Date published: 2006/06/26
The BBC says:
Consumers are willing to pay up to an extra £108 ($197) for a PC containing fewer chemicals, a survey has found.
People also feel manufacturers should take responsibility for the disposal of old machines, the research shows.
So-called e-waste is a growing global problem, with 30 million PCs being dumped each year in the US alone.
The study by Ipsos-Mori for Greenpeace coincides with an announcement by PC maker Dell to phase out a number of toxic chemicals in its products.
The nine-nation research found that UK computer users were willing to pay an extra £64 ($117), while people in China were prepared for spend up to £108 ($197) for a more environmentally sound PC.
Yet another meaningless survey, put out by a special interest pressure group to try and further their special interest. You can get any answer you want from a survey, you just slant the questions (see here for a good example).
Further, people are always willing to claim they are socially responsible in surveys because in fact it costs them nothing. Words are free. (Back in 1992, Labour won the UK general election according to surveys, and of course they did not.)
The fact that people in China were allegedly willing to pay almost twice as much extra as people in the UK is a good an indication as any that the people responding to this study were not a random sample. There are probably over a billion people in China who have never used computer and would be happy to have the opportunity to use one at any price.
And we have no indication in the article what it would actually cost to make a "more environmentally sound PC". Of course the sky could be the limit here, and no doubt Greenpeace would be happy if nobody (except themselves of course) had a PC. After all, PCs use electricity and therefore contribute to global warming, and we can't possibly have that.
The one sensible idea (not mentioned here) is that people should perhaps pay up-front for the later cost of disposal of their PCs. (Otherwise if there is a cost at disposal then many people would just dump their PCs somewhere random.) It should not really be manufacturers who "should take responsibility for the disposal of old machines". They are manufacturers, not waste disposal experts. Far better would be for PCs to have to be handed over at government-approved waste sites (and funded by the up-front waste disposal tax).
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