At life's end, computer parts need responsible recycling
Almost 250 million personal computers will become obsolete during the next 
five years.

By CORINNE PURTILL
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

Feeling that it's time to toss out that old computer for a newer, faster 
model? Many are in the same position.

Electronic waste, or "e-waste," is the fastest-growing sector of American 
trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But no one really knows exactly where the e-waste goes because there isn't a 
national program to certify electronic recyclers. Some e-waste gets tossed 
in the trash and ends up in landfills. Some gets shipped to developing 
countries, where scavengers dismantle them in unsafe ways that expose 
workers and the environment to toxic metals and chemicals.

http://dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070720/BUSINESS/707200376/1029/archive
---------------------


LTEs

Nuclear power is far from 'benign'

State Rep. Phil Wise's essay ("Times Demand Democrats Take Another Look at 
Nuclear Energy," July 6) loses all credibility when it cites Iowa State 
University professor Carolyn Heising's opinions about nuclear energy. 
Heising makes the outrageous claim that nuclear power plants are 
"emissions-free," when any high-school student knows that nuclear plants 
generate hazardous and deadly emissions, including plutonium 239 and 
strontium 90.

Wise also mistakenly claims that nuclear energy is "sustainable" and 
"environmentally benign." It is neither. Sustainability implies continuing 
availability of energy without the need for new input or resources, but 
nuclear plants require the constant mining and processing of uranium. An 
environmentally benign energy source would cause no harm to our 
surroundings, but nuclear power creates massive amounts of radioactive and 
toxic waste that directly endanger anyone or anything it touches.

While Wise claims that times have changed, some hard facts haven't changed: 
Nuclear power remains an economically inefficient energy source made 
feasible only because it's propped up by U.S. taxpayers who are financially 
liable (instead of power companies) in case of a catastrophic nuclear 
accident. It is also a dirty energy source that requires millions of dollars 
of clean-up whenever a plant is shut down and decommissioned. With North 
Korea and Iran, we are also experiencing daily the foreign-policy problems 
created by nuclear-energy production because of its direct link to the 
manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

Fifty-six years after the first nuclear plant started operating, there are 
still no solutions on the horizon for any of these problems. As Democrats, 
we should continue to focus our research efforts on energy sources that are 
truly benign and sustainable: wind, solar and perhaps hydrogen.

- Dennis Harbaugh,
Waterloo.

-

The Register ran an Iowa View by state Rep. Phil Wise July 6 touting nuclear 
power as the answer to global warming. But a nuclear-power renaissance is a 
dangerous pipe dream.

Here's why:

- Nuclear power is not environmentally benign. It actually increases 
greenhouse gas emissions. Mining, milling and enriching uranium each use 
huge quantities of fossil fuels. So does moving nuclear waste across the 
country for burial in Nevada.

- There still is no viable solution for storing highly radioactive nuclear 
waste.

- Reactor sites and spent-fuel pools are potential targets for nuclear 
terrorism and sabotage.

- According to published reports, the public-relations firm Hill and 
Knowlton has been paid $8 million to help the nuclear industry spread the 
word that nuclear power is the answer to global warming.

But it was Hill and Knowlton, working for big tobacco, that created the 
decades-long disinformation campaign about the health effects of smoking.

Nuclear power is not the solution to global warming. There are cleaner, 
safer and cheaper ways to meet our energy needs.

- David Vestal,
Clive.

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