The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) prohibits the disposal of equipment that contain certain hazardous metals. As many as eight of these metals are found in all PCs and monitors. The EPA has left it up to the end user to be responsible for the environmentally safe disposal of this equipment. Here is an exert from an article by Donald Bleiwas and Thomas Kelly of the US Geological Survey:
"The metals contained in PC's commonly include aluminum, antimony, arsenic , barium , beryllium, cadmium , chromium , cobalt, copper, gallium, gold, iron, lead , manganese, mercury , palladium, platinum, selenium , silver , and zinc. Eight of these metals (shown in bolded type) are listed as hazardous by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), one of the Federal laws that control the disposition of waste in the United States. This law prohibits companies from incinerating some types of electronic scrap or disposing of it into municipal landfills."
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