At Laughton Country Fair last week, I joined thousands of fascinated rubberneckers gawping at the ancient engines on display.

Not just steam. I spotted early petrol generators and some fine-looking diesel stationary engines too.

These fabulous engines were the high technology of their time.

They were the great time savers of a generation or five ago and made as much difference to contemporary living as any computer.

Just imagine how much hard work went into cutting firewood before the stationary engine was around to provide the hard labour.

Now, agleam with polished brass and copper, these fabulous old workhorses still impress. I wonder if the same will hold true for a Eighties' green-screen monitor, a Nineties' Pentium II CPU or a turn of the 20th Century mobile phone?

Somehow I doubt it. We have virtually cast aside that old fashioned notion that things should be made to last and have now become a society that regards technology as disposable.

As it becomes obsolete, it is consigned to the landfill site where it will lie for centuries because, in the main, new technology is not bio-degradable.

That is not to say a cast-iron stationary engine is exactly ecofriendly as it chunders out clouds of ozone damaging smoke and exhaust fumes.

But somehow all the coughing and choking seems more worthwhile when you consider, when the engine stops working for ever, it is almost totally re-cyclable.

Have you ever seriously considered what happens to your junk technology when it is dumped? Did you know that literally thousands of old computers are dumped every week?

I guess not or, like a few more sociallyaware people, you might just be kicking up a fuss with the computer manufacturers about their apparent disregard of the obvious.

As most computers currently are not recyclable, sooner or later we will have to find a home for millions and millions of obsolete and valueless machines.

I am not talking about a few tonnes either. This will be a pile of junk the size of a mountain and nobody seems to be giving the problem very much thought.

Perhaps we should make the effort to ask our local councils what they plan to do about the ever-increasing pile of worthless technodoodie being foisted upon us.

How do they envisage paying for the dismantling and re-cycling that would have to happen if the problem is to be dealt with in an ecologicallyacceptable manner?

Creating a stinking waste burner is not going to get rid of this one.

A solution would be to build the cost of disposal into the purchase price of every new computer.

This would encourage the manufacturers to look seriously at building machines that can be broken-up economically.

It would focus their thoughts on the gritty issues surrounding land pollution and would force them to deliver a costeffective solution.

Sadly, this probably is not going to happen.

Not because it is impossible. Far from it.

The fact remains most people are too lazy to bother with re-cycling and would rather someone else dealt with that sort of issue.

Complaining to the manufacturers and demanding a workable solution would be too much trouble.

It's a crying shame!