Electronic Waste

As a follow up to the Oct 28 posting on Virtual Footprints and particularly the human and environmental health hazards of the production and disposal of (our beloved?!) computers, I was pleased to hear Terry Gross’s interview last night  with Jim Puckett of the Basil Action Network (BAN) about the export of toxic e-waste to Asia and Africa.

Alongside the looming water crisis that most seem to know little about, even after the recent flurry of  books and documentaries on the subject, this is another one of the dirty little secrets of our high tech culture of convenience and accessibility. At a time when  the Internet is revered as holding the answers  to all our ills by bringing us interconnectivity, community,  infinite amounts of  information, democracy, civic engagement, creativity (and yes, amusement and surveillance), how are we to respond to the toxicity of producing and disposing of this technology? Whose responsibility is it to assure that electronic toxic waste does not find its way to poor countries and communities? Is it the poor and often illiterate folks’s who live in these communities, as one of my students recently suggested after we watched Exporting Harm, a 30 minutes activist eco-documentary produced by BAN? Manufacturer’s? Seller’s? Consumer’s?  Government’s? All of the above?

As consumers, we can start by taking some responsibility for how we dispose of electronics–phones, i-pods, i-pads, computers . . . I think anyone of us using electronics and teaching with electronics needs to address this issue with our students, particularly since the myth of computers being a clean technology is so persistent.  Terry Gross’s piece can be heard at After Dump, What Happens To Electronic Waste?

For information about BAN, the films they produce, and locating an E-Steward near you that recycles computers and electronics responsibly, go to http://www.ban.org/index.html