Wireless World: Old mobile phones a hazard

United Press International ^ | December 3, 2004 | Gene Koprowski

[kerrywearsbotox]

By Gene J. Koprowski UPI Technology News

Published 12/3/2004 9:04 AM CHICAGO, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A mobile phone is a disposable product -- consumers buy a new one about every year and a half, and toss the old one in the closet. Then, years later, when they have a major house-cleaning weekend, they find a few old phones collecting dust and toss them out in the trash. Experts told UPI's Wireless World this pattern is starting to become a major environmental issue, as old mobile phones start to fill up garbage dumps across the United States and leach lead, arsenic, gold and other toxins into the groundwater. "There are a lot of heavy metals being released into landfills because of old mobile phones," said Chuck Harrell, an environmental supervisor with the Southeastern Public Service Authority, a government agency in Chesapeake, Va.Now, mobile phone manufacturers such as Motorola Corp. are collaborating with environmentalists and the government to solve this emerging problem. --Wireless World is a weekly series examining the social, cultural and economic impact of mobile telephony technology, by Gene Koprowski, who covers technology for UPI Science News. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com. Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International

[Polyxene]

One would think with a Republican controlled state, we would be in good shape. Unfortunately, Bob-the-Taxman-Taft is a RINO of the first degree, and both he and the legislature are spending our money like drunken sailors. If we could get some tax relief, it would help. If the governor and legislature would cut back on their spending, it would help even more!

[AlexW]

"I knew I would get this s4it from someone."

Well, yes, when you post something that makes a mountain out of a mole hill, then you should expect some flack.

We have far greater worries then the horrors of some cell phones winding up in a landfill.

[gg188]

I calculate roughly that a billion cell phones, stacked three feet high, would take up an area about the size of 10 football fields.

That's not a lot of space. That's one of the many problems w/ envirowackos---the world is large, and all the refuse for the next century in total takes up only a tiny bit of the area of the surface of the earth. Assuming the stuff is bad and will all go directly into the water, how can ten football fields amount to any measurable difference when you consider all the water on earth? What would that be---one part-per-gazillion?

Of course, these are the same people who tell us the end is near due to global warming, and are the same people who told us 30 years ago the end was near due to the coming ice age, that we were going to run out of oil by 1980, out of food by 1990, Supply side economics would wreck the economy, taxcuts would end civilization as we know it, we all descended from apes, homosexuals are born that way, yadayadayada....With the track record of academia, why would anyone believe a word they say?

[tai-pan]

It's called upgrading.

[NCSteve]

I guess cell phones are made from some breakthrough technology that involves different materials than any other electronic device. Of course, only cell phones are the problem. All the old Sony betamax tape recorders, Commodore 64s, Atari 2600s, and Nintendo game controllers have nothing to do with this.

The really sad thing is how many people will read this and just believe it unquestioningly.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

You can throw out your back trying to lift them up to your mouth to talk.

They didn't call them Brick Phones for nuthin'.

[Question_Assumptions]

Gold is not a toxin. That's why they put it into people's mouths for fillings. Of course they also put mercury into people's mouths for fillings...

[SierraWasp]

Mrs. Wasp still has and uses her old 5 watt analog bag phone! We ain't throwin it away because we live on the edge of a retarded CA mountainous Sierran county suffering from "Arrested Development," that has banned the erection of cell phone towers. The few we have are pathetically disguised as pine trees and look ridiculous to the MAX!!!

[SierraWasp]

"OH, don't claim that heavy metals cause health hazards - some (a small but ignorant minority) will call you a pinko enviro-fag."

Not bad! Hey, how 'bout mititant member of GANG-GREEN?

What is it about the fact that these heavy metals came out of the ground in the first place, that you can't seem to understand???

[AngryJawa]

This POS on my belt isn't going to the dump when it's time to upgrade. It's going to the pistol range (sans battery, of course).

I so look forward to its demise. 8^)

[RobRoy]

I've had three cell plans in my life. Because each was with a different company, each came with a different phone. I gave my sone one of them when his phone was crushed by a car. The other I still have...

I think I'll toss it in the trash when I get home tonight. 8^>

[AlexW]

"Mrs. Wasp still has and uses her old 5 watt analog bag phone!"

Thats great...When I was the first BellSouth cellular agent in my rural area, the bag phone, with an external antenna, was all that worked.
If her phone gives out, let me know..I can send you half a dozen of them, and no charge !

By the way, cell phone service, even in central/east Europe is much better then US.
In Slovakia, they have a population of about 5.5 million, with over 3 million cell phones.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Uranium come out of the ground, as do asbestos. Do you disagree that they can be harmful when moved around from their natural resting places?

[Fierce Allegiance]

I won't argue that there are greater worries, but proper recylcing of potentially nasty stuff is an easy fix.

I am not big on recycling in general, but stuff like plastic, glass and paper are bacsically inert. Nickel, cadmium, etc aren't.

[bvw]

Why aren't landfills mined?

[Calvin Locke]

Gold?

You can buy booze with gold flakes in it. I had a neighbor that drank the stuff. Can't remember
anything else about it.

Hmmm, maybe I should try marketing a liquer with Cadmium flakes in it.

How about a marketing hook: "For the Cad in your life. But not for too much longer."

Pity I missed the Christmas window.

[Ghengis]

his is mind boggling to me. I have owned a total of two cell phones over the past fifteen years. Why do they need new ones so often?

What color bag phone do you have? ;-)

[EggsAckley]

Five year old Nokia, very happy with it.

[SierraWasp]

Not to the degree that all the GovernMental EnvironMental and Media Whores have exagerated them to be!

We have hords of farmers living into their nineties around here that have disced serpentine (known to contain wide varieties of asbestos while being the official CA State Rock) filled fields since tractors and discs were invented, pulled by teams of horses and steam tractors all the way to modern day D-9's, etc. (no pockets of lung cancer victims here)

Naturally occuring Uranium is totally benign! There is more danger from burning coal than from movin around naturally occuring uranium! Who ever told you otherwise is blow some smoke up your pantleg that's way more toxic than asbestos, or certainly uranium!!!

I s'pose you think DDT is a deathly dangerous toxic substance, too, right? Rachael Carson was full of it!!!

Stop believing all the "crying of wolf" and "conventional wisdom" that's been perpetrated by those who wish to scare you into complying with their liberal/leftist engineered behavior based on inordinate fear and popularized phobias!!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What are all those little bitty buttons for?