Where, oh where do all those discarded computers, printers, cell phones, and televisions go? To E-Heaven? To a retirement home for obsolete electronics? How about to Ghana, India, China, Nigeria, or the Ivory Coast? How could this be? Could it be that we here in the States don't want to have this toxic waste here on (and in) our soil, so let's ship it off to...somewhere else? Could it also be that there's gold in them there electronics (and other precious metals)? Copper wiring from various electronics could fetch a dollar from a scrap-metal buyer in the Agbobgloshie Market in Accra, Ghana. Those living in rural Taizhou, China could scrape together a living by extracting metals from circuit boards.
As inspiring as this image of entrepreneurship might be---children merrily carrying bundles of wires on top of their heads as they scamper through a garbage dump--- one has to weigh the deleterious effects that burning electronics on old tires will have on one's health. When one burns electronics in an attempt to extract the precious metals inside, one releases a host of noxious chemicals: from lead to barium to brominated flame retardants to chromium to mercury, etc. Guess this doesn't count as Western aid---that warm and fuzzy feeling of American charity has been dashed on the rocks of reality yet again!
I was enlightened of the practice of the shipping of e-waste (electronic waste) out of Western countries to more "exotic" locales through a National Geographic article in the January 2008 issue entitled "High Tech Trash". Filled with disturbing images of computer components floating in toxic trash water or a man smelting lead derived from circuit boards in the same pot that his family uses for cooking---this article really fried my circuitry! There's tons of great information in the article that is too extensive to intimate here---so check out this issue today!
Oh, and there's also a companion article that's entitled "Recycling: The Big Picture" in the January issue. What more need I say?
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