Le Messurier gets AU$1,000 per tonne for circuit boards. Credit: Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia

1. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Nation-of-hoarders-30-million-PCs-rot-in-Australia/0,130061702,339284960,00.htmhttp://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Nation-of-hoarders-30-million-PCs-rot-in-Australia/0,130061702,339284960,00.htm

2. In 2008, seven million PCs will be available for recycling. Of those, just 500,000 will be recycled, 1.6 million will be sent to landfill, and the remaining 5.4 million PCs will collect dust in garages. ZDNet Australia asks why Australians treat old PCs like last night's leftovers by covering, storing and deferring the purge until the item's value flatlines. 2007 should have been the year Australians seriously set about recycling their old PCs -- initiatives such as Sustainability Victoria's Byteback program were established, offering Melbournians free PC pickup and recycling, while state governments across the country imposed recycling clauses in procurement contracts.

3. 2007 should have been the year -- yet over five million of them rest in the hidden wasteland of Australian garages, leaving PC-recycling businesses lacking PCs to recycle. Recycling outfits such as MRI -- the company Dell uses to fulfil its promise to take back and recycle its end of life PCs -- remain supply-constrained, according to its managing director, William Le Messurier. The supply problem could be solved if the five million PCs stored in garages around the country were sent or sold to recyclers, Le Messurier told ZDNet Australia. Yet, if Australia suddenly woke up from its "store, defer and dump" slumber, the country would still lack the processing capacity to handle both the volume of PCs and certain types of toxic materials they contain. Le Messurier gets AU$1,000 per tonne for circuit boards. Credit: Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia

5. The hoarding complex So why do Australians keep hoarding PCs? Do we have a hoarding complex? Does the same mentality that causes people to wrap tonight's leftovers in plastic and wait until it expires in the fridge before binning it, cause them to cling to a PC until its value flatlines? Francine Garlin, a marketing lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney who specialises in consumer psychology, said hoarding can be addressed if people understand the impact of their consumption and disposal choices. Mounting e-waste pressures According to Environment Australia, between the years 1980 and 2011 Australians will have purchased 45 million PCs. Over that time 5.5 million will be stored and 7 million computers will have been recycled. But the majority, 24 million PCs in total, will end up in landfill, representing 2.2 million cubic metres of waste -- enough to fill 1,000 Olympic swimming pools -- some of which is toxic and 30 percent of which is plastic. In 1984 622,000 new PCs were purchased, with just 500,000 becoming obsolete in that year. But in 2011, 2.29 million PCs will be purchased while 2.25 million PCs become obsolete.

6. Salvaging the wreck PCs lose value in storage because the most valuable item to take-back schemes is a working PC. After this come parts, such as CRT or LCD monitors, and salvageable materials such as steel or gold Today MRI receives AU$10 for every CRT screen it exports, representing a windfall of AU$200,000 per year but soon this window will close on the company, said Le Messurier. The increasing availability of better quality consumer technology in MRI's export markets, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, China and some African countries, have caused consumers to turn away from these inferior goods. After assessing the reusability of PCs, components containing metals are sorted and sent to South Korea. A low value circuit board, which contains steel and "a bit of gold", according to Le Messurier, attracts a price of AU$1,000 per tonne. Australia also lacks the facilities to recycle certain toxic materials. Under Byteback, lead from CRTs is sent to the Netherlands, heavy metals from batteries are sent to France, printed circuit boards are sent to Canada, and LCD screens are sent to the US.

7. Although sending materials offshore for processing has been criticised due to the harmful effect that transport can have on benefits from recycling, Byteback claims that none of its non-recyclable materials are sent to developing countries with less stringent environmental regulations than Australia. Q1 How many computers does your family own? Q2 How many mobile phones? Q3 How often do you upgrade? What happens to your old phones or PCs? Q4 What materials are present in a typical PC Q5 How may kg of fossils fuels water and other chemicals are used to make a typical PC Q6 Research; Use the internet to find who recycles computer parts in Queensland