Page 67 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

4 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT … 51

But our love affair with high-wattage high-tech goods is also the leading
cause of electronic and electric waste—also known as e-waste—which
consumers produce annually at a rate of 20–50 million tons worldwide.
Sometime in the last decade or so, e-waste became the fastest growing part
of all the stuff we throw away. And this stuff is full of toxins that, if not
properly removed, reused or recycled, can poison the land, air, water and
the bodies of workers exposed to the chemical contents.
Waste is a problem throughout the life cycle of any electronic device,
from water over-used and contaminated in semi-conductor production to
discarded solvents and other materials. While such waste is presently
designed into high-tech goods, there exist promising alternatives of green
chemistry and digital design that could today be put into production
(Grossman 2009). But the pernicious business strategy of planned obso-
lescence still dominates corporate thinking in the high-tech sector.
This destructiveness creates a searing reality for those working in
low-tech e-waste dump sites around the world. Wealthy high-tech nations
dump 80–85% of their e-waste in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa
and Asia. Recent estimates from the United Nations suggest that China
now receives 70% of all e-waste (Watson 2013). Studies in the European
Union show that only a third of all e-waste is identified as such and
“separately collected and appropriately treated”. Unidentified portions of
the rest of this e-waste are probably “going to landfills and to sub-standard
treatment sites in or outside the European Union” (European Commission
2016).
Health and ecosystem risks associated with exposure to burned, dis-
mantled and open-pit disposal of e-waste in low-skilled, low-tech salvage
yards are well-known. Health risks include brain damage, headaches, ver-
tigo, nausea, birth defects, diseases of the bones, stomach, lungs and other
vital organs and disrupted biological development in children. These
conditions result from exposure to heavy metals (lead, cadmium, chro-
mium and mercury), burned plastics and poisonous fumes emitted when
melting components in search of precious metals (StEP 2016).
To understand ecosystem risks, consider the recent history of Guiyu in
Guangdong Province, China. Once a farming area, 80% of local families left
farming for recycling, contaminants from recycling saturate the human
food chain, and persistent organic pollutants in the soil and water prohibit
the safe return of affected agricultural lands to future generations. After
worldwide publicity of this disaster, thanks largely to the green NGO, Basel