Posted on 26-2-2002
High-Tech
Trash Toxic Too
Seattle, WA. / San Jose, CA. February 25, 2002. A groundbreaking
investigation by an international coalition of environmental
organizations
has revealed that huge quantities of hazardous electronic wastes
(E-wastes)
are being exported to China, Pakistan and India where they are
processed in
operations that are extremely harmful to human health and the
environment.
The organizations -- Basel Action Network (BAN) and Silicon
Valley Toxics
Coalition (SVTC) with support from Toxics Link India, Greenpeace
China and
SCOPE (Pakistan) -- have produced a astonishing new report on
the
investigation entitled: Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing
of Asia.
The investigation uncovered an entire area known as Guiyu in
Quangdong
Province, surrounding the Lianjiang River just 4 hours drive
northeast of
Hong Kong where about 100,000 poor migrant workers are employed
breaking
apart and processing obsolete computers imported primarily from
North
America. The workers were found to be using 19th century technologies
to
clean up the wastes from the 21st century.
The operations involve men, women and children toiling under
primitive
conditions, often unaware of the health and environmental hazards
involved
in operations which include open burning of plastics and wires,
riverbank
acid works to extract gold, melting and burning of toxic soldered
circuit
boards and the cracking and dumping of toxic lead laden cathode
ray tubes.
The investigative team witnessed many tons of the E-waste simply
being
dumped along rivers, in open fields and irrigation canals in
the rice
growing area. Already the pollution in Guiyu has become so devastating
that
well water is no longer drinkable and thus water has to be trucked
in from
30 kilometers away for the entire population. "We found a cyber-age
nightmare," said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN. "They call
this
recycling, but it's really dumping by another name. Yet to our
horror, we
further discovered that rather than banning it, the United States
government is actually encouraging this ugly trade in order
to avoid
finding real solutions to the massive tide of obsolete computer
waste
generated in the US daily."
BAN referred to the fact that the United States is the only
developed
country in the world that has failed to ratify the Basel Convention,
a
United Nations environmental treaty which has adopted a global
ban on the
export of hazardous wastes from the worlds most developed countries
to
developing countries. Further, the U.S. has actually exempted
toxic E-waste
from its own laws governing exports, simply because the material
was
claimed to be destined for recycling.
BAN and SVTC are calling on the United States to follow Europe's
example
and immediately implement the global ban on the export of hazardous
wastes
from the United States to developing countries and likewise
to solve the
E-waste problem upstream by mandating that the electronics industry
institute take-back recycling programs, toxic input phase-outs
and green
design for long-life, upgradeability and ease of recycling.
"Consumers in
the U.S. have been the principal beneficiaries of the high-tech
revolution
and we simply can't allow the resulting high environmental price
to be
pushed off onto others," said Ted Smith, Executive Director
of SVTC.
"Rather than sweeping our E-waste crisis out the backdoor by
exporting it
to the poor of the world, we have got to address it square in
the face and
solve it at home, in this country, at its manufacturing source."
Basel Action Network (BAN) is a global network of activists
working for
global environmental justice and against trade in toxic wastes,
toxic
technologies and toxic products. Visit: www.ban.org
Silicon Valley Toxics
Coalition (SVTC) is a 20 year community-based coalition that
advocates for
cleaner production, and sustainable occupational and environmental
health
practices within the electronics industry. Visit: www.svtc.org
|