Electronic Waste Dumps

Millions of electronics are thrown away each year. They go to a waste dump in China. The goods that are thrown away causes pollution, because they contain toxic chemicals such as mercury and lead. Many western countries export the electronic goods to other countries such as China to save money and avoid pollution restriction in their own country. Its dangerous to work in the electronic waste dumps, because the workers are dismantling the no longer needed goods without protection for their hands and face. Making them more available to contract diseases. Many workers are contracting skin disease and lead poisoning. When burning the metal the smoke flows over the villages and causing women, children, and elderly people to come in close contact with the toxins and they too have became sick. Their metal is also found in the river, where the village people to go to get water. The river contains metal poison. To get fresh water the the people Quanzo have to travel 53 kilometers. Workers who make computer chips are easily assessable to brain cancer, blood cancer, kidney cancer, and miscarriages. Why do people work there, you might ask? Well simply, because they need the money. The pay is not very high either; for a full time position the pay is equivalent to two U.S. dollars. Most of the workers are ex farmers. Most of these dumps are in rural areas and workers are of the minority. According to one study done by the EPA reported that “although socioeconomic status appeared to play an important role in the location of commercial hazardous waste facilities, race still proved to be more significant” (UCC 1987, p. xiii)(Figueroa pg 3). The theme behind this is that companies produce electronics to last consumers about a year and half and then something bigger, smaller, or better comes out and consumers always want the new thing. We call these new items "Designed for the Dump". Which means we make things that are to be thrown away quickly. Today's electronics are hard to upgrade, easy to break, and impractical to repair. We dispose of twenty-five million e-waste a year. Companies are to blame for this, they make a product using high level toxins that will only last you for a certain time and the consumers throw they products away when the need for them is gone. Causing people in other countries to suffer from toxic poisoning. Companies gain the most for shipping electronics overseas due to externalizing cost.Instead of companies paying for better facilities the workers pay with their health.Instead of paying designers to use fewer toxins villagers pay by losing their clean drinking water. The companies make their profit while everyone else pays.If we demand "product take back" then big companies would know exactly how it feels to have toxic materials laying around. They would probably call their manufacturers and say "Quit designing for the dump." Product take back is when the companies take back their product; either making longer lasting products or when something is broke they can send the piece that needs fixing instead of taking the whole product back. Many take back laws are emerging around the country. We as consumers can make these "take back laws" strengthen and stronger by protesting against the companies to stop sending the e-waste to countries that are harmful and or make the products using fewer chemicals. The distributive dimension is evident in least-resistance strategies, whereby government officials determine the location of toxic facilities, compensation, and remediation procedures according to the racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic character of communities. (Figoeroa 3)