Knee-jerk Environmentalism vs Sound Environmental Thinking.

Many people often assume that if you show a strong interest in environmental issues and talk about that sort of thing a lot that you are also the type that will jump on every environmental bandwagon that comes through town. In same cases, that kind of knee-jerk thinking can actually be very contradictory to environmental well-being.

What got me thinking about this is something the owner of a local computer store told me. I mentioned that my 2 year old Toshiba lap top was starting to act up already and I asked what is the life expectancy of that machine. She said, 2 to 5 years. I asked, why such a short time? She said, it's because lead solder is no longer used in electronics.

I looked into that issue and found some very interesting information. I found that, for the most part, today's electronic components use solder that has a high percentage of tin rather than lead. Everyone knows lead is bad and tin is better, right? Or is it? The facts behind this do not necessarily hold up that assumption. For one thing, tin solder grows what are known as "tin whiskers". These whiskers grow out and often interact with whiskers from other components and can cause equipment failure.

Here is an article that talks about that and includes some photographs of tin whiskers:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/apr/03/research.engineering

This is one of the reasons why so many of our machines need frequent replacement. I have a Marantz tuner that was made in the seventies and is just now giving me some trouble. It is very highly unlikely any tuner produced today will continue to work as long as that Marantz, that is, until the 2040's. Replacing these machines on a more and more frequent basis is far more environmentally destructive than having machines that contain lead. The manufacturing process is not Eco-friendly and tin mining is especially destructive.* Lead is not healthy, but there is plenty of it around, it doesn't need to be mined and it does not leach into the soil (besides, why would anyone put it back into the soil?)

One major solution to issues like this is to produce DURABLE goods. Durability, combined with sharing, consuming less and recycling are key solutions for greater environmentally sound means of living.

* http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/23/tin-mining-indonesia-bangka