William Sommerwerck wrote:
As I've said before... It isn't a matter of whether electronic equipment
has lead in it, but what happens to that equipment when it's disposed
of. It's the latter that should be considered.

There's the other end of the process too: mining, smelting,
and the rest of the manufacturing process that might be producing
pollution. All that is outside my realm of knowledge. Maybe they
do it in an "environmentally-friendly" manner these days? I really
have no idea.

I think ideally, we'd find something better to use, but although
it's gotten a lot of bad press, there are much worse things than
lead. Such as other heavy metals, notably cadmium and mercury.

Another source of lead is CRTs, many of which are still in use.
They contain about 5 pounds of lead each for radiation protection,
quite a bit more than is contained in the solder in the PC boards.

And the replacements, flat screen monitors, have mercury in
the fluorescent backlights.

I've had trouble with mercury poisoning in the past, but even
though I'd been exposed to a lot of lead as a child, I've never
discerned any problem from it. (It's tricky though, low- to
moderate-level heavy metal poisoning can easily go unnoticed,
while causing significant health problems.)

This does not mean that solder-containing lead is "good",
just that it's appropriate to keep things in perspective.

Jay Ts
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