The ecological and physiological impact of the electronic industry may seem at first to be of very little consequence. A large part of this perception may be a result of the electronic industry's youth. For over two decades, electronics manufacturing firms have lead the public to believe that the software and hardware industry is one without hazards. After all, there are no smoke stacks streaming toxic chemicals into the atmosphere; the firms' factories are not large vile dens, they are gleaming modernesque buildings, castles of the new revolution.
As of recent times, there have been studies produced by organisations like OSHA which point to several key factors in the computing industry that may be physiologically detrimental to humans. The first of which is stress related problems from sitting at a computer for far too long. The old Tayloristic modes of assembly line production are being transferred into the modern day factory: the computerised office. Instead of measuring a workers ability to physically work against time, the worker is being measured on how fast they can mentally work against time. Traditional clerical jobs, such as typing, and filing, must be done at an increasing pace.[4, p. 107]
Ecologically, the electronics industry is not as clean as it seems. In 1983, women working at Verbatim's computer disk manufacturing firm in Silicon Valley, complained of shortness of breath, dizziness, and weakness. Over 100 people were evacuated; 35 of which were sent to a local clinic. When OSHA officials investigated the incident only hours later, they found no unusually high levels of toxins. They attributed the symptoms to mass hysteria.[12, p. 56] Because the industry is relatively new, Lenny Siegel argued in his column in the Clinton Quarterly, the effects of repeated exposure to these chemicals in manufacturing printed circuit (PC) boards may be unknown. Further, the environmentally controlled clean rooms of these manufacturing plants, and the protective gear that the employees wear, are to protect the expensive product, not the workers.
Among the hazardous chemicals used in manufacturing electronic components (arsine, cyanide compound, organic solvents, &c.) the most dangerous is silicon tetrachloride; such that when the gas is inhaled, reacts with the lungs, forming hydrochloric acid. Siegel notes:
One of the greatest ironies of micro-electronics technology is that the transformation of America into an information society relies, at its core, upon a technology from the industrial era: chemical processing.[12, p. 58, emphasis added]
If our reader is still doubtful, let us consider the following case of the Fairchild plant, in San Jose, the poorer section of Silicon Valley, during January of 1982. Local officials disclosed the details of a shutting down of a Great Oaks Water Co. well due to leaks of trichloroethane, and dichloroethane from a nearby Fairchild chemical storage plant. Fairchild spent $15M on cleaning up the drinking water supply, only slightly improving the drinking water; Fairchild is now an abandoned warehouse.[12, p. 59] So much for hi-tech's clean manufacturing industry.