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The Dystopian Lake Filled By the World's Tech Sludge
New submitter trevc sends this story from the BBC:
Hidden in an unknown corner of Inner Mongolia is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, consumer gadgets and green tech. The city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge. ... You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals. These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs.
No, just China. Don't confuse global trade for local environmental laws or the lack thereof.
who cares what happens on Giedi Prime as long as the spice flows.
Sounds like an objectivist utopia
If they want to create the next superfund site to sell a few phones, that's their decision and they (and their children) will have to life with it. Nature has a way of cleaning up such things over time.
You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking.
We're able to produce most of what we use, including rare earth minerals, without creating toxic sludge lakes. The only reason we send all of these industries to China is to because their lax environmental and labor laws allow cheaper production, and thus higher profit margins.
Our modern lives don't depend on utterly fucking up our environment, but ridiculous executive pay and concentration of wealth at the top benefit greatly from it. Studies (which I'm too lazy to look up, but I'm sure others can find easily) show that it doesn't cost that much more to make goods in the US and Europe, labor and environmental regulations and all. The outsourcing of manufacturing hasn't even significantly dropped retail prices much, though profit margins (and net profits) are at record highs across most industries.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Feeling fortunate that Mongolia is not in my backyard. From all of us Techies... Thank You Mongolia!
Move along! Move along! Could I interest you in yet another incremental improvement in technology?
The author makes a good point: we shouldn't be treating gadgets as disposable.
Where the article fails is the implication (intentional or not) that "green" tech is creating some new problem that didn't exist before. Every hard rock mining operation no matter the purpose (INCLUDING some mining operations that extract oil from tar sands) produces toxic chemical laced by-products that must be dealt with (frequently by putting them in tailings ponds).
I've always been concerned about people who can't see the negative side of all the "green" technologies today.
The motors and battery (which needs to be replaced every X years) for your new Prius are not so great for the environment. Sure, it makes you feel good to not fill up at the gas pump, but what is the true environmental cost of that car?
Same goes for windmills, etc. Are they really better for the environment than, say, nuclear power?
This article shows what you're missing when you sign that lease, or buy that new iPhone.
I'm glad someone out there is forcing us to look at the downside of all of the technology we use. Kudos to them for doing it.
I've always been concerned about people who can't see the negative side of all the "green", modern technologies today.
I buy a new phone about every 3 years, when my previous one is worn out. Most people do this every year or two. What a waste.
The motors and battery (which needs to be replaced every X years) for your new Prius are not so great for the environment. Sure, it makes you feel good to not fill up at the gas pump, but what is the true environmental cost of that car?
Same goes for windmills, etc. Are they really better for the environment than, say, nuclear power?
This article shows what you're missing when you sign that lease, or buy that new iPhone.
I'm glad someone out there is forcing us to look at the downside of all of the technology we use. Kudos to them for doing it.
This is an example of why there it no such thing as 'green energy'. Every form of energy has an environmental cost, the cost of making windmills and solar panels are mostly hidden in China, so Al Gore and his buddies can pretend that the cost doesn't exist. I bet there are other toxic lakes just outside the processing plants that make solar panels too, since China currently doesn't care much about pollution.
We outsourced our jobs and our pollution.
Table-ized A.I.
According to Google Maps, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, has one fairly small sludge pond from which carefully posed hysterical pictures are taken for the referenced article, while the remainder of the city appears quite nice. So once again we find that we have here just another over-hyped fictional story from the evil media.
Republicans:
1) abolish EPA
2) Profit!!
3) Giant lakes of goo
Let us know when you start planning ahead
This is nothing New. The sad part is that nothing new is being done about it. We can live how we wish and without harming out world and the life on it. Every problem has a solution.
the prices for their rare-earth mineral exports. You can sit there and shake your head all you want, but the fact is that you're burning through smart-phones like an idiot, in an attempt to let everyone know you always got the latest stuff, and you get to do it at a lower price just because China takes the hit of this environmental disaster.
If we (and by 'we' I mean places like California) were really concerned with the global environment, we'd open our own rare earth mines and processing facilities. So the EPA could keep a closer eye on them and they could be run under tighter regulations. Or at a minimum, pass one of those state laws prohibiting technologies based on polluting industries. So let's see them give up iPads, Teslas, wind and solar power and all those other 'filthy' products.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who knew there were Rs in Mongolia?
If only there were some other, much more environmentally-responsible rare earth mining and refining company or companies!
...That was not in the ore taken out of the ground in the first place?
We're able to produce most of what we use, including rare earth minerals, without creating toxic sludge lakes. The only reason we send all of these industries to China is to because their lax environmental and labor laws allow cheaper production, and thus higher profit margins.
Not correct, or at least not completely true. The primary reason China has captured a lot of manufacturing business is because they have a large supply of cheap labor. And most of the reason it is cheap is precisely because the supply is so large - economics 101 stuff. Lots of laborers competing for jobs keeps wages suppressed. You are correct however that lax environmental policies do play a role in some industries as well. Stuff like glass, steel, etc can be pretty rough on the environment and not having to pay for these externalities can be a competitive advantage. China doesn't have a bad pollution problem just by coincidence. That is the result of decades of sacrificing the environment to boost wages and build industry. (It also has a lot to do with the number of dirty coal fired power plants they use)
Studies (which I'm too lazy to look up, but I'm sure others can find easily) show that it doesn't cost that much more to make goods in the US and Europe, labor and environmental regulations and all.
Depends strongly on what exactly you are producing. I run a manufacturing company. Whether something costs more to make in China versus the US depends primarily on the labor content of what is being produced. Labor intensive goods tend to get produced in low labor cost countries. Capital intensive goods tend to get produced in capital efficient (usually high labor cost) countries. It's obviously not quite that simple but it's a good first approximation. Stuff that can be automated or which has a lot of IP content tends to stay domestic. Stuff that requires the lowest possible labor costs tends to migrate elsewhere.
The outsourcing of manufacturing hasn't even significantly dropped retail prices much, though profit margins (and net profits) are at record highs across most industries.
Hasn't dropped retail prices much? A quick trip through Walmart should disabuse you of that notion. I've quoted jobs for stuff that is sold through Walmart. The target prices sometimes were below our cost of materials. Much of that cost savings is being passed on precisely because that is Walmart's business model - to be a price leader you have to pass on savings to customers or someone else will. If you think manufacturers are keeping all those profits from offshoring then you are very, very mistaken.
Profit margins are sometimes higher on domestically manufactured goods because of selection bias. The companies that are left are generally those which are not in labor intensive industries where offshoring makes sense due to intense price competition. The ones that are left are those that can for one reason or another protect their margins. Sometimes through IP, sometimes through capital efficiency, sometimes through automation, sometimes due to customer requirements, sometimes due to regulations. The US manufacturing sector is roughly the same size as China's when measured in dollars so plenty of stuff gets made here. Just not your McDonalds happy meal toys.
This is what communism does. in a free market the polluters product's would have been boycotted, driving them out of business.
--
roman_mir
Every form of energy has an environmental cost, the cost of making windmills and solar panels are mostly hidden in China, so Al Gore and his buddies can pretend that the cost doesn't exist.
That would be a great argument except the majority of wind turbines used in the US are also made in the the US these days and the plenty are exported as well.
I bet there are other toxic lakes just outside the processing plants that make solar panels too, since China currently doesn't care much about pollution.
I've been to China. They care about the pollution plenty. They also care about trying raise hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. You think doing that while protecting the environment is an easy thing to do? It's easy to sit in the cheap seats and decry what they are doing but claiming they don't care is simply not fair or true.
I've never heard of Dystopium before and there is a lake full of it?
love is just extroverted narcissism
While it is a concern that this toxic lake exists,
the bigger concern is that the toxins remain
there (don't leak or spread).
Also important is that we minimize
the growth of such sites by recycling the
rare-earth elements we have in our pockets
when we are done with them.
Finally, this dump of concentrated muck
could be a source when we find a good
use for muck.
The lake wasn't filled by our demand for gadgets, it was filled by Baotou, and the Chinese government allowed them to do it.
"I've always been concerned about people who can't see the negative side of all the "green", modern technologies today."
And I've found such people exist primarily in the imaginations of the people who complain about them.(I'll concede there may be some exceptions, see Einstein and the limits of human stupidity) Look, anyone with grey cells knows that windmills don't magically spring up from the ground, they have to be manufactured, and manufacturing creates pollution, especially in countries that find it inconvenient to regulate it. The question isn't "are windmills perfect?", it's "Do windmills have a smaller carbon/environmental footprint than using coal to create the same amount of power?" The consensus seems to be yes, they do.
As for the Prius, its environmental impact has been debated to death and yes, it is greener than your pickup.
Finally, "green" and "modern technologies" aren't equivalent. I'm pretty sure the president of Exxon Mobil owns a cell phone, and just as sure he couldn't give two farts about being green. The fact that tech creates pollution is not a blanket indictment of green tech. I do agree that replacing your phone every two years is wasteful, it would be nice if phone carriers provided an incentive to keep your old phone instead of the 2-year churn. They may be getting there, when my two years with AT&T was up I got a new contract that gave me a break for using my old phone.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
AKA "mud"
artificial lake
As in, this is exactly what the lake exists for. A reservoir of sorts for slurry and other runoff from industrial processes is common the WORLD OVER.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
check out google maps for Baogang Steel, Baotou, mongolia
There's no indication of any "vast lake" artificial or otherwise, a river yes.
It looks no worse than any industrialized area here.
They fly there all the time to place their order for a million batteries.
Since the rare earth processing plants are there, and since they dump into the lake, the question is, is that where they put the thorium?
Rare earths (not rare at all) always come complete with thorium. The problem with producing rare earths in the USA isn't the rareness, it's the waste disposal of the thorium residues. Nobody in the US will buy or store thorium. Thus it must be branded as a waste product, and disposing of a radioactive waste product is insanely expensive if it is possible at all.
So is the sludge lake also a glow-in-the-dark lake?
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Wouldn't want anyone bringing up gays or marijuana or anything else your sky daddy says is bad, now would we? Can't have anyone suggesting that emotion might play a part in your decisions.
Go ahead and tell us that the religious right isn't related to you. You bought the bible thumpers, they're yours now.
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People in the US are living quite a long time. Record lifespans, and they were born and lived when lead, asbestos, smog, toxic waste, and fairly rampant nuclear testing and fallout were common across the states.
At some level, the green hysteria industry seems to thrive less on identifying real problems and solutions, and more on agitating and frightening people. Click bait. The medical industry has identified stress as a contributor to heart disease. It might not be a good idea to spew streams of profound negativity to people.
And the jurisdiction issues. People in Asia are likely more interested in jobs and feeding their family, not what some green hysteria, latte sipping, urban dweller in one of America's concrete jungles has to say about their country, policies, or industries.
I understand this is a referring to a dirty business in a dirty area and I am not arguing that at all but it looks to me like the author may have been exaggerating to make it seem worse than it is. I mean this toxic nightmarish lake he mentioned, his pictures didn't show it to be that. They showed it to appear as one on casual glance without looking closely at it. It could be but all he showed was a not very revealing shot of a mostly black sand plateau with water flowing through it and a disposal pipe. Black sand naturally occurs and because it's higher than the water line, the tide or whatever you call it, it's hard to believe that the disposed liquid coming from that pipe caused the sand to turn black for the breadth of the plateau instead of thinking that the sand just happened to be black. I did some Googling of this city and yeah it looks like it has come pollution problems. The train system in one of the pictures I reviewed looked like it was emitting an unbelievable amount of exhaust. Probably more than any factory. I also saw pictures of goat herds casually strolling by the local coal mine. Wild goats. They will relocate if their home becomes inhabitable in their opinion. I saw pictures of trains pouring molten metal down the side of a hill which looked like disposal. I'm not sure if that really is bad for the environment. It's a isolated spot and metal is naturally occurring in the form of metal, already. My point is that sure it looks pretty dirty and I'm sure it is dirty but "dystopian" seems a bit outlandish and the pictures taken, as well as the story, seem to be making the town appear to be worse than it is. The picture of a sunny field with goat bleeting next to the local coal mine are far less "dystopian".
The Dystopian Lake Filled By the World's Tech Sludge.
When I read that headline Slashdot.org was the only guess I had as to the content.
eww... did not know that producing electronic equipment creates toxic waste. Thanks for sharing the article. I learned something new.
"show that it doesn't cost that much more to make goods in the US and Europe, labor and environmental regulations and all."
-if it saves the company a buck, they will happily offshore/outsource anything and pocket the difference. Why lower the price? The cost of a unit has nothing to do with the asking price. The asking price is all about 'perceived' value.
Example: if the price of a barrel of oil foes down by half, do you really think oil companies will sell gasoline at half price? NO! They may lower the price 10-15% and they will pocket the difference. -And only if there is competition to do so.
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I don't get why batteries that are not readily removable Are branded as "non-replaceable" All it takes if a little work and the proper tools and these batteries can be replaced at home, by the consumer. The same thing could be said of automobile batteries.
Now only if there were service offerings where you could have someone replace the battery on your iPad. Some of which can do it while you wait for 5 - 10 minutes.
If only.
But that still won't stop people from bitching I suppose.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The article this post links too is a bit misleading. Read it, was horrified by it, decided to go and look around on Google Maps myself. The city of Baotou does not have pipes all over the streets as the article stated. The streets are wide, paved, full of cars. The city looks pretty decent actually. If you could remove the massive polluting factories on the Western edge of the city, it would probably be pretty nice actually. It is only when you cross the canal into the industrial complex itself that the pipes and crap all start appearing. The article made it sound like the whole city was overrun with industrial piping and smoke stacks. It isn't. At all. They also made the lake sound like some gigantic monster of a lake. It also isn't. It isn't tiny, by any means, but to say it stretched to the horizon is literary hyperbole. Standing on the shore of any lake it stretches to the horizon. NW to SE it is about 2500ft, and NE to SW it is probably a mile. That's not to say that this place isn't an absolute mess. It is. The industrial complex is massive. The main portion is at least 5 miles N to S. It is a Gordian knot of factories and conduits and walkways. And the air in the entire region must indeed be foul beyond words. But the residents of the city aren't living in the middle of the industrial complex as the article made it feel. And the lake itself is far smaller than described and is surrounded by all the factories and plants, not out in the open in farmland as the article again made it seem. It may once have been farmland, but it is all surrounded by industrial complexes now. This is probably the superfund site to end all superfund sites, but they exaggerated quite a bit writing that article.
it has people on it.
It killed Tasha Yar.
Also is it just me, or are there a suspicious number of ACs chiming in about how there is only a really tiny sludge lake and Baotou is in fact wonderful? Because I looked on Google maps, there was pretty big sludge lake and the place looks pretty dismal.
Last I saw, Apple and it's leadership are heavily Democratic, not Republican.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Holy shit. Russia wins by a mile.
In the future they will mine this like for the vast resources it contains. Just like landfills. Trash to treasures.
Left-wing tech companies rake in billions thanks to dictatorships like China.
Tim Cook protests religious freedom acts in the U.S., but has no problem selling to Saudi Arabia which beheads people for engaging in homosexual acts.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
It'll be a lot cheaper to take your iPad in and get its battery replaced than to get a new one. Any Apple store should be able to do that for you, and there's got to be other places if one is inconvenient.
Having the battery not be user-replaceable allows a lot of changes that keep the iPad thinner and lighter and give better battery life. It's a tradeoff.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Lots of dystopian, not enough cyberpunkian. Dear BBC, please keep trying to bring us 'news' and 'reports'.
What is happening is horrible, just horrible. And the fact that everyone is building the wrongly designed stuff because the owner of the correct design does not currently want any technology manufactured makes the matter even worse because you'll all be left with more rubbish. You'll pay, oh yes, you'll pay!
figuratively as in ...I thought they were talking about Microsoft...or Google...or Cisco...or any of those big once-creative dinosaurs
Give it a couple of million years and people will be clamouring for this stuff. (For values of "people" including small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri and other galactic residents.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Intention in design, that's why. Though your posting history shows a lack of second order inferential abilities, so I'm not surprised you're confused.