E-waste is the fastest growing component of the municipal waste stream worldwide. Each year in the United States 100 million cell phones are thrown out, and everyday 130,000 computers are discarded. But how are these technologies being disposed of and what’s in them?
Computers especially contain certain chemicals such as “Lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, polyvinyl chlorides. All of these materials have known toxicological effects that range from brain damage to kidney disease to mutations & cancers". Supposedly this waste should be broken down and all the heavy metals to be disposed of properly. The rest can be recycled.
A story from 60 Minutes informed the world about an illegal waste trade happening between the United States and China. The wasteland is pilled with the burning remains of some of the most expensive, sophisticated stuff that we consumers crave. And it’s all thanks to the mentality that newer is better. Out with the old and in with the newer and faster.
Hundreds of people lined up at a recycling event in Denver to properly dispose of there electronics. Executive Recycling, of Englewood Colo. (who had a contract with Denver and three other western states) posted on their website that the waste would be recycled properly, right here in the U.S. – not simply dumped on somebody else.” Secretly it was being shipped out overseas, where it’s then broken down for the precious metals inside.
Despite the lovely promise left by Executive Recycling, shipping containers were found leaving its Colorado yard. 60 Minutes was curios and wrote down the container number, and followed it to Tacoma, Wash., where it was then loaded on a ship and sent 7,459 across the Pacific ocean to Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. It was discovered that the container was filled with monitors, extremely hazardous due to the several pounds of lead that make up the picture tube and illegal to ship overseas against U.S Law. It was later discovered that the container from Denver was just one of thousands on an underground, illegal smuggling route on route to the Far East.
This is a story about recycling - about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.
Why are we so obsessed with newer & faster technologies that are tagged with expensive prices? Why do we crave more and more, when in reality the technology we have now regarding cell phones and computers is (in my view) perfectly fine? I mean how did we ever survive before? And is there anything wrong with the way we are living now? Seriously does having a 3G cell phone or the newest edition of a Mac when last years model works perfectly really important? Or is this just me…?
In the past companies thought that planned obsolescence was the best way to ensure that consumers would purchase new products. In this day and age there is no longer a need for this strategy. Following trends and convincing ourselves that we can't function efficiently without the latest gadget have replaced the need for products to actually malfunction before they are replaced. How many cellphones did we actually need to purchase over the years? Was it absolutely necessary to get that latest ipod? Does the latest gadget I purchased really make my life more efficient or am I projecting my aspirations onto a miracle device? These are questions that we should be asking before making new purchases but often we see something that is faster, thinner with a larger storage capacity and logical thinking gets thrown out the window...after all, its so shiny and new, and the one I purchased 2 years ago is practically prehistoric!
ReplyDeleteTechnological advancement is necessary and unavoidable, but wouldn't it be better if waste disposal was also advancing at the same rate? Should companies provide free services to dispose of old products? (For example like HP's recycling program)
If that 60 Minutes segment showed small towns in China/Hong Kong littered with mountains of our "recycled" junk, then I believe I managed to catch a few minutes of that when it aired a few weeks back. In any case, it's a side of consumerism that we rarely get to see - definite eye opener. And while 60 Minutes exposed the toxic working conditions of these people half across the world, they themselves don't want to be caught taped in the act as it would damage their local livelihood. This poses another problem, what happens to the people who depend on picking apart our scraps for their income if we were to radically eliminate this practise?
ReplyDeleteAlso, consider the route of transportation our junk takes to arrive overseas – more labour, oil, waste! It seems as though there is money to be made in this dirty business just as there is when new products hit the market that do the same job as previous models only disguised in sleeker packaging. We strive for technological advancement in every aspect of our lives to make our lives more efficient while keeping us mildly entertained. Why have a Gadget that does one thing when Gadget 2.0 can do it three times as fast? And because we’re distracted by the grand selection of electronic devices out there, we’re made to believe it’s disposable. It’s not a question of a device being “wrong” but being better, and there will always be better.
Most consumers don’t even know how to recycle their electronics even if they wanted to, perhaps a section in the user manual would be helpful? It’s not a fix on e-waste but it would spread awareness and at least get people thinking.
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