to create a replacement for inorganic plastics, and organic polymer electronics, which use organic chemistry to create computation and display devices.
The most common form of bioplastic, PLA, is made from corn and has been moderately well-received as a packaging material.
We typically discuss organic polymer electronics (OPE) as a feature of the fabrication future, but the clean leapfrog application is important, too.
The bioplastic/organic polymer version of the hundred dollar laptop (BPOPOLPC?) would have a few notable drawbacks compared to the traditional manufacturing version.
Even if computer manufacturers can't currently get the production costs of the traditional OLPC model below $100, they're awfully close; the bioplastic/OPE equivalent would undoubtedly cost hundreds of dollars more.
This raises a troubling question for those who support the OLPC idea: is the economic and educational development result of widespread distribution of the hundred dollar laptop worth the environmental and economic cost of the waste products that will have to be dealt with when they are discarded?
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