Any self-respecting gadget hound knows that China is responsible for packing millions of shipping containers with the consumer electronics we crave. What you may not know is what we ship in return:
our waste for
recycling. Of growing concern is e-waste, resulting from the deluge of PCs, cellphones, televisions and
crapgadgets we churn through at an accelerating clip each year. While domestic recycling programs are good-intentioned, often the most toxic of our e-waste is shipped illegally back to China and
boiled down for its precious metals under some of the most crude conditions you can imagine. When faced with the choice of familial poverty or the slow accumulation of poison in their bloodstream (for $8 per day), it's not hard to imagine what many rural Chinese people will choose. So while we give Greenpeace's
self-congratulatory promotions and oft-subjective "
Guide to Greener Electronics" company ratings the occasional hard time, their attempts to raise e-waste awareness are commendable. Now go ahead, check the video from
60 Minutes' intrepid reporters after the break and let the guilt wash over you.
Update: As noted by reader Jason, a more thorough (and disturbing) exploration of these e-waste dumps can be found in a
Current TV video shot last year in the same region.
posted November 10th 2008 4:11AM
I think I remember last year (or earlier this year?) on Digg, one of the top stories was a really powerful slideshow of this same place. I have actually wanted to see some decent video coverage of it for a while. So, well... guess I will watch now.
I'm not sure if this comment could have been any more pointless. iEye, get over here and make me look better.
Plz, don't encourage him. He's the last thing we need on a serious article like this....
I saw this article on businesssweek right before going to China (of all places) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_43/b4105000160974.htm
It really is a sad sight to see.
note to iEye:
don't upgrade ur iphone or itouch or iwhatever.
Toxic Linfen
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1711762029
World's Most polluted city in the World
Grim stuff. Good of engadget to post it.
wow
i feel really bad now. and i only uprade my system every 2 years. i know people who upgrades every month!
Do you actually throw away your old stuff though? I never throw away computer stuff. I'm keeping it until someone is actually willing to break it down properly...
This is certainly not limited to China. Discovery Channel has done a special report a few years back reporting the same issue in India. Rural areas all over the third world are now designated dumpster of e-waste.
And they're not the only ones; the CBC recently aired their own documentary of the situation, as well. I hope the conditions over there continue to get such exposure.
Oops, sorry, the CBC documentary was on a Chinese village, not an Indian one.
We love and adore our gadgets.
What about our kind?
Thanks Engadget for turning the spotlight on this matter.
It's not that we don't love our kind, but its all about the bottom line to most of us consumers. Its a sad fact.
We don't want the price of gadgets to go up because recycling programs are implemented, but we don't want this to happen. One want is bigger than the other. The things we buy should cost much more than they do, but as long as we want to be reckless and irresponsible with the pricing, this problem will continue.
*And when i say cost more, either the products price should be raised or we should pay higher taxes on them.
Multi million dollar fines for the illegal exporters of e-waste, and heavy investment in the wests own recycling facilities. Then we can stop killing others with our crap. Hey Engadget, what about putting a petition together that we can all sign. One that we can all print off and send to our respective governments.
An Engadget petition? Seems kinda out of character.... OK, I'm in!
I'm all for the petition. The least we can do make this story heard. GUYS JOIN IN. REPLY TO THIS POST AND LETS MAKE A PETITION.
Yeah! A Petition! Then we can just sign our name and go out feeling good that we actually made a DIFFERENCE!
I'm for the petition!
So the pile of yearly-growing unused gadgets in my room may actually be helping the environment? This actually makes me feel better about not throwing away the old gadgets I don't use anymore.
That is very shameful of Executive Recycling and all of the companies that export our e-waste.
this was on current tv .they go deeper in the villages
http://current.com/items/76355482_toxic_villages
Um, this video you linked is SO MUCH BETTER than the one Engadget is linking here. HEY ENGADGET! Update your story and put this dude's link in there!
Yeah, I agree that one's better. Although the lady is a bit patronizing... the way she refers to that 20 year old as a 'boy' etc.
And this is exactly why people like me keep their broken electronics. I've kept all my cell phones since 1996 lol. My old computer tower is still here lol, even though the parts have failed completely. I can see one way of offering a solution to help ease the problem though.
The "ethical" business practice of producing electronic devices that are designed to fail within X amount of time needs to be changed. I remember speaking to an engineer designer for electronic devices, and he told me one of the first things they teach their students is that it is above all important to design their devices in such a way that eventually it will break down. Thereby forcing the consumer to continue to buy more and more. Government should step in and force these companies to build sturdier and longer lasting devices. Yes they might be a little bit more expensive, and i realize thats a bad word in the business world. But what other choice will they have if the planet becomes so toxic that they're won't be anybody left to buy anything.
plus some parts still work you could use some to fix others like CD drives on computers.
Are you asserting that this is taught in schools? If so I urge you to fact check your engineer designer friend's statements. On the other hand I can imagine this kind of training in industry, and the thought of is sickening.
@adam
Planned and perceived obsolescence is real and is taught as a general rule of modern production. See http://www.storyofstuff.com/ for a frightening look at the world of waste.
It's also obvious in everything we buy: how common is it not to throw away or sell your perfectly fine iPod 160gb just because the new shiny iPhone is out? Or an iPhone 3G just because a 2G is out... And of course that's planned, it's not just an accident.
@Joachim Bengtsson
Adam seemed to be referring to the fact that Mikey claimed engineers are being instructed to intentionally design products that will fail after a certain period of time; that's different than planned obsolenscence. Planned obsolescence relies on people wanting the best and the newest, not just simply replacing something that broke.
I willing to trust that Mikey's friend did tell him that, but I don't at all believe the validity of it. Speaking with an electrical engineer, he proposed a different reason electronics seem to fail more often now than in the past. He claims that ever since lead-based solder was deemed too harmful to the environment to use in consumer electronics, devices have been failing at a higher rate. He claimed that the solder now will react with the metals on a circuit board to create microscopic "fibers" that may come into contact with other things and cause shorts. No idea if any of that is true, but I know something barely on par with a conspiracy theory isn't.
Either way, calling for more government intervention is bunk. Why not ask the people who "know" this is going on to identify what companies employ the practice of creating products designed to fail in "X amount of months" so consumers can shop elsewhere? You can be guaranteed there will always be somebody willing to fill a void if they can make money off of you.
If it makes them money, nobody cares about the environment. China's a den of corruption and hypocrisy, and nothing will change there for a long time. As long as they can make money by buying potentially toxic materials from US companies and dismantling them, they will keep buying them. And as long as they keep buying them, US recycling companies will continue to sell them in defiance of the law.
It's hard to do anything, because the only people who care about the environment are legislators, and they've been legislating as fast as they can, but it doesn't work.
I think you make it a bit too easy for yourself:
If people have the choice between starving (coz that's the people who have to burn the toxic things to earn the 8$ a day) and polluting then they choose the latter.
If people would be willing to buy less but higher priced electronics that last longer then you more money could be spent on proper production and recycling or disposal.
So it's not "those Chinese" or "those Indians" who want to make everything dirty. They have little other choice in their current situation and helping them would definitely improve the situation for all of us. Saying "they are all stupid and careless" is not helping at all...
joeybox: why not? even the US prez campaigns are about blaming all your problems on someone else, such as the current gov (problem such as excessive spending/investment, with zero/negative saving, poor parenting/education). The current US pop culture is "blame the last guy, if not, blame the next one, and always has your lawyer phone# on speed dial #1". Of course, it is the Chinese problem, because even the newly mint prez was caught saying "China is not our enemy, and she is not our friend." Good luck rebuilding your country with that kind of attitudes.
Have you been to China? Pollution is pretty bad in London, but in Beijing, you can actually see the smog.
China's also extremely elitist. They'll let people turn their bodies in to cesspits for 8$/day. China doesn't have to be a "developing" country. They keep themselves as a developing country. Mao boasted that China would win a nuclear war with the US simply because they have more people. It seems that in the over 50 years since then, the government still hasn't learnt any respect for human dignity.
Mao also thought he knew better than economic planners, took control of the economy, and ended up killing over 20 million people through famine and pestilence. Back then, to meet steel export quotas, people were melting their crockery in their back gardens. The steel was too poor quality to sell, people had no money and no crockery, and the fumes and hazardous working conditions caused all sorts of health problems. Seems people are still doing that.
Not that it excuses it in any way, but $8 per day isn't chump change over there. Everyone in this thread is saying these people have a choice: starve or pollute. Would you rather they starved? Because if they didn't have this, they most likely would. We're all up in arms to stop contributing to this, but then what happens to the villagers when they lose their only source of income? Most people on this planet are in terrible situations no matter what, and it's really about choosing the best out of two terrible options. A good portion of people commenting here have absolutely no idea what the world is like outside of their cubicles and iPhone cybercafe facebook fantasy lands. The world isn't black and white like we want to make it, just something to think about.
"China's a den of corruption and hypocrisy"
The same can be EASILY said for the American govt.
"Mao also thought he knew better than economic planners, took control of the economy, and ended up killing over 20 million people through famine and pestilence."
Did you forget we are at war and millions of innocents are dead mostly b/c of our crusade for "democracy"?
There are always two sides to the story, you obviously only know one so in that case just shush.
I watched this on 60 Minutes tonight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml
Where can I help / donate to help reduce these problems (if at all)?
Myself and other business owners wish to make just a little difference.
I know it's hippocrite but all little bits help, right?
I don't believe you are being hypocritical, it's just that money can't solve all problems. I seriously don't know how we(Earth) will find a solution to this problem, when we having difficulty getting rid of normal trash. =(
@AlDeezy
Simple, stop buying more shit so often. Reuse your stuff. And insteand spending that 200 dollar to upgrade to new phones, donate to help end diseases.
I think the worst part is that the stupid recycling company specifically claims they do their recycling in the US when they obviously dump their toxic stuff to China. Friggin' lame.
That's just it - in the global economy, we don't really know where things come from and where things go. It's the same thing with the global food supply. That's how melamine ends up in chocolate in Europe and pet food in the US. And that's how toxic waste ends up in China and India. A company in the US collects the waste, then they turn it over to someone else in the US who says "yeah, we recycle it all here!". The collection company gets to tell their customers it's all done local, while the recycler ships it off to desperate people who will do anything to eat. Of course, if the collection company bothered to look down the chain, they would see all this. But it's more convenient to look the other way.
It's the same thing with soccer(foot)balls. Children in India sew them by hand, which is expressly illegal in India. The sports equipment companies that sell you the ball swear children aren't making them. But they contract their production to someone who contracts their production to someone who then contracts their production to someone in a village who hires (and sometimes FORCES) children to sew the ball together. Investigative journalists have walked right into the villages and seen it going on. Why can't investigators from the sports equipment companies do the same? Because the price of the ball might go up by 20 cents.
None of this is new, though. Throughout history the 'haves' have always taken advantage of the position the 'have nots' are in. If you don't have anything, you'll do anything just to get what you need. A real change to that system would require the elimination of greed as a primary human motivator. Good luck with that.
Thanks for posting this Thomas.
As consumers we CAN do something about this. We can be more careful about what we do with our electronics when we're finished with them. DO NOT thrown them in the garbage (this may even be illegal depending on where you live). DO NOT simply give them to the first e-waste recycler who offers to take them off your hands. Ask them where they send their e-waste, ask them for the name of their downstream recycler. Ask them if they've been checked out by the Basel Action Network (http://www.ban.org/). Ask for proof. Make yourself annoying.
If they're doing what they say they are and they're truly above board then they'll be happy to tell you. If they're not happy to share this information with you then walk away.
Look for an organization near you that's doing something better with old computers than just tearing them apart and melting them down. Find out if there's a "Computers For Schools" type organization near you that you can donate your old computer to. Or, even better, a Free Geek (see http://freegeek.org/ and http://freegeek.org/family.php). Free Geek are a non-profit organization that'll take all your old computer equipment off your hands, ethically recycle the stuff that can't be reused and rebuild the rest into new computers loaded with Open Source software which they give away to other non-profits or sell at rock-bottom prices to people who maybe couldn't afford to buy a computer from a store. All the while providing computer education for the volunteers who work there. 24 hours volunteering and you get a free computer and a training course on how to use it.
This is the way it will have to be in the future. We can't go on using China to build our cheap technology and then dumping it back on them when we're finished with it. It's time to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for the impact we're having on the environment.
A very good post Sir. Thanks for the Info.
Great post. Everyone is good at highlighting the problem (this has been going on for a LOOOOONG TIME), however it is rare we are actually given suggestions about how to safely recycle these products.
I think what you've proposed is just delaying the solution. I don't think it's sufficient. It helps, but I'd really have to say it's marginallly helping. Something more has to be done to actually recover the material and re-use it.
I hope that GoVegan reads this. I want to see the look on his face when he views the article.
This will be a big problem for the world until all businessman will be forced to use greener Gadgets and Greener recycling of thouse that been made before.
But when will it happen ? It will happen only when corruption and the race to top dollar will stop ... . Humans live only for one day and we never look forward .. its not only in Electronic business its in every single business
Food - pesticides < genetically modified food (GMF)< large quantities of Cows make large amount of CO2 and other gases .
Heavy industry - Chemicals that are used in production of steel , plastic , paper and other materials are getting to the Atmosphere and to our drinking water.
Automobile industry - well .. we all know what they make .. CO2 and oil spills are daily thing for these things ( cars ) CO2 is made when GAS is burned . Plus Automobile industry uses cheaper materials that pollute air and environment when they make them only to save for them selfs and make cheaper cars ..
I look at our games .. FallOut 2 .. seems like its 20 years away ... do we want it ? I hope you People don't . I want my kids to live in the world where they will have clean air , clean water , clean food without GMF but some top manager in Nestle or Ford or Soilers ( Steel company ) Or even at the Wall street thinks that he can make a few thousand dollars extra on my health and health of our kids ... we have only one Planet that we can live on and actions of company's that don't understand that and make extra dollars by using old technology's that are unsafe to the environment should be closed or modified on the expense of the people that take such crappy business out and make money on it .
Its just a scream for ... for nothing .
It is improper that transporting the electronic rubbish to china. Almost the electronic rejectamenta are come from US UK Japan and German . It is not the wast of china consumer electronic. The electronic rubbish pollute the environment of China. http://www.laptops-battery.co.uk/ibm-thinkpad-t60-battery.htm
"We smell something bad in the air, do you know the smell we are talking about?"
"What smell?"
"Because the smell is giving her a headache."
"Nonsense."
Life in tragic denial.
Honestly, they probably just don't smell it anymore, especially if they're with it every day. -- it's very easy to get used to smells.
Being a Chinese, I don't know what to say.