Thursday, March 26, 2009

China is our e-waste dumping ground

This article talks about the effects of electronic waste that goes from the United States to China. 80% of the electronic waste produced by Americans gets shipped to China. That is enough “to cover a football field and go a mile high”, this is only for one year! Why? One motivation would be that this way empty vessels that carry merchandise for Wal-Mart do not return empty to China. There is one city in particular that has a higher concentration on e-waste, Guiyu. This town several hours away form Hong Kong is lined up by many small “scavenger enterprises” that called themselves the “recyclers.” Guiyu is so greatly overwhelmed with e-waste that reeks with fumes and other toxics. Among some of the toxins are mercury and lead. These toxins gets into the citizens body and over a short or long time of exposure it turns into either lead or mercury poising or any other toxin. 82% of the kids six years or younger have some degree of lead poisoning. Lead poising, like other toxins, have many effects on the body. Kids, for example, develop problems in their reproductive systems. Other effects of poising include, respiratory problems and damage to the brain.
This should not be a surprise to anybody since the United States is one of the main contributors of electronic waste in the world because of the populations constant upgrading and purchasing of electronics. There are good civilians that “recycle,” however although they have done their part, recycling plants do not follow on their part of the deal. 90% of the claimed recycled electronics actually ends up on the grounds of electronics waste. This is also obvious due to the fact that we do not see any electronic dump sites around the states.

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