E-waste: The West and its impact on the South
Dec 1st, 2009 by Thilini Leitan
The first video is from Edward Burtynsky, he is a Canadian photographer and artist who is deeply fascinated and known for his photography concerning manufactured landscapes. The images within his photography depict landscapes that have been altered by industry. The beauty of his work and the images are contradicted by the compromised and destructive environments he illustrates. The photographs he is presenting on the video concern electronic waste (aka e-waste) in China and reveal where the trash of yesterday’s technology goes after being consumed by the wealthy.
The second video shown above concerns electronic trash as well. It is somewhat of an exposé on the lives of those who are affected by Westerns’ desire for technology. In addition it also conveys the destructive environmental problems dealing with e-waste. It shows images of those who work with e-waste and the affects on their health. Specifically, it discusses a village in China where a majority of e-waste is shipped to and the effects it is having on the population their. In particular it is negatively impacting the health of the elderly and children, whose immune systems are unable to handle the toxicity of the fumes and pollution.
E-waste describes all the discarded, excess, electronic or electrical devices. Particularly they refer to all the computers, electronic devices, cell phones, televisions etc. that are unwanted by their owners and thus thrown away. The videos attempt to bring awareness to the issues around e-waste and consumption by Westerns and its consequences. E-waste is a result of overconsumption throughout the world, mainly the West causing destructive consequences in the global South. Westerners desire to have the hottest and newest technological goods on the market create an end result of disparaging environmental problems and devastating health problems for those forced to live amongst e-waste. Hence, our desire for more current electronic devices creates within in us a disregard, for obsolete technology. As both videos demonstrate the technology improving the lifestyles of the wealthy are destroying the quality of life for others. Therefore, technology although good for some devastate the lives of numerous others creating a great disparity between the rich and the poor. For the reason that as the rich accumulate wealth and buy more technology savvy products they discard the older goods creating health and environmental products for the poor depleting their lives and their futures.
The videos make an effort to bring consciousness to people around the world concerning what happens to our trash and the result of Western consumerism. The images and depictions of children playing in the e-waste were very powerful to me, because children in the West typically play on playgrounds and as technology develops they have begun to play more and more with technology. For example, children in the West play with game systems or watch television. This demonstrates how once children in the West are done playing with their toys etc. they throw them away and the children in other places, such as China depicted in the videos, play with or amongst the discarded toys of Western children. As Western children are exposed to this consumerist lifestyle they desire the newest technological toy such as an X-box or new Playstation and become unhappy with having an old toy. The fumes and toxic chemicals that are released from the burning of these obsolete goods attack the children as they are very vulnerable to the toxic smoke within their communities. The children in these videos would typically not be shown and therefore their voices would be silenced and unheard. By showing their everyday lives, the world is able to have a clearer image of the destruction of our trash. It creates a more personal understanding because it conveys how each thing we throw away carelessly, unconcerned about its final destination results in the e-waste areas in the other places around the globe such as China.
The voices of the men who work amongst and with the e-waste describe how their lives are greatly affected by Western consumerism and our desire for the most up to date technological products. The men who attempt to have their voices heard in the second video describe how they are forced to work in unsafe conditions, specially using their bare hands to sort through the numerous amounts of e-waste within each pile. He verbalizes also that he has to work within these conditions because he has to make money. The commenter of the video further explains how the electronic and electrical goods are suppose to be used as second hand goods not be used solely to extract certain parts to sell, in other words the work being done is not only unsafe but illegal. It seems like the United Nations as well as the Chinese government seem to know that this is going on but nothing has been done to stop it or make it safer. In addition, workers describe that the fumes hurt there eyes and the commentator conveys that the smoke from lead and the gas it gives off is damaging to the brain. In other words, our trash is positioning workers, we although might not realize it but our trash has major effects on the environment and the lives of others. In Edward Burtynsky’s video, it shows a portrait of an elderly woman on her porch that is filled with e-waste. Her home has become a dumping site for the trash we carelessly throw away and disregard. As verbalized in one of the videos, 70% of discarded electronic goods are sent to China as reported by the United Nations. This shipping out of trash and waste allows Western countries to avoid the harsh and strict environmental laws within their nations. Similarly to how people push away their problems when overwhelmed, the vast amount of trash we produce in Western society causes us to just simply ship away our problems therefore in our minds they are not our concern any longer. By putting a face and an image of a person onto each piece of trash we throw away we may be more inclined to reconsider if we could recycle it or reuse it.
5 Responses to “E-waste: The West and its impact on the South”
I have seen the Burtynsky video before, in another class that focused on environmental issues. In that class, we discussed externalities in terms of their environmental consequences. I didn’t consider their connection to development until now.
I have been considering getting a new cell phone recently, and I considered what I would do with my old one. There are organizations where you can drop off your old electronics, and they will recycle them for you. However, I wonder where and how they recycle “e-waste”. Is this a similair situation to that of mercury, which we discussed in class after the mining presentation? In that discussion, I realized how ignorant I was of the effects of recycling. Our generation has been trained, since we were young, to recycle, and taught that it was inherently a good deed. As was mentioned in class, UBC recycles mercury. At first glance, I assumed that this was a good deed. However, we then learned that “recycling” mercury meant that it is shipped off to developing countries, where it is used for gold mining. The mercury ends up contaminating the environment there, posing serious health hazards to the population. To me, this screams irresponsibility on our part.
Furthermore, these videos reminded me of the concept where developed countries rely on the underdeveloped-ness of other countries in order to remain wealthy. If the wealthy were not able to dump their toxic waste in the developing areas of the world, we would have to deal with issues of zinc poisoning and such. But since our world is becoming increasingly globallized, with the movement of good (and waste) becoming more widespread, it is easier for us to just ship waste to “underdeveloped” areas of the world. Situations such as these convince me that the West is not truly concerned about the development of poor countries. Evidently, our high standard of living here is reliant on the low standard of living in other places.
So, about what to do with my old cell phone: After reading Rebekah’s comment about overconsumption, I realized that I probably don’t need a new cell phone at all.
This is a great post. It’s a perfect illustration of overconsumption in the west and the direct way in which it affects people in the majority world. Our disregard for how our lifestyle of consumption is literally poisoning people elsewhere is a real testament to commodity fetishism.
The amount of environmental damage implicated in the commodity chain of these goods (parts collected from around the world, assembled in China, sold and used in various countries of the global north, and then discarded again in Asia and Africa) is also disturbing and was in the back of my mind as I read this. So many shots out of both videos looked like something straight out of post-apocalyptic or dystopian fiction, and it shows that this is just not sustainable.
I hate how dependent on technology we’ve become. Just look at the fact that we’re discussing this in a required online class blog. Having your own laptop is like an unspoken prerequisite in university. I remember not having my own computer for half of my first year at UBC and it really had a negative effect on my grades. My printer’s been broken for a month and I feel totally incapacitated because of it. The use of technology has become this ever-increasing standard that we all have to keep up with. I’m not even going to touch the classist significance of that.
On even more of a side note, I find this post particularly appropriate right now with Black Friday in the States having just passed a few days ago and Christmas coming up. I could complain forever about countless aspects of Christmas, but one of the things that bothers me the most is how wasteful (and really, pointless) the tradition of putting up Christmas lights is. I don’t know exactly how much energy gets wasted yearly because of people trying to outdo each other with their displays (see: http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2008/11/08/christmas-lights-1_1.jpg) but it’s definitely too much.
~*~*~*~*~*~~Boycotting Christmas~*~*~~**~*~*~**~*~*~*~**~
Erin
After watching this video, it really shocked me as to how many “e-waste” were being shipped to China and dumped in that area. I can’t even imagine how danger or unhealthy it is to live in a place where you are surrounded by e-waste. Definitely this can be linked to the serious overconsumption of the developed nations where we changes cellphones and computers every 1-2 years
In addition, this also revolves around the issues of hearing voices from people who are being marginalized. If these people in China can voice their opinions as to how dangerous their living condition is, NGO or people form other nations might be able to step in and help to resolve the seriousness of such issues. Given the large amount of e-waste that were dumped in China, I cannot believe that I have no idea how serious the situation is before i read this article and watched the video. This again, reinforces how people in the developed countries know very very little about people who are suffering in other underdeveloped countries.
Last word, in addition to thinking how we should care and address problems about people in the underdeveloped countries, I do think the most important move to address such issues is to consume less!! We should only buy new stuff when it is necessary not because it offers a mere improvements over its predecessors.
I see this as an interesting video more for Edward Burtynsky’s art than the larger meta-narrative of uneven capitalist development and the effects of overdevelopment in the West. That being said, they are intimately related.
Burtynsky’s photographs are distinctly abstract. I think this quality is first, obviously intentional; and second, laced with meaning regarding the meta-narrative of uneven development. Upon first glance, or especially without the background story, his audience most likely does not know what they are looking at. The beauty of some of the photographs originates merely in how they look, not in the fact that they are a microcosm of an endemic practice. This abstraction mirrors the commodity fetishism that those same objects that are now waste were when being used. When we use pieces of technology (or any commodity for that matter) we do not see the production that went into it – the back-story of how, where, and with what effects it was made. Our using of these commodities is an abstraction: we don’t see the wider meta-narrative that our consumption fits into.
These photos display the abstraction from the ‘post-consumption’ side. In these photos, we don’t see the wider meta-narrative that they fit into; we need this video to tell us.
Like Wanyee, I have also seen the Burtynsky documentary in a previous class we attended. In my opinion the most stunning thing about this video is how Burtynsky subtly and effectively reveals to his audience these destructive and shocking links between commodities and people’s welfare by juxtaposing startling and often beautiful images of human waste. There is an almost sublime sickness to many of his photographs and within the documentary that I personally found shocking when suddenly I became aware of the smaller and larger stories that these images tell. For example, during the last seconds of this clip, where the shot changes from the piece of a jagged rusty iron to the factory elsewhere in China where they are produced and you realize how embedded this pattern is within people’s livelihoods. I believe what I’m talking about is more or less what Alex explains quite succinctly regarding commodity fetishism which is really the essence of what propels this cycle of commodities and fosters an environment where these people are forced to sacrifice health, money and life in general just to get by.
Although Burtynsky never says it, his photography lets us become aware of our own involvement in creating these toxic situations and how we (the west) are the ones ultimately responsible for its perpetuation. In many ways the clip is more about the west than the south, for it attempts to evoke change, or at least force the viewers to question these relations which that they are part of, and through these epiphanies, audience members realize the depth of responsibility they hold to the questions left by the photos.