How green is an electronic circuit board?

What goes into an electronic circuit board

Production circuit boards typically start out as thin sheets of fiberglass (about 1mm thick) that are completely covered on both sides with very thin sheets of copper. A standard circuit board might use a 1 ounce copper process, which means that one ounce of copper is evenly spread across 1 square foot of circuit board. What goes into a circuit board

Chemical contamination

Until very recently, lead was used in most of the solder on circuit boards, however in many european countries legislation has beed passed to ban the use of lead in solder.

Lifetime embodied energy

Micro-chips require huge amounts of energy to produce, this is due mainly because of the need for very pure raw materials. Combine this with a very short working life ( 2 years for a mobile phone 3 or four for a computer) and a very poor recycle rate, makes for a very heavy carbon footprint.

Recycling and material recovery

Most of the electrical componats on a circuit board can be taken off and used again, but because this proccess is labour intensive and unhealthy (often undertaken by unmoderated factories in developing countries) most electrical products containing circuit boards end up in landfill.

Factoids [3]

The production of one gram of microchips consumes 630 grams of fossil fuels. According to the American Chemical Society, the construction of single 32 megabyte DRAM chip requires 3.5 pounds of fossil fuels in addition to 70.5 pounds of water.

Microchips have and energy ratio of 630 - 1. Cars typicaly have a ratio of 2-1

Micro-chips require huge amounts of energy to produce, this is due mainly because of the need for very pure raw materials. Combine this with a very short working life ( 2 years for a mobile phone 3 or four for a computer) and a very poor recycle rate, makes for a very heavy carbon footprint.

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