Yes, I think about environment also, but those tubes are just a piece of
pvc that decompose in few years, faster under sun's u.v.  Believe me, it
would cost much more to recycle it than just discard it.  Think about
polyethilene (p.e.t.) soft drink bottles, it would take a lot of money
to recycle it, wash, clean, label and glue removal, sterilize, to use
again as soft drink carrier, instead, it is much easier to munch it to
little pellets and use it as source of plastic to produce toys and other
simple objects.  Today's industry electronic or not, generate lots of
waste material that we always look at and think about some use, but
unfortunately trying to overdo it is always a waste of our most previous
thing, "time".  Recycling companies are doing bunches of money from
garbage, doesn't matter the country status or financial situation, it
works all over the world.  Recycling polypropilene milk bottles is
extreme profitable, the material is top quality and first used, clean
and volume at easy. In a 1 Million people city more than 100 thousand
empty milk gallons are discarded daily...

Wagner

Barry King wrote:
>
> Jim,
>
> Its a good thought.
>
> All kidding aside, the most reasonable thing to do is re-use them.
> Is there a electronics distributor near you that might be able to use
> them?  I would also try contacting 3M (the likely manufacturer of the
> tubes), or MicroChip to see if they will re-use them.  A couple of
> e-mails and a lot of patience might get you a reasonable answer.
>
> I suspect that they are cheap enough that no one cares.  Maybe that's
> the definition of an environmentalist- that we care anyway...
>
> ------------
> Barry King, KA1NLH
> Engineering Manager
> NRG Systems "Measuring the Wind's Energy"
> Hinesburg, Vermont, USA
> barry@nrgsystems.com
> "The witty saying has been deleted due to limited EPROM space"

--
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Wagner Lipnharski - UST Research Inc. - Orlando, Florida
Forum and microcontroller web site:  http://www.ustr.net
Microcontrollers Survey:  http://www.ustr.net/tellme.htm