The American Thinker has a fascinating article about China takes our computer trash, particularly circuit boards, and sells them back to us. Following is an excerpt:
“The [Chinese] peasant sits in a dusty clearing and starts a small fire. He holds a circuit board over the flame until the solder starts to melt. Quickly rapping the board against a rock, he watches as the precious harvest of integrated circuit (IC) components fall to the ground. The peasant gathers the ICs and takes them to a small ramshackle factory where he can sell them for a few pennies per dozen.
Within this makeshift workshop, the ICs are cleaned, and painted with a black epoxy to cover up the original markings.”
These components and others are then sold to electronics companies, which place them in computers and other systems. The total value of this counterfeiting operation is $1.2 trillion, according to the article, and an estimated 2 percent of electronic components in airplanes are suspected to be counterfeit.
It’s a fascinating and rather scary read at http://bit.ly/jDVehl
