I have a shop vacuum that is about 35 years old. All metal, robust, solid. I bought it way back when for, if I remember correctly, $300. It has seen a lot of

I have a shop vacuum that is about 35 years old. All metal, robust, solid. I bought it way back when for, if I remember correctly, $300. It has seen a lot of use and it still works like new. I still have a couple of HP-41 calculators. Over thirty years old and they look brand new and work as new. Here they are, on my desk. Always there as computers, keyboards and trackballs have come and gone. The same is true of power tools (not battery operated) of that era (early 80's). My Bridgeport milling machine is another example. Yes, it's an industrial machine so the comparison might not be fair but the electronics function as new. One of my biggest concerns as we were forced to transition into RoHS chemistry for electronics assembly has always been product lifetime. The intent of RoHS was, of course, to reduce pollution. I think that, in practice, it may have produced exactly the opposite effect. Sure someone has studied this. I hope I am wrong. How is this the case? Well, RoHS solder chemistry has problems. From brittle solder joints to tin whiskers, the latter being a huge concern. Whereas prior to RoHS one could build a great product like and HP-41 calculator and have it last decades, RoHS ended all of that. There is absolutely no way to prevent or predict tin whisker growth. Consumer electronics companies do not report failures (to be fair, the probably don't see most of them) and we have no real way to track people just tossing electronic products in the trash and why they do so. Having tin whiskers is like having guaranteed obsolescence. Products will fail and there is no way to predict when and how. Which, to me, means we are probably dumping more shit in landfills than we used to. In other words, my HP-41 hasn't gone into a landfill in over thirty years and it is unlikely to do so in another thirty. But nearly every other post-RoHS calculator is likely to end-up there because of these unpredictable failures. And so, while the intent of RoHS was to clean the planet I have a feeling they have effectively setup the world for massive product failures over the years and far greater piles of electronics waste to contend with.