Worth spending 20 minutes to watch the whole clip but skip
to 9.50 min for reviewed segment.
Last week I reviewed a paper on the environmental impact of
mobile phone waste in China. This week I found a short journalistic report by
Al Jazeera English on the environmental and social impacts of both the
production and recycling of electronic goods in China. With the Chinese economy
the envy of the world over, at what cost to its people and the environment is
this economic growth causing? Between poor working conditions within
manufacturing plants and almost zero regulation on the disposal of industrial
waste it would seem that both the people and the environment are suffering
heavily.
The majority of e-waste coming into china is from Australia,
USA and Japan. The report presents the case study of Wenling in Zhejiang Province,
a coastal county-level city with a population of 5.7 million. The report mainly
focuses on the negative social impacts of e-waste and only briefly touches upon
the issues of soil and ground water contamination. This appears to be
systematic of the media’s response to e-waste. If it isn’t directly causing
harm to people right here in the present then it is not worth reporting on.
Whereas, in reality, the problems of soil contamination with toxic heavy metals
could cause health issues for the people of Wenling for generations to come.
More on this subject soon!
