Digital Waste Worth More Than Gold, Copper Ore 302
tcd004 writes "Imagine sheer mountains of discarded Pentium IIIs, tractor trailers overflowing with discarded wall warts. Photojournalist Natalie Behring visited Guiyu, China and documented the world's biggest digital dump where, for $2 per day, the locals sort, disassemble, and pulverize hundreds of tons of e-waste. The payoff is huge: computer waste contains 17 times more gold than gold ore, 40 times more copper than copper ore. But the detritus also leaches chemicals and metals into local water supplies."
Re:Quick solution : out of sight, out of mind (Score:4, Interesting)
The larger of the recycling places actually have people going all around the world tring to purchase large quantities.
The question is do the richer country act as big brother and say they will not sell the items to theses poorer countries?
Re:Who cares about the gold and copper? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the most scrupulous incorporation in the high desert, but we processed a LOT.
A good day would have us processing 10 tons (20,000 pounds) of various electronics, most of it selling to final-stage processors for $0.10 to somewhere $1.00 per pound, depending on which gaylord (motherboards, transformers, glass, CPUs, HDDs, etc) and of course the fluctuations in the volatile commodities market.
The biggest cash cow, of course, was leaded CRT glass - thanks to SB20 and SB50, our processing of CRT glass was subsidised and we received a flat rate of $0.48 per pound on just that, smashed or not smashed. This was lucrative due to the commonality of monitors and the density of the glass, as well as the fact that at any given time we had 10 guys with clawhammers and pneumatic screwdrivers absolutely tearing everything up that I let them get their hands on.
I worked as Quality Assurance, assessing pallets as they came in and rescuing the good stuff, as well as miscellaneous server and network administration work. You know, the usual stuff when your department knows more about computers than the entire rest of the company, which happened to be too cheap for a dedicated IT staff and commensurate payroll. While I did indeed fix up more than a few computers for eBay and local buyers, the 90% discount and the general poor condition of incoming electronics as well as poor working conditions, chronic understaffing, and a tragic lack of space made resurrecting computers a very small portion of the revenue stream.
Selling components was a lot more successful, and I always argued for doing this with my coworkers and supervisors. We would sell hundreds of thoroughly-tested HDDs, video cards, RAM sticks, and CPUs of all types at a time. It amazed me at the time (2005-2006) to see how many people were still interested in 10GB drives, 64MB PC100 sticks, and GeForce2 MX cards.
My favourite part of the job, however, was finding and rescuing antique/vintage computing equipment [photobucket.com]. The contract with Dreamworks was also pretty exciting, although 99% of it ended up as unrecognisable scrap. I found myself face to face with an SGI Iris 4D and an even larger system in bad shape that I could not identify, as well as several battered workstations (one labeled "FOONLY" in obvious homage).
Thoughts on recycling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Take for instance my inlaws. Starting with my wife's parents. They are from up country, near Nakhon Sawan, and have, for the area, a successful life. They are farmer, raise cattle, and manufacture wooden goods such as chairs, tables, and doors. Now, even with all this income, due to the economic enviroment they're in, it's not enough. So their two daughters went to Bangkok to find work. I met my wife working in a 7-11, where about 5000 THB($143) a month. Her sister got a job working in a metal factory. She's only making 6000 THB($172) a month. Now, if you figure that rent will cost you around 3000 THB($86) a month (that includes utilities--but don't be expecting to run the air con or have more than a single room and forget about hot water), you're left with 3000 THB($86). Even if you sent NO money home, that leaves you with 100 Bhat($3) a day. Granted, you can take on roomates, but with the aforementioned living conditions, how many can you realistically accomodate? Let's say you take on 1 roomate. That lowers you monthly expenses for the room to 1500 bhat($43), leaving you with 4500 THB($129). So you're now looking at 150 THB($4) a day. Still not much, but if you could live on 100 THB($3) a day, you can send home 1500 THB($43) a month.
Now, they have 2 younger brothers. Both are in school, but they have to pay. The older one's school is 6000 THB($172), and the younger is 3000 THB($86). The family is very much into making this sacrifice because they don't wish for the boys to live the same life that they've been subjected to. So, just for making the payments, the family needs to come up with 9000 THB($257) every month. This doesn't cover room and board for the older one either. Add in costs raised from just living, you can see that money is always tight. The fact that farming is a seasonal income does absolutely nothing to improve their situation. I've been trying to get them to become more reliant on the furniture making portion of their life, possibly paying workers to man their fields, but they're stubborn old people. Add in the constant bill paying, house upkeep, taxes (government has to get their share!).
I've taken over the responsibilty of paying for their educations. This has been a huge financial boon for the family. I was truly appalled at the teaching conditions in their old shool. It was practically rote learning, which I hate with a passion. If you can't teach someone to learn on their own, they aren't learning.
But I digress. Going back to the prostitution business. A girl can work in a bar and make anywhere from 500 THB(14) to 3000 THB($86) a night. Obviously, the more they sling their "goods", the more they make. Not only that, some even end up with sponsors (which I never understood) who pay for them not to continue working. Quite a few of those with sponsors continue working in the bars, so not only do they have a steady income from some foreign sponsor, but continue to make money on an almost daily basis going with customers. Do they need to do this. Obviously not. Does it make more money for family. Assuredly. I wouldn't expect someone who is not of Asian origin to fully understand the ties between family (I'm not Asian, so I can't understand it fully, but I respect it), but the duty that people feel for taking care of their family is real. Everyone takes jobs they wouldn't necessarily agree with, but make more money for them.
The culture also doesn't stigmatise prostitution like most Western one
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
The payoff? (Score:3, Interesting)
What a load of bullshit. If the payoff was "huge", why would companies pay to have it taken away to China? Gold ore is much easier to process in bulk from fairly homogeneous rock than trying to extract it from a pile of metal, plastic and glass components. Gold ore is anything from 0.5 ppm up, so this "17 times" is a meaningless figure. At best, it means a few grammes of gold per tonne of hardware. How many hundreds of manhours would it take to break it down and separate out the tiny scrapings of gold from electrical contacts? Copper is more easily scavenged from wiring and power supplies.
Re:Good for them (Score:2, Interesting)
I wasn't around before foreigners started increasing the price of sex. However, I have traveled through Dubai on numerous occasions. My routine usually went like this: First, shower followed by a trip to a barber for a haircut and a proper shave. Than it was off to a coffee shop, where I could get the best Turkish coffee. Next was some real food. Than a bar was hit up. Obviously, all these trips were made in taxis. I don't know if the drivers get a referall fee, but I have yet to ride in one where the man didn't offer to take me to see the ladies. One time I questioned the driver about it. He told me he had been there 7 years, and in the begining, he had to pay something like 50 dirhams for time with a lady. It has now increased to something like 350 dirhams since all the foreigners are going through there. Mostly Americans coming down from Iraq and having full scrotums. Had they not started doing that, would their prices be that high now?
Is your glass half empty? (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you actually look at the pictures?
Talk about glass half empty!
Check it out and you will see people hard at work separating the old computer pieces into their constituent metals, so they can be melted down and - RECYCLED!!!!!! Isn't that a good thing???
This looks to me like a very effective looking recycling program (albeit one that looks like a hellhole on earth to work at!)
Do you have a better suggestion as to what to do with all this old computer crap (given that it has already been created)??
get the power back in your hands, stop slavery! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why the Fairtrade movement is so awesome. It puts the power in the hands of the consumer (where it always has been really)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1272522.s
We say that businesses are corrupt, and they are, but we buy their products so we are guilty too. Have any computers got a fairtrade mark? I doubt it.
[But Greenpeace has a ranking for electronics producers that lists Dell and Nokia at the top and companies like LGE near the bottom.]
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
I fail to see how "laziness" has ANYTHING to do with the discussion. It doesn't seem to me like it's America's responsibility to ensure the well being of overseas workers that don't work for our own companies. America seems like it is always called upon/expected to step in whenever there's a global issue. (Anything from cries for food or monetary assistance when a nation encounters a large disaster, to sending in troops to assist in matters which don't directly affect us.) Then, we're just as often criticized for "meddling" where we "don't belong".
The only aspect of this we should directly be concerned with in America is the financial one. (EG. Does importing from nations that refuse to uphold standards of living comparable to ours hurt OUR economy in the long-run? If yes, then we need to take actions that help fix it.) Otherwise, for all I care, China, with their poor stance on human rights and environmental issues, can wallow in their own pollution and filth.
Re:Good for them (Score:3, Interesting)