Many Americans are unaware that discarded electronics often contain lead, mercury, and other toxins and end up being salvaged under inhumane conditions in the developing world.
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There's a value in used electronic equipment, and currently, there are small, domestic recyclers that process this equipment safely. But they have a hard time competing with facilities overseas that have few, if any, environmental and safety standards.
As the pace of technology increases, the amount of toxic electronic waste is piling up at home and abroad.
Electronics companies are purchasing the minerals that come out of the Eastern Congo, and they are illicit; they're dirty.
People always worry that buying tech products today carries a risk of obsolescence. Most of the time, that fear is overblown.
We've lost touch and allowed technology to take precedence over organic nature. But let's not forget that those microchips in our computers came from elements of the earth.
The risk presented by these lethal wastes is like no other risk, and we should not be expected to accept it or to project it into the future in order for manufacturers and utilities to make a dollar killing now.
In the old days, people used to risk their lives in India or in the Americas in order to bring back products which now seem to us to have been of comically little worth.
Now we are in a situation in which for a significant part of the industrial world too much could become a danger, especially too much of the things which are really not good for us in such large quantities.
A big ethical question is what happens after people stop using the device. Does it degrade the environment? Could it have been designed so it would actually be good for the environment?
When dealing in the technology, it becomes a question of whether you overuse something. I think that's worse than having something technologically available to you and not using it.
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