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Due to the difficulty and cost of recycling used electronics as well as lacklustre enforcement of legislation regarding e-waste exports, large amounts of used electronics have been sent to countries such as China, India, and Kenya, where lower environmental standards and working conditions make processing e-waste more profitable. This is the story of one shipping container's journey to China. Brought to you by 60 Minutes.
If the trend for consumer electronics was diffrent, we would not have this problem. Manufactures are not making shit to last very long as the technology advances very quick.
example:
My parents had the same VCR for close to 20 years. - It had to get serviced by the neighborhood repair guy every few years.
My girlfriend has had 2 DVD players in one year - One is in the landfill releasing Pb (lead) into the environment.
while I like the idea of circuit manufacturing industry to use a Pb free solder, the stuff has other kinds of bad shit in it. Not to mention that Pb free solders will "grow tin whiskers" and really fuck shit up. The military and aviation industries had banned Pb free parts for this reason.
The vast majority of the electronics waste is from people wanting the latest and greatest electronic gadget. They are far more likely to ditch their cell phones or laptops because the "thrill is gone", rather than it had stop functioning.
didn't trickmilla post an informative note about the effects of electronics in landfills? maybe in a different thread, or did i just imagine it? I'm hunting for info.
I agree, the e-waste to third world countries is a huge problem. In Lagos, containers arrive daily and people do whatever they can to scavenge through whats usable and what isn't usable. Then they take what isn't usable and melt it down to take the valuable metals.
Problem is over there is there is 0 control for any of this. So the toxic materials that do get away seap down into the ground and local water sources, people end up poisoning themselves.
On the small plus side, people there are able to take advantage of the 2nd 3rd hand electronics and get themselves TVs, Phones, computers. But again,t he harm severely outweighs the good.