SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Most Americans think they’re helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they’re contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas.
While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.
“It is being recycled, but it’s being recycled in the most horrific way you can imagine,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network, the Seattle-based environmental group that tipped off Hong Kong authorities. “We’re preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world.”
Found by MJ Hopper.
It’s sad but since the US is still run by Republicans no one cares about it as long as the workers are not white.
Why don’t they fix the stuff up and use it?
I’d bury it all here in the desert.. for later use.
1 – Oh, come on. YOu really think it was the Republican captains of industry who decided recycling would be a good thing? This knee jerk “blame BUsh” or the Republicans is getting a bit tiresome.
As I learned from the global warming debate, only waste in America matters.
Made in China, why not dispose in China?
Accusations and propaganda – what do you expect considering the source. The worst part of a PC is the CRT display. In the next four or five years CRTs will be scarce in PC trash. Besides, according to some global warming propaganda, all the PC trash will be under water and out of sight-out of mind – right?
Nunyac
Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and the environment to a cocktail of toxic chemicals.
With all the dangerous products China has been sending us lately, its only right we return the favor. Forget Yuka Mountain, I think we should send them our nuclear waste next.
So, to recycle or not to recycle. Apparently, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
What is it with this eternal guilt complex that is constantly being foisted upon us? First, Americans are made to feel guilty when we dispose of our old computers due to our wanton consumerism.
Second, we are made to feel guilty for simply disposing of the computers the same way we dispose of virtually every other unwanted item as has been done for centuries.
Third, we are made to feel guilty if we don’t donate our old computers to developing countries or for having them recycled.
Now, we are to feel guilty that these computers are being recycled under poor working conditions in the developing countries they were donated to.
Boo friggin’ hoo.
Cripes! Americans are always the bad guys. What a broken record. The “it’s Bush’s fault” line is getting pretty damn old as well. I am sick of being blamed for every problem on the planet. Screw this new-age eco-religion.
I find it interesting that the thing I find most unattractive about religion, namely the all encompassing guilt it imposes on everyone, is now the cornerstone to the environmental movement.
“We are all guilty sinners and we must change our ways. You must sacrifice your materialistic ways, give up your big cars, your green watered lawns, your incandescent light bulbs, your house in the suburbs, etc, etc, ad nauseam. Oh, and be sure to donate to our cause so that we can spread the gospel of Environmentalism to more unsuspecting rubes.”
Someday soon, these eco-weenies will shave their heads, don orange togas, hang around airports banging tambourines, all while chanting Al Gore’s latest book reviews.
Ah, I feel better now. I think I will go hit Newegg and shop for a new motherboard.
#9 your absolutely right. Much easier to just not think about the consequences of our actions and the impact it might have on future generations. After all, well be dead by the time the shit hits the fan, right?
The problem is not the attempt to re-use that what is disposed of, it is the implementation. Does greed play a role in this stupidity? Sure, when is greed not involved? But pretending there is no problem and complaining about the effort is silly, and counterproductive.
#4, Nimby
This knee jerk “blame BUsh” or the Republicans is getting a bit tiresome.
Aahh, the truth is hitting home. Must be the guilt.
The work conditions are bad. And if they’re creating pollution doing it then that’s also bad. But it is work for them and they wouldn’t be doing it if there were better alternatives. And reclaiming the material is better for the environment that strip mining more. Do the factories that produce the goods we use have that much better labor standards?
That said I think the point of the article is to call attention to this problem. Why do people assume it’s to make them feel guilty. Yes, in general don’t waste resources. Yes, there is a problem here, but it’s systemic not behavioral. Like the EPA said in the article stopping the recycling isn’t the answer. The answer is for gov, industry and NGOs to work to raise the standards. It’s good news there’s a system here where there wasn’t before. That’s progress.
The environment shouldn’t be a partisan debate. Everyone gains if we can live and economically grow in a more sustainable way.
Well, everything else has been outsourced, so why not our trash?
Look at the labeling on the food products you’re buying. You may notice that there is no longer a country of origin. Usually just a “Distributed by CorpXX” This is because it’s from some third world country. Peanuts from China, apple juice from China, rice from China. Usually shipped here in barrels that just held the toxic junk that just went to China to be recycled. Or Malaysia, Etc. Food products grown in fields that can well be contaminated by the toxic run-off from these recycling projects. We’re being screwed coming and going. You can thank “your” Multinational Corporation owned government.
Yeah,
We do exactly the same in the UK.
If we reduce the amount we tip into landfills we avoid paying the European Community the taxes levied under the climate change thingy.
What the Chinese do is to dump this in landfills. There is no penalty here for shipping it overseas.
Of course, those who are using the climate change argument to levy taxes (which is really what climate change is led by, not any REAL political concern for global warming) haven’t yet worked out a tax procedure for refuse shipped overseas. Its coming though, just a matter of time. People really should realise that the answer to all global warming is taxation. Reduction of CO2 is inversely proportional to the level of tax raised, Rather obvious really.
Well, show me any western country where this isn’t the political position.
The CO2 reductionists are simply making the case for more taxation, In the UK £4.5 billion raised, just over £500 million spent on measures in the last year. Much of our overseas budget going to countries who use slash and burn, meanwhile, WE plant ever more trees. I can’t understand why volcanos aren’t taxed. After all they produce vast amounts of CO2.
And. What about that bloody great red thing in the sky which comes up in the West every day? I’m told that the action of sunlight on water produces significant amounts of CO2 what about taxing that!
Seems to me that the planet would last longer if we cremated Al Gore and his like. And if it didn’t at least we’d get to keep more of our hard-earned.
#17 – “comes up in the west each day” Have you been watching reruns of the evening news again?
This is an example of what happens when short sighted liberals come up with an idea, and then a money grubbing industrialist comes in and reaps the profit from the short-sightedness. Economic Darwinism.
“We’re preserving our own environment, but contaminating the rest of the world.”
Fine by me.
#10 – Hugh
Is your whole world tied up in negativity? Just exactly what actions do you propose? Or are you one of those useless sorts that sit around and tell everyone else what they are doing wrong?
Finding something to whimper about is easy, there is always a draw back to some action, including doing nothing.
#21 – Phil
I don’t know if your suffering from the American epidemic of irony deficiency, but my comments were indeed ironic.
All I’m suggesting, through (little) wit, is that dismissing environmentalism as a ‘guilt industry’ simply because you cant be arsed thinking about the impact of consumer cuture, is idiotic and irresponsible.
Wont someone think of the children?
Is this a variation of the “just joking” defence? It is still unbridled negativity.
Try using that much vaunted (by you) IQ to come up with something of greater utility than “World Weary Cynicism”.
Cheap shots, like yours, are exactly that. Cheap and easy to come by.
23 – Phil
I wasn’t ‘just joking’, I was serious. I just chose to express my views through (little) humor. Do I detect irony deficiency?
In any case, what are you expecting from me? An environmental manifesto to convince the masses to renounce consumerism and embrace mother earth? An epic diatribe on the evils of conspicuous consumption? A barrage of invectives? A duck-billed platypus?
Try coming up with something resembling a cogent argument rather than trolling please. I’m still not able to grasp why pointing out a ‘shut up and buy stuff’ mentality is irresponsible. Perhaps your irony is just too highbrow for me…
just throw that shit away – recycling is for sissies