GI Notes_Part1(Amit Sir) PDF

Overview and Issues Part 1 Toxins According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans throw out more than 2 million tons of consumer electronics annually, making electronic waste (also known as e-waste) one of the fastest growing components of the m...

Overview and Issues Part 1 Toxins According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans throw out more than 2 million tons of consumer electronics annually, making electronic waste (also known as e-waste) one of the fastest growing components of the municipal waste stream. When these electronics break down, they release mercury and other toxins. E-waste is a concern because of the impact of its toxicity and carcinogenicity when components are not properly disposed of. Toxic substances can include: Lead Mercury Cadmium Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) A typical computer monitor may contain more than 6 percent lead by weight, much of which is in the lead glass of the cathode ray tube (CRT). Components such as capacitors, transformers, and PVC insulated wires that were manufactured before 1977 contain dangerous amounts of PCBs. We don’t mean to frighten you to the point that you never upgrade your computers again. Far from it. You should upgrade, but with environmental responsibility in mind. The good news is that e-waste processing systems have had such a light shone on them recently that they are being forced to— forgive the pun—clean up their acts. More regulation, public attention, and commercial consideration are being paid to the issue. A major portion of this change is that e- waste is being handled separately from conventional garbage and recycling processes. There are lots of benefits to reusing equipment: There is less demand for new products and their use of virgin raw materials. Less water and electricity is used when reuse lowers the need for the production of new products. Less packaging is used. Redeployed technology is available to more sectors of society, because computers and other components are often more affordable. Less toxins are going into landfills. This figure shows where various toxins can be found on your desktop computer—or the thousands of desktops in a large organization. 1. Lead in the cathode ray tube and solder 2. Arsenic in older cathode ray tubes 3. Antimony trioxide used as flame retardant 4. Poly-brominated flame retardants in plastic casings, cables, and circuit boards 5. Selenium used as a power supply rectifier in circuit boards 6. Cadmium in circuit boards and semiconductors 7. Chromium used as corrosion protection in steel 8. Cobalt in steel for structure and magnetism 9. Mercury in switches and the housing Power Consumption What You Use All your desktop PCs, all your servers, all your switches, and so forth use electricity to run. Also, a fair amount of electricity is used to cool your electronics. This electricity not only costs you money to buy from the electrical utility, but the utility has to generate the electricity, quite often by using fossil fuels, which generate more greenhouse gas emissions. Power usage is an especially relevant issue for operating a green information system—the more power that’s used, the more money that’s spent and the greater the carbon footprint. The place to start is knowing how much power is being used. However, according to research from Intel, 80 percent of businesses have never conducted an energy audit and only 29 percent of businesses are investing in energy- efficient PCs—Intel, 2006. Those companies are losing money because they don’t know just what they’re spending and how they can reduce those costs. It’s becoming more expensive to run an IT department, strictly from a power consumption standpoint. International Data Corporation (IDC) notes that ten years ago, around 17 cents out of every dollar spent on a new server went to power and cooling. Today, it’s up to 48 cents. Unless things change, that number will get as large as 78 cents or more—IDC, 2007. Solutions There are two ways you can rely less on fossil fuel–based sources of electricity: Virtualization Virtualization takes multiple physical servers out of operation and offloads their duties onto a single machine. Specialized software makes it possible to run dozens of servers on one physical machine, thus reducing the amount of power consumed. Generate your own power Many companies are striving to be completely carbon neutral. One way you can cut your electrical bill and make a move toward carbon neutrality is to generate your own power. This is typically done using solar cells or wind turbines. Also, if you generate more power than you need, you can sell it back to your electrical utility. Heat The energy you consume to cool that equipment is also an issue. The more equipment you have (and the less efficient it is), the more heat it generates and the more electricity you use to cool that equipment. Equipment Disposal The issues go beyond power consumption. Computers and other devices are routinely discarded once they become obsolete. Gartner estimates that 133,000 PCs are discarded by U.S. homes and businesses each day. In 1998 alone, more than 20 million PCs became obsolete in the U.S., but fewer than 11 percent of them were recycled—Gartner, 2003. Old computers don’t need to be looked at like they’re infectious materials. Simply by virtue of the fact that they are old and at the end of their life doesn’t mean that they are going to hurt you. If they are properly disposed of, they can be a great source for secondary raw materials. On the other hand, if they are disposed of improperly, they can be major sources of toxins. The problem in many places, including the United States, is that there is no formal, official, legal process in place for the disposal of electronics. There is no umbrella federal law, and individual cities have different requirements for the disposal of electronic waste, but it’s a patchwork at best. Other parts of the globe are doing better. Much of Europe and the whole of Japan have policies in place that govern not only what can go inside computer, but also how those devices should be handled when they’ve reached their end of life. Electronic waste is a big problem. It represents 2 percent of American landfills, but it accounts for 70 percent of overall toxic waste, as shown next. Much of the e-waste is shipped overseas to China, India, Nigeria, and other places. The Recycling Process E-waste processing generally involves first dismantling the equipment into these different components: Metal frames Power supplies Circuit boards Plastics Starting in 2004, the state of California added an electronic waste recycling fee to all new monitors and televisions to cover the cost of recycling. The fee depends on the size of the monitor. Canada has also started being responsible for electronics recycling. In August 2007, a fee similar to the California fee was added to the cost of purchasing a new television, computer, or computer component in British Columbia. The law also makes it mandatory to recycle those products. An electronic waste recycling plant found in an industrialized country is able to handle a lot of equipment and effectively sort the components in a safe manner. Material is fed into a hopper, which is then sent up a conveyor and dropped into a mechanical separator. The material is then screened and sorted. This automation limits the amount of human contact with hazardous materials during processing.