Word: guiyu
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...exported e-waste ends up in Guiyu, China, a recycling hub where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead, while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. According to reports from nearby Shantou University, Guiyu has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world and elevated rates of miscarriages. "You see women sitting by the fireplace burning laptop adapters, with rivers of ash pouring out of houses," says Jim Puckett, founder of Basel Action Network (BAN), an e-waste watchdog. "We're dumping on the rest of the world...
...developing nations like China, India and Nigeria, to which rich countries have been shipping garbage for years. There the poor, often including children, dismantle dumped PCs and phones, stripping the components for the valuable - and toxic - metals contained inside. In the cities like the southern Chinese town of Guiyu, they work with little protection, melting down components and breathing in poisonous fumes. What can't be recycled is simply dumped, turning already poisoned rivers into toxic sludge. It's all done in the hope of earning a few dollars from the detritus of the clean digital economy...
Michael Zhao has seen the damage firsthand. A journalist connected with the Asia Society, Zhao traveled to Guiyu - which processes up to 1 million tons of electronic garbage a year - to film a documentary on the impact of e-waste. "I saw people putting leftover parts on coal fired stoves, to melt down the waste to get to the gold," he says. "It'd produce a reddish smoke that was so strong I couldn't stand there for more than a couple minutes before my eyes would just burn." (Hear Zhao talk about the e-waste on this week...
What's certain is that if we don't act, the e-waste will continue to pile up, as we buy more electronic devices and the lifespan of those products grows shorter. If we could see the dumps of Guiyu, we might rethink the purchase of that new iPhone. "A lot of people may think electronic manufacturing is a clean industry, but it's not," says Zhao. "It's a dirty process." Just because we don't see the dirt, doesn't mean it doesn't exist...
...blackout choked off possible leads from ordinary citizens?and kept potential victims clueless as to the dangers of walking home from work at night. "If we'd known there was a killer around, we would have been more careful," says Yao Ping, the truck-driver husband of victim Wang Guiyu. "But nobody told...