What happened to that old computer after you sold it to a secondhand parts dealer? Environmental groups say there's a good chance it ended up in a dump in the developing world, where thousands of laborers burn, smash and pick apart electronic waste to scavenge for the precious metals inside — unwittingly exposing themselves and their surroundings to innumerable toxic hazards.
A new report documents one such "cyber-age nightmare" — a cluster of villages in southeastern China where computers still bearing the labels of their one-time owners in America are ripped apart and strewn along rivers and fields. Investigators who visited the waste sites in Guiyu, China, in December witnessed men, women and children pulling wires from computers and burning them at night, fouling the air with carcinogenic smoke.
Other laborers, making $1.50 a day and working with little or no protection, burned plastics and circuit boards or poured acid on electronic parts to extract silver and gold. Many pried open printer cartridges — whose hazards are uncertain — and smashed lead-laden cathode ray tubes from computer monitors, the report said.
Consequently, the ground water is so polluted that drinking water has to be trucked in from a town 18 miles away, the report said. One river sample in the area had 190 times the pollution levels allowed under World Health Organization guidelines. "I've seen a lot of dirty operations in Third World countries, but what was shocking was seeing all this post-consumer waste," said one of the report's authors, Jim Puckett of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network. "This is all stuff from you and me."Computer waste in particular is becoming a difficult problem, with millions of devices becoming obsolete each year as the technology industry produces faster, better and less expensive equipment.
The report says some in the industry estimate that as much as 50% to 80% of the United States' electronic waste that is collected in the name of recycling actually gets shipped out of the country. That often involves operations like the dump in Guiyu or similar ones in India and Pakistan, where labor is so cheap it is cost-effective to try to salvage every last screw or bit of silver. "Everybody knows this is going on, but is just embarrassed and don't really know what to do about it," Smith said. "They would just prefer to ignore it."
(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/25/computer-waste.htm)
I think its really pathetic that other, poorer countries have to reap the crap that America and modern world countries have sown. Even though its out of OUR sight, it should not be out of our minds. Thousands of other people have to live with rubbish mountains in their communities and in their backyards, and that's not fair to them since most of the rubbish was actually generated in a different country. We should stop "shoving it under the rug," or in this case, exporting our own wastefulness problem to places that are far less off than we are. We should really think about what "reduce, reuse and recycle" truly means, and how we can implement that into our own lifestyles within the community.
What shocked me was the fact that "as much as 50% to 80% of the United States' electronic waste that is collected in the name of recycling actually gets shipped out of the country." I was under the impression that recycling was good for the environment and that it benefits people. I didn't think it would cause suffering in other nations.
I agree with Justin F.! Here people are trying to make the extra effort to take their electronic waste to recycle centers and little do they know their just contributing to the pollution of someone else's environment. It's disgusting and makes me worry if everything else I recycle is actually going to good use and NOT MORE HARM!
I agree with the comments posted by Amanda, Justin F. and the anonymous commenter. I am truly concerned with the irreversible damages in these thrid world countries that involve waste from consumers like you and I. We need to take a serious initiative to reduce the amount of waste being produced on the consumer level. it may not seem like it makes a difference but each effort taken does help in a small way. I think this website is very interesting and it brings issues to the attention of the public.
The Third World Dumping article is very interesting. To be honest, I did not have any knowledge of this happening. I am shocked. It is such a big problem what can one person or a small group do to help? Maybe mass advertisement or commercials to inform those like me who has not heard of it?
Not only third world countries is becoming a waste dump, but also areas that are well populated. Many people are littering and leaving rubbish near the shoreline. When the wind blows, the rubbish is going into the ocean and polluting them. For instance, Molokai has a lot of debris from the wash up of rubbish from the ocean. Even California is being affected. People need to pick up their rubbish when they go fishing....
This was so painful to read, because it's true! People could careless about how their actions are affecting so many other things. If they aren't the ones that are being affected then they could careless. I know this from experience. I am from Waianae, and there is a garbage dump before my town. This dump has been over capacity for years, yet somehow the capacity keeps being increased. This is because no one else wants a dump in their hometown. Yet they could careless if it's in someone elses hometown.
I am very shocked to find out that whatever we recycle to protect the environment is causing problems in other nations. I hope that there is solution for this problem before the toxic waste situation in other country gets worse.
I agree with everyone here. I just can't believe that our recycled materials are being sent off to other countries to be gathered in a pile of trash that men, women and children are then pulling wires from computers and burning them at night, which then gets into the air and causes more problems for everyone. The example that they talked about in Guiyu, China, i just can't believe that we are the cause of all this, I think that we need to change our country first before the rest of the world has not chance in changing.
It's just really disgusting and pathetic to hear that these organizations are claiming to be functioning in the name of "recycling" when realistically they are doing worse than the opposite, ultimately poisoning me, you, and themselves. If these organizations are going to be scum bags, they should at least own up to it. This really brought me to thinking about how consumers (I, me, he, she, you) recycle and how important it is to make sure that the organizations, corporations etc. that consumers invest in are fulfilling what it is they state they are doing, in action, opposed to just tossing words like recycle, green, sustainable, natural, organic etc. around. I CAN'T EVEN DROP MY RECYCLING OFF AT THE RECYCLE CENTER WITHOUT WONDERING IF IT'S GOING TO END UP IN MY DRINKING WATER! What's with these fools anyway? just man up and be honest! Only VAMPIRES for so long before you end up killing yourselves.. MAHALO.
This article really upset me. Here I was thinking that recycling would be the best thing we could do with all of our "trash". I thought that it would be helping everybody and people make it seem like it's such a great thing. But what we're really doing is "trashing" other places. That's not cool. I didn't know that this was happening and am shocked to hear these facts. My family has been recycling our old computers and it kind of disgusts me hearing what really happens. Do I even want to recycle anymore? I don't know...
That is so sad that people in third world countrys have to deal with OUR waste. People in America should be the ones responsible for cleaning this mess up instead of endangering the health of the people who live where we dump our trash. We should dump our waste in our own country so maybe it will motivate us to do something about the problem instead of burdening someone else. Computer companies should help to clean up this mess, since it's their product that's poluting the water, air, and health of civilians in the third world. Also, rather than throwing our computers away, we should work with the computer manufacturing companys and send our computers back to them so they can recylce and use them for newer or remodeled computers. We should get the entire nation involved in helping to reduce polution and increase recycling.
12 comments:
I think its really pathetic that other, poorer countries have to reap the crap that America and modern world countries have sown. Even though its out of OUR sight, it should not be out of our minds. Thousands of other people have to live with rubbish mountains in their communities and in their backyards, and that's not fair to them since most of the rubbish was actually generated in a different country. We should stop "shoving it under the rug," or in this case, exporting our own wastefulness problem to places that are far less off than we are. We should really think about what "reduce, reuse and recycle" truly means, and how we can implement that into our own lifestyles within the community.
What shocked me was the fact that "as much as 50% to 80% of the United States' electronic waste that is collected in the name of recycling actually gets shipped out of the country." I was under the impression that recycling was good for the environment and that it benefits people. I didn't think it would cause suffering in other nations.
I agree with Justin F.! Here people are trying to make the extra effort to take their electronic waste to recycle centers and little do they know their just contributing to the pollution of someone else's environment. It's disgusting and makes me worry if everything else I recycle is actually going to good use and NOT MORE HARM!
I agree with the comments posted by Amanda, Justin F. and the anonymous commenter. I am truly concerned with the irreversible damages in these thrid world countries that involve waste from consumers like you and I. We need to take a serious initiative to reduce the amount of waste being produced on the consumer level. it may not seem like it makes a difference but each effort taken does help in a small way. I think this website is very interesting and it brings issues to the attention of the public.
The Third World Dumping article is very interesting. To be honest, I did not have any knowledge of this happening. I am shocked. It is such a big problem what can one person or a small group do to help? Maybe mass advertisement or commercials to inform those like me who has not heard of it?
Not only third world countries is becoming a waste dump, but also areas that are well populated. Many people are littering and leaving rubbish near the shoreline. When the wind blows, the rubbish is going into the ocean and polluting them. For instance, Molokai has a lot of debris from the wash up of rubbish from the ocean. Even California is being affected. People need to pick up their rubbish when they go fishing....
This was so painful to read, because it's true! People could careless about how their actions are affecting so many other things. If they aren't the ones that are being affected then they could careless. I know this from experience. I am from Waianae, and there is a garbage dump before my town. This dump has been over capacity for years, yet somehow the capacity keeps being increased. This is because no one else wants a dump in their hometown. Yet they could careless if it's in someone elses hometown.
I am very shocked to find out that whatever we recycle to protect the environment is causing problems in other nations. I hope that there is solution for this problem before the toxic waste situation in other country gets worse.
I agree with everyone here. I just can't believe that our recycled materials are being sent off to other countries to be gathered in a pile of trash that men, women and children are then pulling wires from computers and burning them at night, which then gets into the air and causes more problems for everyone. The example that they talked about in Guiyu, China, i just can't believe that we are the cause of all this, I think that we need to change our country first before the rest of the world has not chance in changing.
It's just really disgusting and pathetic to hear that these organizations are claiming to be functioning in the name of "recycling" when realistically they are doing worse than the opposite, ultimately poisoning me, you, and themselves. If these organizations are going to be scum bags, they should at least own up to it. This really brought me to thinking about how consumers (I, me, he, she, you) recycle and how important it is to make sure that the organizations, corporations etc. that consumers invest in are fulfilling what it is they state they are doing, in action, opposed to just tossing words like recycle, green, sustainable, natural, organic etc. around. I CAN'T EVEN DROP MY RECYCLING OFF AT THE RECYCLE CENTER WITHOUT WONDERING IF IT'S GOING TO END UP IN MY DRINKING WATER! What's with these fools anyway? just man up and be honest! Only VAMPIRES for so long before you end up killing yourselves.. MAHALO.
This article really upset me. Here I was thinking that recycling would be the best thing we could do with all of our "trash". I thought that it would be helping everybody and people make it seem like it's such a great thing. But what we're really doing is "trashing" other places. That's not cool. I didn't know that this was happening and am shocked to hear these facts. My family has been recycling our old computers and it kind of disgusts me hearing what really happens. Do I even want to recycle anymore? I don't know...
That is so sad that people in third world countrys have to deal with OUR waste. People in America should be the ones responsible for cleaning this mess up instead of endangering the health of the people who live where we dump our trash. We should dump our waste in our own country so maybe it will motivate us to do something about the problem instead of burdening someone else. Computer companies should help to clean up this mess, since it's their product that's poluting the water, air, and health of civilians in the third world. Also, rather than throwing our computers away, we should work with the computer manufacturing companys and send our computers back to them so they can recylce and use them for newer or remodeled computers. We should get the entire nation involved in helping to reduce polution and increase recycling.
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