Computer hardware can be a real bitch to recycle, as attested by massive landfills in developing nations and closer to home. Someone in an organisation called EPCglobal has evidently been paying attention to Bruce Sterling, because their plan to tag all new-built computer components with unique RFID chips containing data about how, where and when they were made sounds pretty similar to Sterling’s “spimes”. [image by southernpixel]
Now, if we could just give them GPS devices so they could navigate themselves back to their point of manufacture…
I wonder. One day a minor hardware factory manager is alerted by the gate security that five dumptrucks with old hardware are waiting to be admitted to unload the trash. The law says – producer has to recycle. I say that manager is totally going to freak out. He’ll get him a container and dump that garbage in the nearest lawless thirdworld country under a false name. This needs very good laws, or it will leave a trail of disasters.
Khannea Suntzu– that depends entirely on what we pay managers to do… and I imagine that 10,000 RFID chips crying out in terror then suddenly being silenced will attract some notice.