Those $100 MIT laptops will probably be dandy for e-book reading. But will discarded units pollute the Third World with plastics and other toxic material harmful to the enviroment? Might we be better off waiting until less harmful plastics are available as inexpensive substitutes? Those are among the questions raised on the WorldChanging site in an essay by Jamais Cascio. He concludes:
The bioplastic/organic polymer version of the hundred dollar laptop (BPOPOLPC?) would have a few notable drawbacks compared to the traditional manufacturing version. The generator portion of the hand-crank power system would still require metals. The wireless communication gear would also likely require traditional materials, at least until the experimental organic equivalents leave the labs. The most important drawback, however, is the price. Even if computer manufacturers can’t currently get the production costs of the traditional OLPC model below $100, they’re awfully close; the bioplastic/OPE equivalent would undoubtedly cost hundreds of dollars more.
All of these issues are likely to be solved in the coming months and years as the organic polymer revolution continues. This raises a troubling question for those who support the OLPC idea: is the economic and educational development result of widespread distribution of the hundred dollar laptop worth the environmental and economic cost of the waste products that will have to be dealt with when they are discarded? Or it is better to redirect OLPC efforts towards a greener/cleaner version, most likely available by 2010?
This may be a case where a middle-of-the-road approach is a good one. A limited distribution of traditional technology hundred dollar laptops would test whether the development results are truly as dramatic as hoped, while focused efforts on a bioplastic/OPE next-generation model would make a resulting global distribution a far less environmentally damaging idea.
This has to be one of the more ridiculous arguments I’ve heard in a long time. While I’m all for environmentally-friendly plastics, I don’t see the First World remotely considering slowing (much less halting) sales of the laptops sold in their own countries, the laptops that are currently littering developing countries when they are discarded and dismantled there. I don’t see the First World giving much press to the fact that each laptop uses up an SUV’s weight in chemicals to be created. I don’t see the US, the world’s most profligate polluter, participating towards cleaning up the mess it has created by signing on to the recent environmental agreement in Montreal.
So to hear that someone is considering slowing or halting distribution of a small, cheap laptop to developing countries sounds very much like a “We can have it, but you can’t” statement, or “It’s okay for us to pollute, but not you”, or: “It’s okay for us to pollute our own country and the rest of the world, but it’s not okay for you to pollute their own”, basically, “We demand the right to have as many cars, televisions, computers, and disposable plastic goods as we like, but because we know the environmental costs we don’t think you should be able to pollute as we have.” First, take the mote out of one’s own eye before being so responsible about other people’s eyes.
Perhaps the benefits of expanded education and access to information would far outweigh the downsides of distribution of these computers. And I might add that while Americans are quick to discard their laptops when they are no longer in style or “fast enough” it seems extremely unlikely the these laptops will ever be discarded if they are still working, and very likely that if at all possible, they will be fixed. That’s another difference between the First and Third worlds.