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Wireless World: Old mobile phones a hazard
United Press International ^ | December 3, 2004 | Gene Koprowski

Posted on 12/03/2004 10:18:54 AM PST by 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

(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News
KEYWORDS: environment; landfills; mobilephones; toxins; wireless
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

It's a keyboard (apparently people didn't like the handwriting recognition software), like the Blackberry's.

See the blue key? That's the ZOT button.

< |:)~


61 posted on 12/03/2004 1:16:50 PM PST by martin_fierro (brrrrrr)
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To: EggsAckley
Five year old Nokia, very happy with it.

Just funnin' with you!

62 posted on 12/03/2004 1:34:09 PM PST by Ghengis
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To: martin_fierro
I like my ZOT key, I can see it:


63 posted on 12/03/2004 1:50:25 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: SierraWasp
Geez', what a crock. Gold and lead are not soluble, and don't "leach".

And hell, it came out of the ground; What's the problem with putting it back?

64 posted on 12/03/2004 1:59:25 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: Old Professer

Yeah I went ?????? when I read Gold.


65 posted on 12/03/2004 2:03:15 PM PST by nomorelurker (wetraginhell)
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To: SierraWasp
I recently quit using my Oki 5W bag phone and switched to Verizon. Two things:

I understand that even if your old bag phone is "retired", you can still use it to call 911 (assuming that you keep the battery charged).

The other thing is that if you have a weak signal at home, you need to get you one of these Wilson 13dB-gain Yagi antennas. I have one and get 5 bars way down in a holler 30 miles from a tower.

Right now, I have it mounted out on the deck. When I want to make a call, I simply take the cell phone out there, unscrew the built-in antenna, and plug in the adapter cable to the Wilson Yagi antenna.

[more information here]

66 posted on 12/03/2004 2:10:39 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: snopercod; SierraWasp
Gold is soluble but the catch to get it into solution is that you have to boil it nitric acid. All of us good conservatives should start charging folks to give us their old cellphones, we'll take care of the heavy metals problem!

Gene J. Koprowski must be a frickin' idiot trying to sell this junk science to anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature
67 posted on 12/03/2004 2:15:53 PM PST by Issaquahking ( Bush won, Arafat is dead! Life is good!)
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To: Issaquahking
If Koprowski wants a crusade, he should try Coleman lantern mantels, each of which contains enough microcuries of radioactive Thorium 242 to cause bone cancer if ingested.

Why no warning label, hmmmm?

68 posted on 12/03/2004 2:56:34 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: snopercod
Somehow, I knew you'd enjoy the way this thread started going... The urban legends just keep growing until they become "CONventional wisdom!"

The one that cracks me up is the way Art Bell, who I know knows better, keeps suckin 'em in with his wild imaginationmachinations!!! (and he does it with a straight facevoice!!!)

69 posted on 12/03/2004 3:15:05 PM PST by SierraWasp (Ronald Reagan was an exceptional "celebrity!" Jesse Ventura & Arnold Schwarzenrenegger are NOT!!!)
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To: Fierce Allegiance
bubba eats catfish, actually a whole mess of fried catfish, thereby ingesting significant amounts of heavy metals over the years.

Bubba gets braindamage from metals.

Bubba falls for liberal propaganda.

Democrats sieze power.

YOWSERS! Suddenly I've become an environmentalist ;-)
70 posted on 12/03/2004 4:08:03 PM PST by festus (The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now !)
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To: EggsAckley
Why do they need new ones so often?

Because I am a man and if it is newer, faster, better, well, then, I just have to have one.

71 posted on 12/03/2004 4:10:15 PM PST by Glenn (The two keys to character: 1) Learn how to keep a secret. 2) ...)
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To: SierraWasp
Rachael Carson was full of it!!!

IMHO, Rachael Carson was the root cause of more suffering and death over the years than Hitler.

72 posted on 12/03/2004 4:18:19 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: snopercod; SierraWasp
If Koprowski wants a crusade, he should try Coleman lantern mantels, each of which contains enough microcuries of radioactive Thorium 242 to cause bone cancer if ingested

Don't forget there is Americium 241 in smoke detectors. :-)

73 posted on 12/03/2004 4:20:07 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: RadioAstronomer

Yeah, with a little Be, you could make a thermal neutron source ;-)


74 posted on 12/03/2004 4:23:10 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: snopercod

Heck, you can buy that stuff on Ebay! LOL


75 posted on 12/03/2004 4:24:47 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: RadioAstronomer
I agree with your comment on Rachael Carson. She was the biggest mass murderess of all time.

What is it? 1-3 million malaria deaths per year for over 30 years? 300 million presently infected?

Gotta' love those liberals... /sarc

76 posted on 12/03/2004 4:36:43 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: RadioAstronomer; snopercod
Thank you for helping me push back the frontiers of ignorance, as Walter Williams is so fond of saying.

You too, cod man!!!

77 posted on 12/03/2004 5:29:44 PM PST by SierraWasp (Ronald Reagan was an exceptional "celebrity!" Jesse Ventura & Arnold Schwarzenrenegger are NOT!!!)
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To: SierraWasp

...but what about Fluoride in our water!!!


78 posted on 12/03/2004 5:34:45 PM PST by snopercod (Bigger government means clinton won. Less freedom means Osama won. Get it?)
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To: snopercod
I don't have any in mine... I'm on a well and my teeth are all rotting outa my head, don'tcha know?! They keep jammin my insinkerator dealie... naw, just kiddin!

Then somebody tried to tell me alla my danged fillings were gonna poison me to death because a sumthin in 'em... What's an aging FReeper ta do??? Drink the Kool Aid??? What??? Help! Save me frum bein sucha cynic!!!

79 posted on 12/03/2004 5:45:13 PM PST by SierraWasp (Ronald Reagan was an exceptional "celebrity!" Jesse Ventura & Arnold Schwarzenrenegger are NOT!!!)
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To: Fierce Allegiance; kerrywearsbotox; 1Old Pro; aardvark1; a_federalist; abner; aculeus; ...
"OH, don't claim that heavy metals cause health hazards"

Only a moron would.

Less than one gram of each phone is toxic metals, and even if each person discarded 50 phones (unlikely) It would take over 1000 years of dumping all of the phones in the world into one dump to acumulate enough heavy metals to be of concern.

80 posted on 12/03/2004 6:22:13 PM PST by editor-surveyor (The Lord has given us President Bush; let's now turn this nation back to him)
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