China Choking on Old Computers

Last night I watched a story on 60 Minutes that made me want to know more. The story was about American companies that were illegally shipping old computers to China, where they were taken apart for their useful metals, then dumped in landfills or rivers or simply burnt. This is horrifying on so many levels.

First, the American companies that are illegally sending containers of old computers to China are receiving their products from citizens that think they are disposing of them in an environmental \ly clean way. In Denver, thousands of people waited hours to turn in old electronic equipment, thinking they were doing the right thing. Instead, this equipment was loaded into huge containers and shipped over 7,000 miles away to be disposed of in a way that would make a lot of people a lot of money, make hundreds of thousands of people sick, and ruin the local environment.

Guiyu, China is a modern day gold rush town. Workers there sift through piles of broken old computer parts in acrid smelling shacks, smelting down parts with crude equipment to extract valuable metals like gold and coppers. The computers are smuggled in by sea to this city not far from Hong Kong. A lucky few wear rough but thin gloves. The rest work with uncovered hands, and have sores and bruises throughout their body. They are too scared of losing their jobs, or being beaten up, to dare to talk to visiting foreign reporters. The workers are making about $3 per day. When 60 minutes was there, they tried to take a dirt sample to have analyzed, but locals grabbed it away from them. The cameras that 60 minutes brought along were almost confiscated too.

During the disposal process, workers, including women and sometimes children, are exposed to a toxic cocktail of chemicals. The many small businesses take few safety precautions. Nine out of ten people in Guiyu suffer from problems with their skin, nervous, respiratory or digestive systems.

What can we do? Apparently not much, for these people in Denver thought they were doing the responsible thing, and look what was discovered? I guess we're lucky to have good investigative reporters like those on 60 Minutes who go after a story and follow it to its conclusion. There will always be cheaters out there that don't care about the ramifications of their actions. All we can do is keep the pressure on. A big thank you to all those reporters and camermen who risk their lives to try to get the story.