In The Story of Electronics (2010), the concept of "Designing for the Dump" is introduced. This strategy is used by electronic manufacturing companies to make innovative electronics with short life spans, therefore resulting in a market saturated with shiny new products, and consumers who dispose electronic products fivolously to gladly buy the new and improved ones.
This results in tons and tons of electronic waste that gets shipped overseas and "recycled" - but in reality, it just gets dumped.
You can watch Electronic Trash Village - China to see the final resting place of all those old, boxy televisions you threw away for flat screens, or the hard drives you mindlessly threw into your garbage bin. In fact, according to the Electronic Trash Village video, a UN report found that 70% of the worlds electronic waste is sent to China, where it forms a sort of refuse village. Half of the workers in these refuse villages are ex-farmers trying to take advantage of this new opportunity to make money harvesting micro chips and etc. Besides the fact that the work being done in these villages is illegal, the fumes from disasembling old electronics are dangerous and potentially fatal to these unprotected workers. These toxins seeping out of old electronics are a direct driver of children in surrounding villages getting lead poisoning and other sicknesses from chemicals in their drinking water - those toxins get into the ground and then go into the river. The fundamental cause of all of these problems is the toxic content of the electronic refuse produced by nations of the global north.
The wealthy ultimately benefit from and are ultimately responsible for this vicious cycle - getting shiny new electronics and dumping the old ones off on the lowest class who don't know their rights and/or don't have the power to speak out against whats being done - otherwise known as the least-resistence strategy. Sure, recycling seems like a great idea! In The Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Figueroa states "...the nations of the global North-whose industrial development and overconsumption of resources has contributed so heavily to these problems - are now among the most vehement in advocating pro-environmental measures...solutions that complicate the picture bt proposing remedies that are affordable only by the wealthier nations"(pg 7). That's where the NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) principle comes into play...where do we take this obsolete technology to let it sit and be sorted through? Overseas. Anywhere other than our own backyards. Little do the big-wigs who came up with this genuis recycling plan know that what they're doing is a total environmental injustice, in every sense of the word(s).
There are a few types of justice that could be implemented to remedy this problem; distributive justice - imposing take back laws (ie: you make it, you take it back and dispose of it properly) thus forcing companies that manufacture and design these products to design longer lasting, modular electronics that can be fixed more easily than disposed of, participatory justice - which as a subsidary of distributive justice would mean further expanding on the advocation of take back laws as well as more sustainable methods of production and making sure that the people who represent you in your gonvernment know that this is a big issue that can't go overlooked, and recognition justice - acknowledging the harm done to the villagers where these old electronics are being dumped as well as the workers who are enduring extremely harmful working conditions for very little money by providing aid, counseling, support and monetary compensation for damages.
- Meredith Whittier
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