On 8/26/2009 3:06 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

In m, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

I'm also curious what usable stuff they're able to extract from all
those bulbs. I can't imagine that anyone wants to reuse any of the
transistors, capacitors, etc., so they must get ground up and somehow
turned into feedstock for ... something.

I would think that the mercury gets recovered and everything else gets
landfilled, especially if they are using lead-free solder.

That's certainly at odds with at least the impression one gets from the
reports one sees on TV from time to time, touting how "responsible"
recyclers are now recovering the materials from such things as discarded
electronics, rather than shipping them overseas and letting 7-year-old
barefoot children pick them apart in a junkyard.

I would have thought that the electronics would get ground up and then
reclaimed, at least to some extent. Wouldn't it be just wasteful to put
all those metals back into the landfill?

Then again, maybe I was being naive.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism