Outsourcing Our Pollution

[boulder_bum]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_...xic_electronics

China's e-waste nightmare worsening

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

GUIYU, China - The air smells acrid from the squat gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold. Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.

For five years, environmentalists and the media have highlighted the danger to Chinese workers who dismantle much of the world's junked electronics. Yet a visit to this southeastern Chinese town regarded as the heartland of "e-waste" disposal shows little has improved. In fact, the problem is growing worse because of China's own contribution.

...

This ugly business is driven by pure economics. For the West, where safety rules drive up the cost of disposal, it's as much as 10 times cheaper to export the waste to developing countries. In China, poor migrants from the countryside willingly endure the health risks to earn a few yuan, exploited by profit-hungry entrepreneurs.
[/b]

I've always been against offshoring to countries where the labor and environmental standards are lax because it takes all of the progress the West made with progressive legislation and basically rolls back the clock 100 years.

It frustrates me because as Americans we decided that sweatshop labor and dumping industrial waste into rivers are immoral behavior, yet most of us have no problem shopping at Wal Mart and buying goods made by 12-year olds in Malaysia who developed brain damage from the lead based paint they used.

I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't even trade with countries unless there are decent labor and environmental standards in place so we don't commit the same mistakes of our past.

[F8L]

No argument from me. I often get %$#^ for even mentioning this kind of stuff to people. This is a classic case of hidden costs. American consumers look around and see green grass, trees, and "clean water" so they assume the rest of the world is hunky dory, yet little do they know that their consumption is causing degredation around the world.

[Godiva]

An analysis of the lead on the children's jewelry coming to the U.S. from China finds it is recycled from our cast off electronics.

Karmageddon bites us in the a$$.

[oxnardprof]

Thank you for bringing this article to the list's attention. This has been a serious problem for years, with other stories also documenting the problems with some aspects of the global economy. It is, indeed, troubling if we do the 'right' thing in bringing electronics to the household hazardous waste center, only to have the items shipped overseas for 'recycling' in the most inexpensive way possible. It is perhaps of interest to point out that some of the most polluted Superfund sites were recycling facilities operated without adequat environmental controls in mind.

Here is an interesting series from the SLC Tribune on the effect of poor management practices in industries producing items for the US market: http://extras.sltrib.com/china/

Atlantic magazine published an article that has ain interesting take on production in China. See if you can find the July/August 2007 issue for an article by James Fallows: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/shenzhen

Part of the reason that we have issues like this, including lead on the toys, is the drive to paying the lowest amount possible for the things we buy. Once the level of a subcontractor to a subcontractor is reached, the price paid per unit can get so low, that all corners must be cut to make a profit - and this is reflected in potential environmental damage overseas or here.

It is difficult to make a difference in many situations because the consumer will have no information to tell him or her if the product was produced with concern to externalities such as damage to environmental or occupational health.