Digital Waste Worth More Than Gold, Copper Ore

tcd004 writes "Imagine sheer mountains of discarded Pentium IIIs, tractor trailers overflowing with discarded wall warts. Photojournalist Natalie Behring visited Guiyu, China and documented the world's biggest digital dump where, for $2 per day, the locals sort, disassemble, and pulverize hundreds of tons of e-waste. The payoff is huge: computer waste contains 17 times more gold than gold ore, 40 times more copper than copper ore. But the detritus also leaches chemicals and metals into local water supplies."

Comments

The shipbreaking essay is pretty sweet too

[tcd004]

anyone who can dismantle supertankers with their bare hands deserves some respect.

Re:The shipbreaking essay is pretty sweet too

[value_added]

anyone who can dismantle supertankers with their bare hands deserves some respect.

Not a Chinese story, but an Indian one. ;-) IIRC, there was PBS/Frontline type of special not too long on the subject. The supertanker dismantling was featured, but so was a program run by an Indian scientist of some sort that involved the disassembly and salvage of computers and computer parts. It was interesting to note how large and well run the operation was. The owner, keenly aware of both the monetary value and the environmental hazards of the work, was sympathetic to the workers but made it clear that despite the nature of the work and the few dollars per day they earned, his employees would have no work whatsoever. I guess happiness is where you find it.

Excellent PDF on the subject

[wwmedia]

Theres an excellent report booklet here http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/internationa l/press/reports/recycling-of-electronic-waste.pdf

Re:Environmentally irresponsibility

[Xiph]

Actually, the term girlfriend (as in more than just friendly with) is "novia", "amiga" is a friend that happens to be a girl.
Of course, this is slashdot, so i guess parent is right..

Re:Who cares about the gold and copper?

[dreddnott]

How do I searched web? Come on, this isn't 4chan, is it?

I went to bed right after posting my previous post so you were tragically left in the care of another Anonymous Coward, but that doesn't really bother me.

A gaylord is, yes, a large cardboard box designed to take up one pallet. The cardboard sides are about an inch thick which makes them very tough and quite reusable even when minimum-wage demanufacturing crews throw hundreds of hard drives or power supplies into them all day long. Infrastructure would sometimes cut out part of the side to make unloading the incoming material onto pallets for logging and sorting easier. A little bit more civilised, anyways, than what I saw in the photo essay.