I'd be interested to find out how much energy and materials does it take to make a PCB or a silicon chip, and how much pollution and toxins are released when it's thrown out. Does anyone know any good resources about that? Maybe it'll help me resist the upgrade itch for a little longer

There are at least a handful of web sites (and publications) devoted to electronics and environmental issues.

Here's a good one:
http://www.analogzone.com/grnpow_fram.htm
which is naturally part of...
http://www.analogzone.com/index.htm

International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment is an important annual event organized by The IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Electronics and the Environment and the International Association of Electronic Recyclers (IAER)
http://www.regconnect.com/content/isee/index.php
The 2006 symposium happened in May; I've uploaded the PDF program guide, which gives a really good overview of what's going on in this sector of the industry: http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/mis ... rogram.pdf

This is a good, if slightly old (2003) source of information i used when writing my thesis on computers impact on the environment.
Please embed long links... thanks. the management

Here are some of the interesting facts I leant from this book and my other research:

Traditional thinking that LCD monitors have less impact on the environment than CRT is slightly deceiving. The manufacturing costs of LCD in terms of energy and water is considerably higher than CRT monitors. The difference means that even though an LCD monitor uses a lot less power in operation than a CRT it will take around three years of use to breakeven.

Due to the higher powered backlights on LCD TV's, CRT's of around 28" to 32" actually use less power than there LCD counterparts by around 20-30w.

At the disposal end, LCD use mercury in there backlights and like other electrical some are still use lead in solder although the lead glass in CRT’s is more hazardous because it is used in higher quantities.

Other interesting facts include it can take 32Kg of raw materials (Water, fossil fuels, chemicals) to produce a single 2g chip!

Good luck on your quest for knowledge, I found it to be a very interesting topic. It certainly makes you think ‘do I really need that nice new gadget?’

Here's a very comprehensive site on the environmental effects of computers and electronics.

http://www.svtc.org/