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Report is Critical of US For Dumping E-Waste Overseas
coondoggie writes "In what may be the least astonishing news of the day, some major US companies who say they are environmentally recycling electronic waste — aren't. Rather more startling — they are dumping everything from cell phones and old computers to televisions in countries such as China and India where disposal practices are unsafe to people and dangerous to the environment. Controlling the exportation of all of the e-waste plops on the doorstep of the US Environmental Protection Agency which is doing a woeful job, according to a scathing 67-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office today."
It isn't countries per se that are involved in importing used electronics and taking them apart in an unsafe manner. Rather, it is a bunch of brokers and recyclers.
From the report:
State-of-the-art facilities that can safely dismantle CRTs and other electronic gadgets:
1 Umicore (Belgium)
2 Samsung Corning (Malaysia)
Unsafe dismantling/recycling goes on largely in South-east Asia and parts of West Africa. The following countries are mentioned:
- Cambodia
- China
- India
- Indonesia
- Nigeria
- Senegal
May I invite people to look at the "Story of Stuff"? It's a very well done small movie about the waste economy...
http://storyofstuff.com/
Cheers,
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
have an excellent feature on ewaste this month for free!
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text
1. Most importantly, that's a bullshit strawman. Laws about drugs are mostly _internal_ laws. E.g., US citizens tell other US citizens what they can't do. Fair enough.
The only point where it becomes equivalent to what I was saying, is when you start telling another country that they're not allowed to do drugs. It happens too. And there I'll have the same position: fucking leave them alone. It's not your job to dictate world morals. Stick to your own country.
2. Actually, I'll make an even stronger claim there: why should drugs be my problem in the first place? Most are harmless enough, and there are millions of people doing drugs that haven't harmed anyone as a result.
And the usual "OMG it's addictive" argument is bull too. We do allow tobacco, which causes some pretty strong physiological addiction. As in, actual brain chemistry changes. Some drugs, e.g., hemp, don't even do that. We allow alcohol, where the withdrawal symptoms can literally _kill_ you. Look up delirium tremmens some day. That's withdrawal syndrome for alcohol addiction.
And I've worked with people who smoked pot before, and they didn't strike me as the kind that'll get violent or delirious. Now tobacco, _that_ can get funny. You keep me in a meeting for 2-3 hours without my cigarettes, and I hope you don't imagine I can still pay any attention. But somehow my nicotine addiction is considered harmless, while that mellow admin who occasionally does pot is a menace to society. Hmm...
So unless you also feel a need to tell blacks (or for that matter whites, asians, and everyone else) that they aren't allowed to smoke or drink any more, why _would_ you care about them selling heroine or coke to each other.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Laws about drugs are mostly _internal_ laws. E.g., US citizens tell other US citizens what they can't do. Fair enough.
Right, which is why the US never goes into South America and targets drug production and/or manufacturing. And there's definitely no push to eradicate poppy farming in Afghanistan.
Newsflash - It isn't Columbians and Afghanis doing heroin and cocaine, it's Americans. And it's the US telling those countries what they can and can't do because they don't know how to deal with their own citizens when it comes to drugs.
Not only "capitalist dogma" but the obligation to shareholders and stock price is a legal one.