6 ms·

Why are new Samsung and HP computer parts being dumped in Guiyu?

51 points by anonymous_eng 15y ago

tobiasu 15y ago
These are really small quantities. The companies involved are way too large to bother with two boxes full of HP drives or a bunch of defect graphic card PCBs. Interested in writing a book, indeed...
- stephengillie 15y ago
  >Interested in writing a book, indeed... The author makes a big point about NEW hardware being dumped, but fails to deliver. This looks like numerous companies bought HP hardware over the past 10 years, and have been tossing it here as they upgrade. The HP drives look older to me - one is a 146GB 10K Fibre-channel drive that Amazon doesn't sell anymore. One of the labels shows "Tested Jul '05". The other is a 72GB 15k Wide Ultra320 SCSI. The monitor is a 14.1" WXGA, which looks to max out at 1366x768. The label shows "Date of receipt: 10-May-10" The crop of the 3rd barcode is very blurry, I couldn't figure out what was in it. Apparently they're supposed to be Samsung-branded, but the box isn't branded at all. (other than mentioning Korean assembly) The next 2 images are really trying hard - one is the AMD-labelled PCB for an AMD/ATI Radeon, and the other is its ATI-branded heatsink. The author tries to grow his list of offending brands by including both of this company's brands. You can find one for sale on Ebay. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-Graphics-Card-Model-B403-ATI-102-B40319-B-109-B40341-00-DP-N0C120D-/250966372914 http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-Graphics-Card-Model-B403-...) Apparently Panasonic Aviation is part of Panasonic. (http://www.mascorp.com/ http://www.mascorp.com/) Still, the pink label in the photo notes the manufacture date as "28 Feb 06".
  - ticks 15y ago
    They could easily have been purchased new but left unopened in some warehouse, which is still 'new'. Just saying.
  - dfox 15y ago
    The HP drives are certainly not manufactured by HP, only HP branded. Partnumber on label on 3rd photo is clearly Samsung's (S3C...) and seems to be some semi-custom CPU for TVs so it's entirely possible to be discarded by Samsung's customer instead of Samsung. Also parts that are discarded because they don't pass QC testing are usually not packaged (as packaging invalid parts is large mostly avoidable cost) or at least visibly and irreparably destroyed (like drilled through) to make them unsellable and unusable for counterfeiters, not thrown away with complete original packaging. The AMD board was certainly discarded during manufacturing, I would quess that by automated optical check after reflow (through hole components are not assembled, there seems to be missing component marked by the arrow label). Due to various process limitations, discarding such boards tends to be cheaper (and maybe even more green and eco-friendly) than trying to fix them.
sbierwagen 15y ago
Title asks a question, article doesn't actually answer it.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Neither did HP or Samsung.
  - stephengillie 15y ago
    How would Coca-Cola respond to a writer asking about all their cans in landfills? How morally responsible should a company be for what their customers do with purchased merchandise?
    - parenthesis 15y ago
      Coca-Cola should be responsible for making sure that its cans are recycleable, I would say. Due to the toxic materials embedded in electronic waste, the consumer can't be expected to, or be trusted to carry all the burden of disposing of it appropriately. How this burden is to be divided between the makers and sellers of electronic goods and governments is an important question for debate.
      - stephengillie 15y ago
        Washington State offers free e-cycling: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/eproductrecycle/ http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/eproductrecycle/
  - anonymous_eng 15y ago
    Samsung has since responded: "Based on our internal investigation, we confirmed that the boxes were not discarded by Samsung Electronics or by one of Samsung’s recycling partners. Furthermore, the semiconductor components contained in the boxes were manufactured in 2004 and had been shipped to a customer overseas. In the case of components – unlike finished products – all rights and ownership are transferred to the customer after a sales transaction has been completed." The full response: http://www.techinasia.com/samsung-denies-dumping-ewaste-china/ http://www.techinasia.com/samsung-denies-dumping-ewaste-chin...
DanBC 15y ago
Wouldn't "e-waste" - properly handled - by an income source for developing world nations? For sure there's plenty of health and safety problems to be handled carefully, but allowing people to salvage various minerals and metals would seem a useful idea.
- lbotos 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure they are already doing this, if not acquiring new minerals by active mining. I wonder if the actual compute r would be worth more as a functional device in a developing nation?
- dfox 15y ago
  It's pretty common for whole parts (not only raw materials) salvaged from e-waste to be resold (usually not designated as salvaged and sold as new, but that's entirely different matter).
- watmough 15y ago
  Right, but put together a 'recycling company'. What's the cheapest way when you don't have access to skilled labor? Probably to just melt it all down and skim off the 1% or 2% of gold...
  - DanBC 15y ago
    But even with semi-skilled labour you can recycle copper reasonably easily. At least, it could be done a lot better than just burning the insulation off cables. There's so much stuff which could be reasonably easily recycled - the lead, aluminium, copper are all easy. Then stuff like gold is extractable. Then the rare earth minerals - is it easier to scrape all the surface mount components of a board and then extract the tantalum etc than it is to mine those things from raw ore? I understand the need to protect developing nations by not just dumping garbage on them in the guise of "second hand computing good enough to use". As I understand it, one of the problems is that in some places the safety equipment you give people has a high re-sale value, thus people sell their boots / gloves /masks to get cash. I'm not sure how that'd be fixed.
- 15y ago
seclorum 15y ago
As an avid dumpster diver, nothing irks me more than seeing people throw away perfectly functional equipment that they just don't have a 'fashion sense' for, any more. I'm rapidly accruing enough material for my own data center. My kids have their own little mini-studio of keyboards, samplers, and whatnot, to deal with. I'd love to be putting the thrown-away computers to better use in my area. If only there were some sort of really big cultural effect that could occur that would make it utterly unacceptable to take your "old computer" anywhere other than a school or education facility put in place to prevent exactly this kind of ridiculous waste from occurring ..
- SamReidHughes 15y ago
  The last thing we need is old computers. Old computers suck. They have old failing components and they use too much energy.
  - shinratdr 15y ago
    You'll get down voted for it but its completely true. Anyone who thinks they are helping the environment by still using their ancient P4 instead of junking it is kidding themselves.
    - icegreentea 15y ago
      As if it costs no energy to make a new computer? If you want to minimize total energy costs, you have to consider manufacturing energy costs. The case for just getting a new computer gets even worse if you put all of your old computer's energy costs as a sunk cost. This study shows that amongst the early 2000s generation of laptops that even if you use a laptop for 7 years [1] (you have to squint at the first graph), manufacturing still accounts for ~50% of energy costs. Even assuming that manufacturing efficiency increased even more than operating efficiency since then, the answer is still not clear cut. Now obviously at some point, it becomes better to get a new computer period, and most P4s may already be in that range, but as a generalized statement, should be taken carefully. [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652611000801 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652611...
mtkd 15y ago
Why would you write a blog post with a question for a title and close the comments?
aes256 15y ago
” … your main priority seems to be your book, while ours is to investigate and resolve this matter.” The representative from Samsung nailed it.
aes256 15y ago
Title should read: Aspiring author with evidence of a relatively minor issue — finding small quantities of harmless e-waste at an e-waste recycling site — is peeved that tech companies were more interested in resolving the issue than providing material for his book, launches an unsuccessful campaign to smear said companies' reputations and get free publicity for his book
- moreorless 15y ago
  |evidence of a relatively minor issue| A minor issue? The people suffering people in the surrounding area will definitely disagree it being a "minor" problem.
nivertech 15y ago
There is a thing called "longevity" - i.e. ability to source the same SKUs for 5 years. It's very important in Embedded / Industrial / Military markets. The only reliable way to achieve longevity is to buy spare parts and store them for entire period. Of course the supplier will charge much higher price. After longevity period is over the parts should be destroyed.
DanBC 15y ago
BBC had a better, although still sensationalist, article. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17782718 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17782718) > The soil in Guiyu has been found to be so saturated with heavy metals such as lead, chromium and tin that groundwater has become undrinkable. > According to China's Shantou University, the town has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world, and local children suffer from an extremely high rate of lead poisoning. This is a serious problem, but it's one that could be fixed with some strict eco and H&S law in the country concerned.

51 points by anonymous_eng 15y ago

These are really small quantities. The companies involved are way too large to bother with two boxes full of HP drives or a bunch of defect graphic card PCBs. Interested in writing a book, indeed...

stephengillie 15y ago
>Interested in writing a book, indeed... The author makes a big point about NEW hardware being dumped, but fails to deliver. This looks like numerous companies bought HP hardware over the past 10 years, and have been tossing it here as they upgrade. The HP drives look older to me - one is a 146GB 10K Fibre-channel drive that Amazon doesn't sell anymore. One of the labels shows "Tested Jul '05". The other is a 72GB 15k Wide Ultra320 SCSI. The monitor is a 14.1" WXGA, which looks to max out at 1366x768. The label shows "Date of receipt: 10-May-10" The crop of the 3rd barcode is very blurry, I couldn't figure out what was in it. Apparently they're supposed to be Samsung-branded, but the box isn't branded at all. (other than mentioning Korean assembly) The next 2 images are really trying hard - one is the AMD-labelled PCB for an AMD/ATI Radeon, and the other is its ATI-branded heatsink. The author tries to grow his list of offending brands by including both of this company's brands. You can find one for sale on Ebay. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-Graphics-Card-Model-B403-ATI-102-B40319-B-109-B40341-00-DP-N0C120D-/250966372914 http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-Graphics-Card-Model-B403-...) Apparently Panasonic Aviation is part of Panasonic. (http://www.mascorp.com/ http://www.mascorp.com/) Still, the pink label in the photo notes the manufacture date as "28 Feb 06".
- ticks 15y ago
  They could easily have been purchased new but left unopened in some warehouse, which is still 'new'. Just saying.
- dfox 15y ago
  The HP drives are certainly not manufactured by HP, only HP branded. Partnumber on label on 3rd photo is clearly Samsung's (S3C...) and seems to be some semi-custom CPU for TVs so it's entirely possible to be discarded by Samsung's customer instead of Samsung. Also parts that are discarded because they don't pass QC testing are usually not packaged (as packaging invalid parts is large mostly avoidable cost) or at least visibly and irreparably destroyed (like drilled through) to make them unsellable and unusable for counterfeiters, not thrown away with complete original packaging. The AMD board was certainly discarded during manufacturing, I would quess that by automated optical check after reflow (through hole components are not assembled, there seems to be missing component marked by the arrow label). Due to various process limitations, discarding such boards tends to be cheaper (and maybe even more green and eco-friendly) than trying to fix them.

sbierwagen 15y ago

Title asks a question, article doesn't actually answer it.

brudgers 15y ago
Neither did HP or Samsung.
- stephengillie 15y ago
  How would Coca-Cola respond to a writer asking about all their cans in landfills? How morally responsible should a company be for what their customers do with purchased merchandise?
  - parenthesis 15y ago
    Coca-Cola should be responsible for making sure that its cans are recycleable, I would say. Due to the toxic materials embedded in electronic waste, the consumer can't be expected to, or be trusted to carry all the burden of disposing of it appropriately. How this burden is to be divided between the makers and sellers of electronic goods and governments is an important question for debate.
    - stephengillie 15y ago
      Washington State offers free e-cycling: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/eproductrecycle/ http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/eproductrecycle/
- anonymous_eng 15y ago
  Samsung has since responded: "Based on our internal investigation, we confirmed that the boxes were not discarded by Samsung Electronics or by one of Samsung’s recycling partners. Furthermore, the semiconductor components contained in the boxes were manufactured in 2004 and had been shipped to a customer overseas. In the case of components – unlike finished products – all rights and ownership are transferred to the customer after a sales transaction has been completed." The full response: http://www.techinasia.com/samsung-denies-dumping-ewaste-china/ http://www.techinasia.com/samsung-denies-dumping-ewaste-chin...

DanBC 15y ago

Wouldn't "e-waste" - properly handled - by an income source for developing world nations? For sure there's plenty of health and safety problems to be handled carefully, but allowing people to salvage various minerals and metals would seem a useful idea.

lbotos 15y ago
I'm pretty sure they are already doing this, if not acquiring new minerals by active mining. I wonder if the actual compute r would be worth more as a functional device in a developing nation?
dfox 15y ago
It's pretty common for whole parts (not only raw materials) salvaged from e-waste to be resold (usually not designated as salvaged and sold as new, but that's entirely different matter).
watmough 15y ago
Right, but put together a 'recycling company'. What's the cheapest way when you don't have access to skilled labor? Probably to just melt it all down and skim off the 1% or 2% of gold...
- DanBC 15y ago
  But even with semi-skilled labour you can recycle copper reasonably easily. At least, it could be done a lot better than just burning the insulation off cables. There's so much stuff which could be reasonably easily recycled - the lead, aluminium, copper are all easy. Then stuff like gold is extractable. Then the rare earth minerals - is it easier to scrape all the surface mount components of a board and then extract the tantalum etc than it is to mine those things from raw ore? I understand the need to protect developing nations by not just dumping garbage on them in the guise of "second hand computing good enough to use". As I understand it, one of the problems is that in some places the safety equipment you give people has a high re-sale value, thus people sell their boots / gloves /masks to get cash. I'm not sure how that'd be fixed.
15y ago

seclorum 15y ago

As an avid dumpster diver, nothing irks me more than seeing people throw away perfectly functional equipment that they just don't have a 'fashion sense' for, any more. I'm rapidly accruing enough material for my own data center. My kids have their own little mini-studio of keyboards, samplers, and whatnot, to deal with. I'd love to be putting the thrown-away computers to better use in my area. If only there were some sort of really big cultural effect that could occur that would make it utterly unacceptable to take your "old computer" anywhere other than a school or education facility put in place to prevent exactly this kind of ridiculous waste from occurring ..

SamReidHughes 15y ago
The last thing we need is old computers. Old computers suck. They have old failing components and they use too much energy.
- shinratdr 15y ago
  You'll get down voted for it but its completely true. Anyone who thinks they are helping the environment by still using their ancient P4 instead of junking it is kidding themselves.
  - icegreentea 15y ago
    As if it costs no energy to make a new computer? If you want to minimize total energy costs, you have to consider manufacturing energy costs. The case for just getting a new computer gets even worse if you put all of your old computer's energy costs as a sunk cost. This study shows that amongst the early 2000s generation of laptops that even if you use a laptop for 7 years [1] (you have to squint at the first graph), manufacturing still accounts for ~50% of energy costs. Even assuming that manufacturing efficiency increased even more than operating efficiency since then, the answer is still not clear cut. Now obviously at some point, it becomes better to get a new computer period, and most P4s may already be in that range, but as a generalized statement, should be taken carefully. [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652611000801 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652611...

mtkd 15y ago

Why would you write a blog post with a question for a title and close the comments?

aes256 15y ago

” … your main priority seems to be your book, while ours is to investigate and resolve this matter.” The representative from Samsung nailed it.

aes256 15y ago

Title should read: Aspiring author with evidence of a relatively minor issue — finding small quantities of harmless e-waste at an e-waste recycling site — is peeved that tech companies were more interested in resolving the issue than providing material for his book, launches an unsuccessful campaign to smear said companies' reputations and get free publicity for his book

moreorless 15y ago
|evidence of a relatively minor issue| A minor issue? The people suffering people in the surrounding area will definitely disagree it being a "minor" problem.

nivertech 15y ago

There is a thing called "longevity" - i.e. ability to source the same SKUs for 5 years. It's very important in Embedded / Industrial / Military markets. The only reliable way to achieve longevity is to buy spare parts and store them for entire period. Of course the supplier will charge much higher price. After longevity period is over the parts should be destroyed.

DanBC 15y ago

BBC had a better, although still sensationalist, article. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17782718 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17782718) > The soil in Guiyu has been found to be so saturated with heavy metals such as lead, chromium and tin that groundwater has become undrinkable. > According to China's Shantou University, the town has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world, and local children suffer from an extremely high rate of lead poisoning. This is a serious problem, but it's one that could be fixed with some strict eco and H&S law in the country concerned.