One interesting subplot is the emergence of environmental regulations covering not only how electronic products are manufactured but how they are treated at the end of their lives. Today's globe is a gauzy patchwork of regulation with tighter meshes around Western Europe and Japan. The EU nations will have a unified recycling policy by 2007 while Japan, South Korea and Taiwan either have similar measures in place now, or will soon. Most of the rest of Asia, Eastern Europe and South America are just becoming aware of potential problems with e-waste, while America is rambling along state by state.

With each state struggling to deal with electronic waste in its own way, it's going to take a while to develop unified requirements that ease the cost of electronics recycling. Instead of fighting the inevitable, I hope, industry groups like the EIA will join with groups like the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative and the Western Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative to develop best practices for product design and disposal.

We also find high drama in the Raymond writings as American and Japanese electronics makers appear to be silently racing toward sustainability. While it's not apparent to most observers yet, Japan is investing heavily in environmentally friendly electronics manufacturing and recycling. Though U.S. companies, including Apple, Dell, Lucent, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments, are investing millions in green design and product recovery programs, their spending appears to be substantially behind that of the Japanese electronics industry. More important, Japan seems far more disciplined about coordinating efforts-something that will help them benefit from economy of scale and reduced bureaucratic overhead. It's shaping up to be a battle for both market share and the moral high ground.

What summer novel would be complete without noble gestures and heroics? Among many examples of companies and organizations "doing the right thing," one of the most impressive is Hewlett-Packard's decision to release the patent on its newly developed method for automated disassembly and reclamation of inkjet cartridges. While HP will not enjoy exclusive financial benefit from its development, its investment in the future of the world will be more than repaid in goodwill and a cleaner planet. This seems to be much more impressive accounting than that of Enron or WorldCom, and it will yield much better long-term dividends.

Lee Goldberg reports on technology and the environment at his web site, www.green-electronics.com.