[Beowulf] Recycling old nodes without poisoning Indian chlidren (fwd)

[Robert G. Brown]

Another (maybe the first, can't remember).

   rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:38:32 -0500
From: Bill Taylor <wataylor at as-st.com>
Reply-To: wataylor at alum.mit.edu
To: rgb at phy.duke.edu
Subject: Recycling old nodes without poisoning Indian chlidren

The Noranda mining company in Canada has a copper smelter which is right 
next to an empty copper mine.  They keep it running by sending 
trainloads of electronic-ish scrap up there and turning it into massive 
copper ingots.  The other stuff burns off; even arsenic, etc. go away 
nicely at zillions of degrees.  They use very little fuel because the 
plastic burns pretty hot.

The ship the copper back to Montreal and electro-refine them using cheap 
hydro electric power.  This results in 99. they won't tell me how many 
nines pure copper and all the gold, cobalt, etc., are separated out 
rather neatly.

The trouble is shipping the computers up there.  They get a lot of old 
phones and electronics from Canada, but the US lags.

In a pure dollar point of view, the US imports more from Asia than it 
exports so empty containers go back mostly for free.  It costs nothing 
to ship old computers to India so the Indian children can recycle them 
toxically by hand; it costs something to ship them to Canada where they 
could be recycled more completely and with no illnesses.

But I have friends who know the Noranda company well if you'd like to 
get some details to put in that part of your book.  I don't know what 
could be done, but I could ask my Noranda-ites.  These particular 
individual happen to be interested in recycling, so they might dig for a 
solution.

Neat book.

Bill Taylor