http://www.boston.com/dailynews/224/nation/Flat_panel_monitors_shove_toxi:.shtml

Flat-panel monitors shove toxic predecessors into the trash

By Jim Krane, Associated Press, 8/12/2001 13:28

NEW YORK (AP) For a device so key to the high-tech boom, the computer monitor's core technology is pretty darn old. The monitor's funnel-shaped cathode ray tube has evolved little since Germany's Karl Ferdinand Braun invented it in 1897.

But the cathode ray tube (CRT) is finally showing its age.

Sales of the boxy tube monitors are giving way to slimmed-down flat-panel monitors that use liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.

Analysts say the flat panel is a shoo-in.

Users generally agree it's easier on the eyes than the incessant flicker of a tube monitor. The sleek screen saves desk space and runs cooler with less electricity. With prices dropping, at least two companies, Samsung and NEC-Mitsubishi, now offer 15-inch LCDs under $400. The psychological price barrier of $350 is within smashing distance.

But environmentalists warn that adoption of LCD screens will send truckloads of old monitors whose glass tubes contain phosphorous and four to eight pounds of lead into landfills.

The switch to LCDs is exacerbated by the computer's ultra-short life span. The National Safety Council estimates the United States will be awash in 500 million defunct computers and monitors by 2007.

For now, probably no more than 10 percent of America's obsolete monitors make it to a reputable recycler for disposal, said Ted Smith, executive director of the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Toxics Commission.

Most get stuffed into attics, shipped to Third World scrap yards, or tossed into the trash and buried in municipal dumps, said Smith.

Things are different in Japan and western Europe. Manufacturers are often forced by law to accept trade-ins of old monitors, which usually get sent to a recycler who disassembles them and sells the raw materials. The European Union is also close to adopting legislation that forces makers to phase out toxic materials like lead and mercury in electronic devices.

Smith's nonprofit group lobbies for similar restrictions in the United States.

Currently, only Massachusetts and California prohibit dumping CRTs in household waste and landfilling or incinerating them. The restrictions seek to prevent lead from crushed tubes leaching into groundwater, or dioxin from incinerated monitors from fouling the air.

A handful of companies, with Hewlett-Packard and IBM among them, take back old computer equipment for disposal. Most don't.

''Right now, producers have no responsibility after they produce the product,'' said Smith. ''If they have to take it back, it'll give them incentive to redesign it.''

To the trash handlers who deal with electronic waste, the switch in monitor technology translates into towering piles of scrap.

''Flat screens are going to push millions of TVs and monitors out of the homes,'' said Dan Schimenti of HMR USA, Inc., a computer recycling firm in San Francisco whose warehouse accepts 60,000 pounds of monitors per week from regional dumps. ''It's already occurring. We've got 18-wheelers coming in every day, full of old monitors and TVs.''

California's new dumping restrictions divert the devices to HMR, where employees dismantle the machines into raw plastic, glass and metals. HMR sells the scrap for pennies per pound, said Schimenti.

Schimenti said HMR now plans to enlarge its 100,000 square-foot waterfront warehouse, gearing up ''to handle a huge influx of TVs and monitors directly related to flat screens.''

LCD sales predictions dovetail with HMR's building plans. Flat-panel monitor sales increased 88 percent last year, and will jump 110 percent this year to 13 million units, according to technology research firm IDC.

Major PC manufacturers like IBM, Toshiba and Compaq offer their own brand of LCD monitors. Electronics makers, like NEC, Sharp and LG Electronics also sell them.

Some companies, including Apple Computer, are dropping tube monitors for most products. Sharp Corp. says it will phase out its CRT televisions by 2005, and only sell flat panel TVs. Hitachi Ltd. announced last month that it would stop manufacturing cathode ray tubes.

Even so, the tube monitor faces no imminent doom.

Flat-panels cost more to make than CRTs, and will command higher prices for the next few years, analysts say.

As the developed world embraces LCD displays, cheap tube monitors which now cost about $150 for a 15-inch screen will find new markets in poorer countries.

Although worldwide sales of tube monitors dipped slightly last year, IDC's Eric Haruki predicts they'll inch upward until 2005 or 2006. By then, the flat panel display may be close to eclipsing the 109-year-old cathode ray tube.

In 2000, CRT sales dwarfed those of LCDs, by 97 million to 6.3 million, according to IDC. By 2005, IDC predicts sales of 42 million LCDs and 120 million CRTs.

Flat-panel TVs are another matter. Analysts like Haruki don't believe flat-panel TVs will outgrow the picture tube anytime soon. The current large-picture screens cost thousands of dollars.

Compared with a CRT, the raw material of a flat panel monitor is a breath of fresh air. Their screens illuminate with a simple fluorescent light, eliminating the tube monitor's radiation and lead shielding.

The manufacturing of flat panel screens does involve caustic chemicals, however, and some LCD brands contain mercury in their switches, Smith said.

Perhaps most significantly, flat panels demand a fraction of the CRTs power. Because they run cooler, a roomful of LCD monitors requires less air conditioning. These advantages contrast with the oncoming glut of obsolete tube monitors.

''It really is a public health disaster waiting to happen,'' Smith said.

On the Net:

Silicon Valley Toxics Commission: http://www.svtc.org

National Safety Council: http://www.nsc.org

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2001

Answers

If the LCD displays are as crisp and last as long as the current tubes, I'm all for the change. The present tubes do update at a high rate per second, at least 30 frames per second I think. That is a strobe condition that really affects some users, and I think it causes some subconscious problems for all users, even though we are not directly aware of it. Strobes are not a good thing for our brain.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2001