Yr Dead Phone, Toxic Drug Mule
Posted by pastalex on Monday, Sep 21, 2009
AS it makes its epic journey from your hand to your trash can to your highway and your landfill, your average soda bottle is like one of those fellow travelers, bouncing along on its merry way to a sordid or watery grave (where its chemicals might slip into our foodstream) — or perhaps to a kind of Buddhist reincarnation as another soda bottle or, maybe, weirdly, a trash bag.
But you probably know that your discarded cellphone or computer monitor is more like a drug mule, full of all kinds of nasty and valuable shit and eager to slip across the border illegally and unnoticed. We may not want it anymore (nevermind that it may still work, perfectly), but someone does, someone in Guiyu, China or Lagos, Nigeria, and they want to melt it down for its precious metals just bad enough that they’re willing to deal with the toxic side effects, like retardation or chronic asthma. Or maybe they’re not really willing so much as complacent and without other options, while the developed world keeps flooding the villages with its illegal shipments.
Before we retire that trash-CIA simile : remember that theory that the CIA dumped cocaine on American inner cities in the 80’s to help fund its activities in Central America? It was proved wrong. But the CIA did admit that it ignored allegations that its allies in Central America were dealing drugs. Just turned the other cheek.
Also see a short doc on e-waste in Africa and India, and check out the work the Basel Action Network is doing to stop this.
Filed under:
