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Question: What is e-waste and what are its causes and effects? What is e-waste? E-waste, basically, stands for electronic waste. With all the technological advances, there has recently been a massive increase in the ownership of electronic goods. This has inevitably caused a massive increase in the discarding of electronic goods, too. You would think that the technological advances would have resulted in better processing facilities, and they have, but not in the places that need them the most. You see, rather than dispose of, or recycle, their e-waste safely; most developed countries illegally export the discarded electrical goods to developing countries. Places on the receiving end of the waste include Nigeria, India, China, Pakistan, and Ghana. In fact, before a broken television was sent to a British recycling station, Greenpeace put a tracking device on it, and learned that instead of actually being recycled, it was sent to Nigeria to be scrapped. Greenpeace said of this, It's illegal to export broken electronic goods under EU legislation (and) at no point before it was crammed into a container with similar TVs and shipped off was the TV turned on or tested to see if it was in working condition. Causes of e-waste The biggest cause of e-waste if definitely the quickly-growing economy of electrical goods, and the quote, designed for the dump comes to mind. That is how Annie Leonard described the electrical products of late, in the video, The Story of Electronics. What she means is that companies are designing their products with shorter life cycles so that theyll have to be replaced more often. While theyre getting more money, theyre failing to see the long-term problems that theyre helping to cause in many developing countries. Also, these places dont have the proper processing facilities so their recycling methods are crude. They consist of simply stripping down the discarded electrical goods by hand, just to salvage the few reusable or valuable parts. This is a very unsafe method.
Effects on the environment and by extension, people There are many effects on the environment and therefore people the biggest being pollution. One kind of pollution is simply air pollution, which is caused when the e-waste is incinerated. Burning releases things such as lead and mercury into the air, causing diseases. Take Guiyu, China for example. This town has the highest level of cancer-causing pollutants in the world, both in the air and the ground, which brings us to the next point. Toxins in the old, discarded electrical components and goods seep into the soil, causing plants not to grow, and making the groundwater undrinkable. Growing e-waste problems in third-world countries mean more people have to work to process it. For example, Greenpeace have found out that in New Delhi, India, 25,000 people work to process 10-20,000 tons annually. They are very much at risk of getting diseases and illnesses due to them trying to sort out the problems we cause.

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Conclusion E-waste is a pressing issue on the whole world that certainly isn't going to solve itself. A way to help it a bit would be if the engineers that design consumer electrical goods make them longerlasting. That would help reduce the amount of mobiles phones, PCs, laptops and such actually being discarded in the first place. One of the worst things about e-waste is the pollution it is causing in third-world countries, and this is caused by lots of the waste being exported from developed countries. If they have the resources to safely process most of their own waste, then they should, seeing as so far they've been leaving it to people who don't have the resources. I know there are laws against exporting e-waste, and personally, I think these laws should definitely be enforced. People haven't really given the issue much thought, but it is predicted that by 2020, e-waste from old computers alone will rise by 400%, as stated on SIRS Researcher. Do you really want to live in a world where it isn't even safe to breathe, much less drink what was previously clean water? If people could just stop yearning for the latest shiny new gadget, then maybe they could open their eyes to see that what they refuse to deal with, less privileged people are dying from.

Citations "EU E-waste Recycling Goals Criticized." Infobase Learning - Login. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.fofweb.com/Science/default.asp>. "E-waste Identified as Health Threat." Infobase Learning - Login. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.fofweb.com/Science/default.asp>. "E-waste Increasing in Developing World." Infobase Learning - Login. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.fofweb.com/Science/default.asp>. "Greenpeace Exposes Illegal E-waste Dumping." Infobase Learning - Login. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.fofweb.com/Science/default.asp>. Kluger, Jeffrey. "The E-Waste Blight Grows More Dangerous Than Ever." TIME.com. Web. 12 May 2012. <http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/11/01/the-e-waste-blight-grows-more-dangerous-than-ever/>. Moskvitch, Katia. "Unused E-waste Discarded in China Raises Questions." BBC News. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17782718>. Moxley, Mitch. "China Struggles to Process E-waste." SIRS Researcher. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SXX0583-01578&artno=0000316223&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Ewaste&title=China%20Struggles%20to%20Process%20EWaste&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N>. "Where Does E-waste End Up?" Greenpeace International. Web. 10 May 2012. <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/electronics/the-e-wasteproblem/where-does-e-waste-end-up/>. "The Story of Electronics." Youtube. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://youtu.be/sW_7i6T_H78>.

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