DIGITAL TVs MEAN ANALOG TRASH

  • Digital TV is killing the analog star (Source: Zaphod at Wikimedia Commons)

In a couple of months, television
signals will be going digital. Congress
is requiring the switch. In February, if
you have an analog TV with rabbit ears,
it’ll be useless unless you get a converter
box. And even before the official transition,
people have been buying up new digital TVs.
Rebecca Williams reports the switch to DTV
has some people worried about the growing
pile of TV trash:

Transcript

In a couple of months, television
signals will be going digital. Congress
is requiring the switch. In February, if
you have an analog TV with rabbit ears,
it’ll be useless unless you get a converter
box. And even before the official transition,
people have been buying up new digital TVs.
Rebecca Williams reports the switch to DTV
has some people worried about the growing
pile of TV trash:

(sound of guy playing guitar hero)

William Borg says he’s really bad at Guitar Hero. So instead, we’re
watching one of his teenage customers play the game on a huge flat screen
digital TV.

“And this is another reason customers are after those high definition TVs
because you can really maximize the overall picture and sound quality.”

There’s not an analog TV in the place. Best Buy doesn’t sell them anymore.
You can’t buy them anywhere actually, except maybe at a thrift store.

Digital TV is killing the analog star.

“I think the end of analog TV is here.”

Megan Pollock is with the Consumer Electronics Association. She
represents TV makers and big box retailers.

“Just like record players some people will just fall in love and keep them for
as long as they can but I think in 5 to 10 years it’ll be very, very hard to find
one in anyone’s home.”

That’s right – analog TVs are gonna be museum pieces, or, more likely,
filling up landfills.

Megan Pollock says sales for digital TVs go up every year. She expects 36
million to sell next year.

In February, all broadcasters are required to switch over to digital TV. If
you have one of those old TVs with rabbit ears or an antenna, you’ll have to
get a converter box. If you’re hooked up to cable or satellite, you’re fine.
You don’t have to buy a new TV.

But TV recyclers say they’re seeing more people getting rid of perfectly
good analog TVs anyway.

Linda McFarland runs a TV and computer recycling business.

“We’re really gonna start seeing these in droves.”

We’re standing in front of seven foot tall stacks of old TVs.

McFarland says of all electronics, TVs are the least valuable. And the TVs
are full of toxic stuff. Especially lead in the cathode ray tubes.

Most of the time we export our TV waste. It ends up in Asia or Africa.
There, everyone from grandparents to little kids use acid or open flames to
melt the circuit boards to get to the tiny bits of gold and silver.

“Children are working on top of these electronic heaps and breathing
cyanide acid.”

Linda McFarland says it’s easy for recyclers in the US to make deals with
importers in other countries. They sneak the TV waste in along with much
more valuable computer parts.

“You might just stick it on containers and tell the marketplace that’s buying
from you I’ll give you two good containers for every container I give you.”

McFarland says that probably happens nine out of ten times. She wants new
laws to force recyclers to take care of TVs correctly.

That’s at the end of a TV’s life. Others want to start at the beginning. They
want TV manufacturers to do more.

Barbara Kyle is with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. She says it’s not
just the lead in old TVs, many new digital TVs have toxic mercury in them –
and that’s hard to remove too.

“I think of the LCD TV as the poster child as to how this industry is still not
thinking about how to design with the end of life of products in mind. It’s
clearly not even in their work plan.”

But – she says some companies are getting better about taking back old TVs
for recycling. She says Sony, Samsung and LG already have good
programs. Others are just beginning.

Kyle says, whatever you do, don’t throw your old TV in the trash. She says
it’ll take some work, but you can find a responsible recycler – one that
doesn’t export waste to developing countries.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Interview: Wind Power on the Water

  • Some people find wind turbines unsightly, and would prefer them off-shore (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

There’s a lot of wind along coastal
areas… perfect for wind turbines. But a lot
of people don’t like the idea of windmills
ruining the view. So, why not put them out
in the water, just out of view from the beach?
Projects have been planned or proposed or just
rumored off the coast of places such as southern
Georgia, Delaware, Cape Cod, and Michigan out
in Lake Michigan. There are already some off-
shore wind turbines operating in Europe. Thijs
Westerbeek is the sustainable
development expert with Radio Netherlands. He
says off the coast turbines are more popular
than wind mills on the land:

Transcript

There’s a lot of wind along coastal
areas… perfect for wind turbines. But a lot
of people don’t like the idea of windmills
ruining the view. So, why not put them out
in the water, just out of view from the beach?
Projects have been planned or proposed or just
rumored off the coast of places such as southern
Georgia, Delaware, Cape Cod, and Michigan out
in Lake Michigan. There are already some off-
shore wind turbines operating in Europe. Thijs
Westerbeek is the sustainable
development expert with Radio Netherlands. He
says off the coast turbines are more popular
than wind mills on the land:

Thijs Westerbeek: “Actually, the public reaction is excellent, because the whole
‘nimby effect’ doesn’t occur. The thing where you like wind energy, as a
principle. You like this big mill turning around and producing clean electricity.
But you just don’t want it in your backyard. You don’t want the noise, you don’t
want the flickering effect of the sun shining through, you don’t want birds to fly
into this, and you certainly don’t want to see it. Now, if the wind turbines are off-
shore, and far enough off-shore, that problem just doesn’t exist.”

Lester Graham: “One of the concerns is that the windmills will be an eyesore.
Can you see them from shore, and does it disrupt the seascape for either folks
on the beach or boaters?”

Westerbeek: “Well, that just depends. The two small-ish windparks, they are in
front of the coast of the Netherlands, are pretty far-off. You can just see the tips
of the blades. So that isn’t really much of a disturbance. The two gigantic
windparks, off the coast of Denmark, are actually a tourist attraction. People go
to see them.”

Graham: “What kind of problems are they for marine animals and sea birds
when they’re off-shore?”

Westerbeek: “This has been tested by scientists in Denmark. And they counted
1.2 million birds passing through, and not one was hit. The birds just see the
turbines. That’s just not a problem.”

Graham: “What kind of problem do they pose for ship navigation?”

Westerbeek: “Until now, and I’ve checked this with the Maron Research Institute
– that’s the maritime research institute here in the Netherlands – there haven’t
been any accidents yet. And that’s mainly because windparks are typically built
on sandbanks where there can’t be any traffic. However, if they would be built in
sea-going routes, and a ship would bang into it, you have a possible disaster on
hand, because the turbine will collapse – hopefully not onto the ship – but if it
does fall onto the ship, that could be possibly disastrous. So the suggestion of
this scientist at Maron that I called was ‘don’t build any windmills in, for instance,
the North Sea, which is just too busy’.”

Graham: “How do they get the power from the windmills off-shore to shore? You
have to have some kind of cable, I assume.”

Westerbeek: “And that’s a problem. Because the further windparks are off-
shore, the more expensive it’s going to be to get that power on-shore. And with
rising prices for copper, that really is a problem. The cable could ultimately be
more expensive than the park itself. Off-shore windparks are definitely much,
much more expensive than on-shore windparks. That is a fact. But they are a
political solution. People who don’t want on-shore parks for the reasons I named
– unsightly things, noisy things – that is just solved, that problem, if you have an
off-shore park. So, yes, they are costly, and maybe too costly, but it’s a political
choice to have them built.”

Related Links

Grand Bridge Scaled Back for Birds

  • A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:

Transcript

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.

Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.

Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.

“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”

Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.

And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.

“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.

A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.

Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.

“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.

But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.

And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.

Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.

Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.

“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”

Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.

Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.

“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.

The other concern is a food source for the tern.

Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.

So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.

Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.

Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.

But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Living Well With Less

After surviving another frantic holiday season, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Mike VanBuren yearns for a bit of simplicity and a cheap way to watch TV:

Transcript

After surviving another frantic holiday season, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Mike
VanBuren yearns for a bit of simplicity and a cheap way to watch TV:


I went to a local electronics store to make a simple purchase. A friend had given me an old
outdoor television antenna. I needed a hundred feet of wire and a rotor kit to hook it up. I’d
never owned an outdoor television antenna.


For years, I’d been content with fuzzy-looking broadcast channels. I’d grown used to unfocused
double images of network news anchors. But now I had a chance to bring a little clarity to my
life. And I was determined to do so.


At the electronics store, the twenty-something clerk looked at me like, “You can’t be serious.”
He couldn’t grasp the fact that I didn’t have cable TV. He offered to fill this void by selling me a
satellite dish system. For a few dollars a month, I could get hundreds of channels.


But I didn’t want hundreds of channels. I was quite satisfied knowing that I’d be getting better
TV reception than ever before – and almost for free. But the clerk didn’t see it that way. In his
eyes, my lack of passion for personal improvement was a serious problem.


That’s the trouble with “consumer” cultures. Most of us have more than we need and don’t even
realize it. We’re constantly foraging for the latest gadgets, newest cars and biggest homes.
Never mind that such desires usually bring more headaches than they’re worth.


Even after 9-11 – when we probably should have been called to sacrifice and to conserve
resources for a larger war effort – the President of the United States told us to go shopping.
What’s that all about?


I think Thoreau had it right when he called upon us to “simplify, simplify.” After all, the essence
of our lives is not found in material things and technology – no matter how revolutionary they
are. True spiritual growth and contentment rise from uncluttered lives.


I’ve been reading lately about a movement known as “voluntary simplicity.” This involves living
– and having more – with less. More joy, peace, time, satisfaction and meaning with less money,
stress, possessions, competition and isolation.


It has nothing to do with depriving ourselves, or living in poverty. It has everything to do with
being content with what we have, finding joy in less and reconnecting with other people and the
natural world that sustains us.


Now, I’m as guilty as the next person when it comes to ignoring this advice. I struggle each day
against the impulse to buy things that I think will add joy and value to my life. They seldom do.


It’s usually the simple things that can’t be purchased in any store which mean the most. Things
like more time for family and community. Less worry about possessions. And greater freedom –
to live and grow and love without constraint.


It has been said that there are two ways to get enough – accumulate more, or desire less. Less, it
seems, is truly more.


And that’s probably the clearest signal I’ll ever get from that battered old antenna.


Mike VanBuren is an award-winning environmental writer living near Richland, Michigan.