Ian Field wrote in message
...


"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
The ROHS rationale was to protect the health of folks
doing recycling.

That's only part of it. It's supposedly true that rain (and
other solvents) leech lead from electronic equipment,
and it winds up in drinking water.

Therein lies an example of why we have the RoHS BS.

It's not BS if it's true.

I have never seen conclusive evidence one way or another. From my
perspective, the real issue is the huge piles of electronic trash
generated
every year. If these were properly recycled and/or disposed of, there
probably wouldn't be an issue with lead.

Europe has the WEEE directive to deal with waste electronics equipment -
but
the recycling facilities are being overstretched due to the increased
volume
of scrap caused by low life expectancy lead free solder.



Its only marginal that any "recycling" can be currently done in a western
economy (with E European or Mexican labour/labor rates) . If metals pricing
goes down then even that section , which as far as electronics scrap is
really only the metal casings of pcs , will go back in those thousands of
otherwise empty shipping containers back to the east. The dodgey sell-on of
containers of "nominally" working scrap electronics to Africa will continue
though.