Mobile phones becoming less toxic

[Jeremy Proome]

Mobile phones getting less toxic

Mobile phone manufacturers are using less toxic elements when building devices in an effort to lessen toxicity and increase phone safety

[Drunkard #1]

As with all ecomentalist bull****, I've always doubted the honesty of all this RoHS FUD. I mean your average English roof has enough sheet-lead waterproofing to solder 1 000 000 000 000 phones, so how exactly is removing 0.000 000 000 001 g of lead per phone helping anyone?

Here's a quote [scroll down] from that idiot Ken Rockwell, to put this in perspective.

Tin whiskers are what mysteriously grow out of electronic parts that don't have enough lead in them to stop the problem. When these grow, they start shorting out circuits and causing all sorts of intermittent and permanent weird problems.

Solder is the soft white metal that holds all the parts together on circuit boards. Military and space electronics require at least 3% lead in their solder for precisely this reason. Normal solder is 40% lead, but optional RoHS proposals (that's the little "10" in circles on Nikon lenses and other products) demand no lead.

Consumer products makers love the RoHS/no lead standards, because these whiskers ensure that consumer electronics made without lead will all die in about ten years, so no one will get away with using old products, and have to keep buying new ones.

Makes you think, eh?