Reduce, Reuse, E-cycle
by Piper Wallingford
A new consumer market is developing; an environmentally driven market where consumers can save the world by buying a hybrid car or compact fluorescent lights. Consumers pay more to buy organic foods or new environmental computers to reduce their environmental footprint. Then the plastic wrappers and old computers go in the trash, or worse yet, the recycling bin.
What can you do to save the world? A list of easy answers pervades the commercial world: plant a tree, ride a bike, or recycle. You carefully separate your papers and plastics; when you buy that green computer, you will probably recycle the old one. Daily consumption items like bottles or newspapers are recycled locally, but electronics often end up in developing countries. This is where environmental consumerism becomes bad business.
Laws in the United States prohibit domestic dumping of electronics because of the contaminants and heavy metals they contain. As environmental laws concerning toxics become stricter in developed countries, e-cycling has expanding to countries with less stringent public health policies. Asia bears a large portion of e-trash, although there is a growing market in Africa and Central America. Electronic waste often originates from donation sites, which provide used electronics to people in developing countries at a marginal price. However, very few of the arriving models actually function, creating a market for the extraction of useable parts.
Making money means working quickly, not safely. Workers, often children, use their fingers to remove wires and microchips amidst broken glass from computer and television screens. The rest is burned, releasing poisonous dioxins and heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. The hazardous materials enter the atmosphere, and often the groundwater, further spreading carcinogens and neurotoxins. For many workers, the dangerous conditions are a means of survival. Workers can melt down retrieved pieces of copper and resell them to a scrap-metal buyer. Resold memory chips and drives often buy more electronic waste.
Although such practices diminish the respectability of recycling, it is still a practice with logical origins and significant benefits. Considering the cost of a product from design to the dump, reusing valuable materials is preferable to having them end up in a landfill. Making products from virgin materials can also harm the environment, and recycling can conserve natural resources. Nevertheless, recycling depends on whether or not there is a market. Materials that cannot be recycled easily or cheaply will not be. The lack of recycling programs for e-trash in the United States helped push e-cycling to oversea markets.
Countries around the world have begun to develop programs that will eliminate the trade of dangerous materials. The Basal Ban Amendment to The Basel Convention of 1989 prohibits wealthy nations from exporting hazardous wastes to poorer nations, although the United States never signed the bill. Canada has proposed legislation that will add a recycling fee to the cost of new computers while other initiatives target the root problem: mass consumption. Germany's Eco-Cycle Waste Act of 1994 is an extended product responsibility initiative, which requires manufacturers to take back their products when they no longer operate. German lawmakers hope that the act will prompt manufacturers to make products more durable so that consumers are less likely to toss them.
Environmentalism is a global issue, but so are human rights. Consumption asymmetry between the developing and developed countries makes such dangerous practices as e-cycling feasible. Although it is beneficial to reuse and recycle products, the best thing to do is to reduce consumption. As consumption decreases, the market for toxic imports will also lessen. The next time you buy an eco-friendly or green product, think about where your old product is going and whether you really need a new one. Although we should applaud the mission behind recycling, the consequences are a different matter. Environmental awareness and action should not cause global injustice and inequality.
