E-waste...computer Recycling's Dirty Secrets

[thesidekickcat]

I saw this sickening article in Sunday's paper. I have seen similar articles before on many items from computers to milk jugs to plastic sacks, to rags.... on and on with our trash...we don't follow up on how "recycling" is really done or if it is just dumped in some poor country to contaminate lives and environment someplace else...the NIMBY mentality. Googled for original Knight Ridder News Service article to share with you. Be sure to click on photos, and mouse hover over them to get descriptions.

World's Discarded Computers land in China's digital scrap heap

Not only is this a problem for the people working on them, but for the environment around them. And the article doesn't take into account the waste of fuel it costs to ship the old computers over there. This is the dirty secret part of recycling that should be addressed by all countries and new legislation is needed everywhere to change how it is done from the beginning manuafacturing of all components that are less harmful, to business and consumer discards, to bad/ignorant atitudes of 'well we recycled that stuff so who cares where it goes'.... without looking into what happened to it afterwards.

We need to start caring not only about what lands in our landfills, but what lands in places like this when we recycle without thought of end result. We need to demand that things be made less toxic from the beginning manufacture of products to their final resting spot and everything in between. I don't know how that can happen, but do know it should and soon.

Pat

God bless everyone.

[JDoors]

Looks like it's a pretty complicated problem. China's already outlawed it, but due to a widespread lack of respect for the law they do it anyway. The workers there are either uninformed of or ignore proper and safe procedures. I suspect the ships hauling the waste there are actually saving money because otherwise they'd be returning to China empty, an even bigger waste.

It's a lot like the garment industry before consumers forced U.S. companies to ensure acceptable factory conditions, though I don't see how a consumer revolt would work in this situation.