With the influx of new computer equipment into the nation's schools, district officials face a new and perplexing problem: what to do with piles of broken or obsolete electronic equipment.

Several states—most notably Massachusetts, in March of this year—have passed laws banning computer equipment from landfills. That means districts that used to put their old CPUs, monitors, and peripherals out on the curb for the trash collector have to come up with creative solutions to deal with an increasing amount of obsolete, broken, or unusable equipment.

According to Bill Sheehan, director of the Grassroots Recycling Network in Athens, Ga., "There is more toxic material in computers than most people realize—five or six pounds of lead in monitors. If that goes into a landfill and seeps into the groundwater, it can cause mental retardation and other serious health problems."

If significant amounts of lead were to enter the water supply, it could cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, blood system, and kidneys in humans, environmentalists say.

Cadmium, which can be found in chip resistors, infrared detectors, semiconductors, and older types of cathode ray tubes, easily can accumulate in amounts that could cause symptoms of poisoning. And the mercury found in batteries, switches, housing, and printed wiring boards also can cause chronic damage to the brain, according to environmental watchdog groups.

Accountability and environmental sustainability are now becoming watchwords for school technologists, who suddenly are forced to deal with an issue that used to fall under the jurisdiction of grounds and maintenance.

Said Pat Hartley, technology director for Evergreen School District in Washington, "There are good reasons why you can't just throw computer equipment away. First, the landfills won't take it anymore, and then there are political issues that arise if a school just discards old equipment. We've had to find other solutions."

The problem

According to a report from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), "Most consumers are unaware of the toxic materials in the products they rely on for word processing, data management, and access to the internet."

SVTC is a nonprofit organization consisting of environmental and neighborhood groups, labor unions, public health leaders, and people affected by toxic exposure.

The SVTC web site explains that computer equipment can contain more than 1,000 materials, many of which are highly toxic, such as chlorinated and brominated substances, toxic gases, toxic metals, biologically active materials, acids, plastics, and plastic additives.

According to the organization, the health impact of these products often is not known, but all signs point to dangerous levels of toxicity in computer waste. Furthermore, the rapid pace of computer development enhances the problem.