[Wylug-discuss] CRT's

[Peter Nix]

Of the ~60 vdus in use in my dept at the university fifteen were  
bought before 2000, the longest serving are 2 (of an original 6)   
Apples with 17" Trinitron tube bought in 1996. Many vdus are on top  
of their second cpu, and a  proportion their third or fourth.

Every so often the accountants tell me I should replace all IT  
equipment every four years, I ask them if they recommend this  
practice for office furniture and if not, why not.

In large heterogeneous organisations like universities the chief  
carbon benefit of longevity - in software as well as hardware - is  
indirect, it lies in the reduction of administrative human activity -  
obtaining quotations, arguing the case for expenditure in a room  
containing five people, placing orders, signing delivery notes and  
passing them to the goods receipters, entering information in SAP,  
tagging equipment, installing it, removing the old, altering the  
inventory, disposing of the old, taking paper asserting that the  
manner of disposal of the old is correct to dept head who will sign  
then have someone file it in a space with a carbon footprint.

At least at as fast as the price ( but also I suspect the average  
working life) of new equipment, falls the quantity of human support  
activity and its implicit carbon footprint, rises.



On 21 Jun 2007, at 09:36, Smylers wrote:

> david powell writes:
>
>> well got to say this but theres a interesting calaculation that  
>> people
>> should bear in mind
>>
>> a crt monitor  for free sounds a good offer  but using aprox 100 to
>> 150W costs aprox  20p per day to run (given 8hrs use a day ) against
>> 4p per day for a 19" lcd
>
> But if you just want a monitor for an 'occasional use' computer (or  
> for
> when you happen to have your laptop at home, or for a server which
> normally runs without anybody sat at it), then obviously the  
> calculation
> changes.
>
>> so although it may seem a good offer it would over 3 years cost more
>> than buying a brand new lcd monitor
>
> How long is an LCD monitor expected to last?  If you used the CRT for,
> say, 2 years and only then bought the LCD monitor, that presumably  
> puts
> off for 2 years the date of purchasing the monitor to replace the LCD
> when it fails (or becomes obsolete, or there are shinier ones out).
>
> And you're only looking at the financial cost, not the energy  
> cost.  How
> much energy is required to manufacture a new LCD monitor, and  
> distribute
> it from wherever to you?  Compare that with the transport cost of  
> moving
> a CRT a short distance within West Yorkshire.
>
>> plus leaving the problem of desposing of the crt in the end to the
>> persons getting them for free
>
> Surely those people can dispose of them in whatever way you'd suggest
> doing right now?  Disposing of them later doesn't make anything worse.
>
>> better to send them for recycleing
>
> How recycled do CRT monitors get?  How much of them ends up in  
> landfill
> anyway, or gets put on ships to China in the hope that somebody over
> there will recycle them in a way that nobody in the UK is bothered to
> do?
>
> Re-using an existing item (where the energy cost of manufacture and
> tranport has already beens sunk) is often environmentally better than
> disposing of it and buying a new replacement.  I'm not saying it
> necessarily is in this case -- I don't know the answers to the  
> questions
> I pose above.
>
> But I don't think the calculation, and therefore the conclusion, is as
> clear-cut as you claim.
>
> Smylers
>
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--
Peter Nix, School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies,
Old Mining Building, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/
Eml: p.j.nix at leeds.ac.uk Tel: 0113 343 2580 Fax: 0113 343 1628

Een hond kan niet lang oop een poot stan