@Lite: poetic justice. Though it seems Chinese children are still exposed to more lead than American children... and not from playing with toys either.

DrifterTypeR

ok you're making progress giz. one more post about this in the next week and you're ready to make some sort of charity/protection/awareness group.

seriously, this is a worthy cause, and it's closely associated to gizmodo. make it happen!

jbhitter24

@vasha: Wow, if saying you hate a whole country is not racism, I'm really misunderstanding the word...

BanZZaï

@GrassJelly: Nah, he does a good job of educating people. He's just not a "do as I do" kind of person. I may not like the man, but I appreciate his efforts.

Lite

@Lite: Someone strip Al Gore of his nobel peace prize and give it to this man instead.

GrassJelly

@sbacon1999: Well, it goes back to basic consumerism. Some people would rather buy a new video card every year at the low end, and throw the old one away, than spend $400 and upgrade every 2-3 years instead.

They do this with cars, tv's, everything. When I hear about people saying they bought carbon offsets, I laugh. It isn't about polluting less, though that helps. It's about using as little as possible, reusing what you can, and recycling what you can.

It is just as important to use less as it is to use "green" items. It's why I laughed so damn hard when how much electricity Gore's house used. But, people said "It's all green, and he purchased carbon offsets for his private jet ride, and the jet was more efficient than the commercial airliner" Yadda. Sorry guys, it's about using LESS. Less energy, fewer resources, not finding ways to pay money to feel better about your faux eco-consciousness.

You can put CFL's in your house, but just not turning the lights on unless you need to uses far less electricity than your CFL does.

I don't drive a prius, I don't recycle absolutely everything, but then again I buy probably about 1/3 as much crap as the average consumer. When I buy something I buy high-end and keep it around for 5+ years.

Lite

@Toastie: Even worse is that we're all to blame, not just China.

Toastie

@Lite:

You sir win the comment of the day award!

JEmlay

@Lite:

Yep, the US is the largest e-waste producer in the world and the only developed nation that has yet to ratified the Basel Convention treaty.

It's the circle of life. /cue lion king music

GrassJelly

It's just so horrible to see such a large country that has a government that does so little to take care of it's people.

Toastie

@Lite: hah

dreamcast

I think this is more of our problem than China's. Yes, they're mishandling but we need to find another way to minimize our waste or recycle it here. The 60 Minutes piece was interesting. They went to a US recycling center that claimed they did not ship any waste overseas for recycling, and then 60M tracked one of their shipping containers. Even though it's illegal, the company shipped that container, full or CRT monitors, to Hong Kong. So it's not all China's fault.

sbacon1999

Does China even have a health department?

Duphman2

Where do you think China gets all the lead it puts into the toys it sells to American children? Duh.

Lite

Wow, lots of electronics. Still hate China in general.

vasha

I was pretty shocked last night, when i watched it.
Crazy stuff.

biofreak

@Toastie: It's the local government that is corrupt and China is hardly the worst offender.

MBPro

@vasha: Way to trivialize the plight of these people, large caused by the whole "holier than thou" attitude of the West.

Chris3000

@Lite:

Thank you, i hate it when people buy cheap shit all the time for that very reason.

djfoxx64

LOL, if anyone watched this whole thing, mine ended with the "I'M A PC" ads.

MBPro

This isn't a good situation for anyone working in these waste villages, but it's evidently the most lucrative one by far. If there's a better solution, what is it, and will it provide the workers with at least the same income? $12 a day may not sound like much but it goes a much longer way in rural China than it does here.

Ethan Allison

I go to my local E-waste recycling center when I throw out my stuff. I guess I should look into what they do with it from there...

rndmx

@DrifterTypeR: And, they charge the parents for the bullet. =)

Lite

@jbhitter24: There are a lot of things you can do to help reduce electronic waste.

1) Find someone else to re-use the product. Whether it's an old monitor, or computer, or cell phone. You can donate cell phones to women's shelters so that they can dial 911. You can call up nursing homes or local charities and ask if they could use the hardware.

2) Over-buy a little. Sure you may not ever need that quad core 2.6 ghz cpu for 6 years, but it if keeps you from buying a new computer every 2 years and you pay an extra $400, why not? Then, go to step 1 when done. Why by an 8 gig iPhone when you'll probably want the 16 gig model in a year? Why buy a desktop and a laptop, when you could buy a laptop that is capable of serving in both capacities?

3) Research a reputable electronics recycling plant. Take it there.

4) Bring your own bags or skip the bag altogether when you go to Best Buy to buy something. Most of the time I'm guessing you've purchased maybe 2 items, and they're not bulky or heavy. Why waste yet another plastic bag? Same goes for groceries, bring your own bag.

5) If you're going out of town for a bit, unplug your electronics. Not only will you not have to worry about brown-outs/power surges damaging your equipment, but you don't pay for electricity use when you're gone. Just leave the DVR plugged in if you're worried about missing your latest episode of Queer as Folk.

Your old iPod can serve as a portable hard drive. Or, you can donate it to a kid who may not be able to afford an iPod, or give it to a niece/nephew, or relative, or send it to someone in the army stationed in Iraq.

Sure, not everything can be recycled, but you can do a lot to keep how much you pollute to a minimum. And maybe, just maybe, you'll offset that asshole who throws his plastic cigarette wrappers, and mcdonald's bags out the window.

Lite

when i bought my lcd tv i exported my old one to my bed room

moose_knuckle

@Lite: Wow...I never thought of that...you are so right..that is where all the damn lead is coming from. With 3 kids everything I get now before I buy I read to see where the heck it was made.

schpeen

You know the same sort of things were happening in America and Europe during the Industrial Revolution, China and India are going through the same growing pains that we as a nation experienced during our fast paced modernization. I find this situation to be tragic because we are so far ahead of this now but if you view it with some historical perspective you can't judge the Chinese for the same crimes we committed against our own people, especially immigrants and the poor. It will only be a matter of time before the people protest in large enough numbers and the Chinese government does something about it, and if there is enough press in China that is willing to cover these things. It only took a few enterprising reports during the turn of the century to make a difference here in America, Upton Sinclair was one of them, his book The Jungle which originally was a social commentary, highlighted the meat packing industry and it's lack of sanitation and standards which outraged the public more than the plight of the immigrants in the novel. This led President Roosevelt to sign the Wiley Act into law in 1906 which eventually led to the formation of the FDA. Well that and his troops dying from poorly packed meat during the Spanish American War. I am in no way condoning China's actions but they are no worse than ours were and in time I am sure they will do away with things such as these and continue on their path to modernity and democracy!

antitrust311

@tankiller:

... they don't know any better... the government could do more to encourage better practices and bring in foreign investments which would allow them to maintain that level of income.

And what the hell, your argument is as logical as saying people with AIDS don't need help. They were ASKING for it when they had sex.

MBPro

I'm confused, in the video the residents clearly don't want the public knowing about the health issues and whats going down here, so in my mind, let them be. Even if their clearly harming their health, if they want to be doing this, who are we do stop them when they make less money a day then US prisoners, this may be their only real means of income.

tankiller

@vasha:

You hate China, yet the US is the number one exporter of that crap into China which gives them their hardships. Uhkay.

Mr_LaZy

Its nice to see the US stay suspiciously un-highlighted when they showed the map displaying the countries that ratified the "Basel Convention." The WikiPedia entry doesn't shine any more light as to why the US isn't a member of the treaty, or at least not in a language I understand.

It is of note that the Convention places a general prohibition on the exportation or importation of wastes between Parties and non-Parties. The exception to this rule is where the waste is subject to another treaty that does not take away from the Basel Convention. The United States is a notable non-Party to the Convention and has a number of such agreements for allowing the shipping of hazardous wastes to Basel Party countries.

LastVigilante

@BanZZaï: You are misunderstanding the word. China is a *country*, not a race.

We're still allowed to hate countries. And ideologies. And political movements. And people.

Just not races.

Daveinva

@vasha: Have you even been to China? Do you know anything about their culture or 5,000 year history? I bet not. The Chinese are a great people, don't make your decision of the Chinese people based upon their government. This is the same reason so many people hate Americans, because they base their opinions of the people of the United States on what they see of our Government and it's foreign policies. Maybe you should travel outside the US sometime and gain a bit of Global perspective IMHO!

antitrust311

To be fair, that 386 that you threw out is sitting in a US landfill somewhere, leaching heavy metals into the environment. Now, the 386 that you *RECYCLED* got sent to China to poison the locals and wreak havoc in developing nations.

ludwigk

yeah I saw a special on this on the CBC last week, kids were melting down motherboards with boiling acid to get at the gold solder, breathing in the fumes.
Apparently all the "green" e-waste recycling companies that you see in your cities, they all just straight up sell it to china and send it there in cargo ships.

thedarkhorse

@thedarkhorse: You can't say they ALL are and its better to know that you disposed it with a company that supposedly does the right thing instead of just dumping it in with the trash. =/

MBPro

@MBPro: Who's worse?

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@Lite: I don't think it counts as "education" when it's all horse shit.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@Chris3000: What a load.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@ludwigk: They are recycling the stuff. It's being used as firewood...

UnderLoK

@jbhitter24:

@ Lite:

That was awesome. I nominate you for Technology Czar.

rock99rock

@MBPro: well put.

jayp0411

@vasha: perhaps you should stop buying products that are "made in china" all the time. of course that would mean you will have to buy everything new...

jayp0411

@MBPro: At least if you dump it in the trash, the problem stays here instead of going there.

Lite

@thedarkhorse: You forgot about the liquid mercury they use. Mercury is great because heavy metals like gold 'stick' to it so it's really easy to get the gold out once you melt it. There's the minor problem of mercury poisoning. But hey as they say, people are cheap, metal is expensive.

satoru

@Ethan Allison: There isn't much these people can do. These migrant workers used to be successful farmers. But they can't farm anymore. The way it usually works is

1) Farming becomes impossible. Either because the government, developer, etc takes over your land and MAYBE gives you some money (this is a big maybe too, lots of times you just get the snot kicked out of you by the Triads until you leave). Or the factories near or upstream from you have polluted the air and water so much that you're basically toast.

2) There's a high probability you can't read or write Chinese. You might even speak some obscure dialect that makes your job prospects pretty much nothing.

3) All you know is how to farm, since you probably didn't go to school.

So for these people, yes getting $8 a day melting off gold and silver with liquid mercury is well better than nothing. It just goes to show how bad 'nothing' can be for most people in the world. There aren't any social nets or organizations that even remotely care about the poor and destitute.

satoru

@thedarkhorse: This has got me to thinking (a first!): wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for a state-side entrepreneur to start a business in e-waste recycling that doesn't send the materials to China, but instead recycles them in-house in a controlled safe environment? Perhaps the profit-margins aren't there, I don't know, but if we're spending millions (billions?) researching alternative energy, this should also be worth looking into.

LastVigilante

@Mr_LaZy:
Right. They buy it from us yet we are responsible for their "hardships"

Bluesk1d

I did an intensive report about this, and the e-waste problem is devastating. I can see a lot of China hate here, but all of those coming from the US should realize WE are the problem. We are the most powerful country in the world and we export billions of tons of ewaste to China because we have not even signed the Basel Convention since we don't actually want to stop the illegal trafficking of ewaste. China has a humongous rural, poor population who are not educated, dying, and desperate for money. Of course they'll take it. It is the U.S. that needs to put pressure on our manufacturing firms to stop sending its waste overseas and create greener products. In short, research before you make those stupid comments. It just shines light on how ignorant you Americans are. I'm American and I'm embarrassed.

RamseyOggie

Maybe US should do the recycling, since US has lots of E-Waste.
IMHO, China is accepting ewaste because they need the components in the manufacturing side,and there are many people in China, they can give jobs to their countrymen

z3dd