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Unintended Results From U.S. Hardware Dumps In Asia
Izeickl writes: "The BBC has a thought provoking story about old hardware being dumped in parts of Asia. The report 'details a group of villages in south-eastern China where computers from America are picked apart and strewn along rivers and fields.' the article also states 'The report suggested that as much as 80% of the America's electronic waste collected to be recycled is shipped out of the country.'"
"picked apart and strewn along rivers and fields."
What are they trying to do....grow more computers?
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
I've been amassing old computer junk in my closet for years. I'm almost to the point where I was going to pay to have them recycled. But damn, for all I know, I'm probably just paying for shipment to China!
I think there has to be an upcoming business opportunity in recycling this stuff, and doing it in an environmentally responsible manner. I'd almost be willing to start the ball rolling myself. Any resources out there for learning how to do it?
It is only thought provoking if you are like most americans that have never travelled outside the US to see these kinds of things first hand. It actually says more about your lack of awarness than it does about any sort of industrial posture. Russia dumps subs off Japan and Korea. Britain dumps medical waste off the coast of Sri Lanka...Australia dumps scrap metal into the South polar seas...New York City dumps commercial waste into the Atlantic. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's new or newsworthy. Get outside and take a look for yourself. Visit India and the Balkans and the South Seas and Asia. Waste has a meaning you obviously missed during history class.
Apparently, I was wrong.
These kinds of things really tick me off. I've recycled numerous old systems, in the hopes that they either went to some good, or were safely broken down, to be used in other applications. Instead, they probably just got dumped in a landfill.
I guess I shouldn't be so surprised, these types of things always happen with recycling. Recycled papers sit in warehouses because companies don't frequently buy post-consumer stock. Glass & tires that were originally planned to be melded together to make a new, cheap pavement wind up sitting in their respective piles. Tires that were supposedly going to be used for recreating habitats for aquatic life are instead burned.
And now, all our old 286s are dumping mercury & lead into China. If my old Vendex Headstart 8086 is sitting over there, instead of being recycled, I'll be very, very upset.
Is there anything we can really do to ensure that our equipment doesn't wind up in some other country's landfill??
Toxic garbage has to be dealt and everybody knows that the cheapest solution always comes first... The transfer of hazardous waste is restricted by a 1989 treaty known as the Basel Convention, but the United States has not ratified it. why am I not suprised??
Migx
When other people are doing things which we know are harmful to them and their environment we have a responsibility to try and help deter this act. However, so does their government. Their government elected (or not) by their people has the primary responsibility in looking after its own people. Our responsibilities are secondary. We (the US) are not God, we are not the world's baby sitter, we are not ultimately responsible for every other governments ineptitude and disregard for its own people. With that in mind I think a small recycling tax pre-paid for every computer part should be charged. In exchange a convenient and local outlet for recycling should be provided. I don't wanna have to pay $30 to recycle my 286. Thats bullshit. I'll just chunk it in the garbage first if thats the case. I know, I'm a pompus jackass for doing so, but I bet nine times outta ten thats what you do too.. so :P
Anyway, I guess thats the problem in the United States. Everyone is saying recycle, recycle, but no one (except maybe Cali or Oregon) gives you convenient resources to actually do it. If I wanna recycle my plastic I have to drive to some distanct Wal-Mart with a trunk full of trash to do so.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
I keep having this picture of archeologists in thousands of years in the future going through all of this stuff, and trying to piece together an old PC. no tech manuals, etc.
Alot of their success would depend on the level of their own technology, of course.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
" Convinced that States should take necessary measures to ensure that the management of hazardous wastes and other wastes including their transboundary movement and disposal is consistent with the protection of human health and the environment whatever the place of disposal. "
So it seems that the convention exists, but the US is flatly rejecting accepting it. But I imagine that came as no shock to anyone, as it's not benefitting the US in any way whatsoever, and so is not important. How many times do we need to see the US exploiting the needs of other countries to save a few bucks before we demand that it stops? The US can't run around the world, butting in to conflicts and acting like some sort of benevolent super-sentient being, when during its time off from being a global-cop it likes to dump mercury in Asia. That's just hypocrisy like we've never seen before. USA! USA!
1. Practically everything in China is recycled. I've seen old folks / poor people rummage through trashbins with tongs looking for whatever is valuable for picking up some cash. This usually is cans or plastic soda bottles, which usually end up being turned into low-quality polyproplene or such.
2. While the cities I've been to in the last five years have considerably cleaned up their act, China still has an enormous problem with littering. Ever seen the commercials showing the roadside trash from the early 70's in America? That's China nowadays.
3. Many electronic components are desoldered and reused by small mom-and-pop outfits that want to get into business, and don't mind cheaper used components. When you've got lots of people who want to get ahead in life, they will use any resource at their disposal.
What's worse about this case is we know that the Chinese government will not dispose of this responsibly, but instead leave the stuff to poison their own people. Yet we still keep sending it to them. Can there be any other explanation other than that we just don't care about those people? It does not make it any more moral when some American idiot like you (correctly) observes that their own government doesn't care about them either. Hell, let's sell S. Hussein some biowaste so he could poison those annoying rebels. Hell, once he hands us the check, it's out of our hands, right?
1. We are not forcing this old hardware on anyone. If it's ending up in China or India it's because the people there think they can make some money off of it.
2. Even if they CAN make some money off of it, it's not our fault they throw the exploited "recycled" hardware in rivers. Come on. Crap in your refrigerator and it's going to have some negative affects on your food. Don't complain to someone else because you decided to crap there.
3. If the Chinese government sees this as a problem they should not let the stuff be imported. If it's being imported illegally the Chinese government should have no problem prosecuting (i.e., executing) the offending party.
Do I want my old computer ending up in a river? No. But don't blame me if it does, *I* didn't throw it in a river or asked anyone to burn plastic off its wires...
There are too many other responsible parties here that are DIRECTLY responsible to come after me with some tax or $30 increase on PC sales to try to resolve the problem. You want to solve the problem? Have China ban the practice. If China doesn't see it as a problem then why the hell should we?
Come on, I'm sick of this environmental psycho-babble.
If the US can export hazardous waste to these countries, how is that any different from Colombia sending drugs to the US?
It may sound like twisted logic at first, but think about it.
Country A produces a product that it ships to country B. This product is used by the poor in country B to make some money, but in the process they end up hurting their own communities. Not only that, this product spreads, causing harm in more affluent communities living further away.
Replace "A" with Colombia and "product" with drugs and you have the current drug war.
Or, replace "A" with US, "product" with toxic waste, and you have the current toxic waste dumping scenario.
Think about it.
Instead of charging someone X number of dollars for the cost of recycling, they should charge X*2 number of dollars and then PAY each person who brings in a computer X number of dollars.
That way people would have an incentive to do the right thing instead of just dumping it someplace and the program would pay for itself due to inflation and the fact that not EVERYONE is going to recycle, even if it pays.
As for the inflation angle, it works like this. If someone pays you X number of dollars and Y number of years later you pay them back the same exact ammount of money, well then you're actually paying them X/(inflation_rate^Y) in real dollars. This is why you almost NEVER see interest free loans, the lenders lose money on them. In the case of computers, the lifespan is short enough that the devaluation of the money from inflation would not be so great as to reduce it to nothing.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
To me, this seems like the right way to go, provided that the companies don't just ship the product out of country where it becomes someone else's problem.
If we force manufacturers to charge for the full cost of technology, instead of subsidizing them as tax-payers, then they will tend to develop interesting ways to reduce the cost of recycling. This also lets consumers integrate the price of disposal into the purchasing decision, rewarding companies that have cleaner products.
However, if you want that way 31337 toaster with embedded, overclocked, uranium cooled processor, then you are welcome to it -- provided that you pay for the full cost, including its safe recycling.
The old 360 was crated up, and sent to Altanta GA, from there it was to put aboard a ship (Savannah?) and sent to Hong Kong, where I was told families bid on parts of the system. The families would take home their share and, like a cottage industry, strip it down to it the various recycleable parts. (I was told the 360 had a significant amount of gold in it.) From there the valuable amount would be sold, no mention of what became of the remainder. This would appear to be where it went, tossed into a river, rather than the families paying someone else to cart away what they couldn't sell.
So rather than blaming the US, in general, you might want to start by considering the people who buy these things and toss the remnants, or the middlemen who make a living carting it there to auction off to them. Taiwan, as I've heard, has a serious problem with metals in their water, from industrial production and probably lack of a well organised, legal and ethical means of disposal. Even dumping old capacitors in the sea could return PVP's and other compounds in fish and shellfish, which many of these communities depend upon heavily.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I keep having this picture of archeologists in thousands of years in the future going through all of this stuff, and trying to piece together an old PC. no tech manuals, etc.
(A.P. News 25,237 CE)
Archeologists have made a great advance towards understanding the contents of fossilised "hard disks" with the discovery of what they are calling the "Pornsetta Stone"...
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh