Somebody else's problem

Headnote

GREEN ENGINEERING

The late Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, uncovered an important environmental principle-the Someone Else's Problem Field (SEP), a fictional technology that can make something "virtually invisible" simply by making it look like somebody else's problem.

I suspect that the electronics industry's environmental issues have been lurking under a SEP field. While issues like toxic content, energy consumption, waste reduction and product recycling have been identified since at least the mid-'90s, little has been done. Everyone is concerned about the environment, worried about their children's future and understands that something has to be done. Unfortunately, nobody has been doing anything about it because...