It is somewhat daunting that most of the high tech devices like computers are deemed to be out of date within 3-4 years, even though they may still be operating in a useful way. This treadmill of continually updating hardware/software (to faster or more powerful) is escalating on a grand scale. It seems contrary to the now urgent philosophy of conserving resources and limiting our carbon footprint. Schools seem to becoming front line contenders for the " producers of most e-waste" title. Is anyone else worried by this strange set of values we have for technology use/disposal? Does your school community have staff and/or students who print out huge amounts of information...then never claim their printout? Why bother to print it? Why cannot new generation computers be designed to accept update modules that save trashing the whole metal case, monitor etc , then replacing it with another that will also be trashed in 3 years' time? In the early days of computing there were so many options to slot in upgrades like processors etc. to extend the life of your (then) very expensive machine. Will we eventually mine the landfill sites to reclaim all those dumped resources like metals and plastics?

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