HDTV is destroying the environment faster than any car can
10 July 2008
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Over dramatic? Well maybe but it turns out that flat-panel TVs, not just HDTVs, are more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. To be more precise Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3), the gas inside flat-panel screens is 17,000 times worse than carbon dioxide. If that is not enough it is also harmful to your health, read on to find out more.
When inhaled NF3 is extremely harmful to your kidneys and liver. All in all NF3 is not a friendly gas which is not good news when you consider almost half of the televisions sold this year have been plasma or LCD TVs. Things are so bad that England and Australia came close to banning LCD and plasma TVs altogether last year.
The manufacturers of flat-panel TVs have been talking up how environmentally friendly they are, so how did this harmful gas get pass the radar? When the Kyoto protocol (which should prevent things like this happening) was signed in 1997, NF3 was only being produced in tiny amounts, so they figured it was not important enough to monitor; egg on their faces.
As the gas is not being monitored, the situation is further compounded, because we don’t know the exact amounts present in the atmosphere but it is estimated 4,000 tons of NF3 will be produced this year which, wait while I get my calculator out, is equivalent to 68 million tons of CO2! Not good whatever way you look at it and this number is set to double next year.
[Source: CrunchGear, ABC News]
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[...] business. The manufacturing process uses lots of hazardous materials such as the highly damaging NF3 which is 17,000 times worse than carbon dioxide. On top of that the TVs are then being shipped all [...]