Electronic Waste

Electronic Wastes

Plan 440 – Reflective Paper

Zhuo Chen

ID# 20347354

Monday, October 01, 2012

As a member of a first nation, there are certain privileges and one of those privileges include having a functioning waste management system. Without it the streets would be piled with waste, but because of the efficiency of the waste management system, people are oblivious to the amount of waste produced in our society other than those produced by themselves. The extension to their front lawn is as much waste as people will see. “Manufactured Landscapes”, a documentary film about Ed Burtynsky’s work of photographs and videos portraying the amount of impact our society’s manufacturing industry has made on the world. This documentary was my first look into the world of waste, the gigantic obsolete ships that lay waste on the shores of India and the abandoned mines and the pile of used tires. Yet out of the entire documentary, what intrigued me the most was the recycling operations of computer parts in China. The world is moving forward, technology is advancing at a rate so fast, that many people tend to replace their computers every 2-3 years. Being a part of this technological advancement myself, it really got me to wonder, just what happened to my old computer, could it be there in China right now? Being disassembled by these underpaid workers as they inhale just tones of hazardous gas that are created from the melting of the motherboards?

The fast moving pace of technological advancement comes along with the massive surplus of electronic wastes around the world. Display monitors, motherboards, televisions and audio components all have different life spans, however due to society’s shift towards bigger and better technology, the actual life span of these components are much shorter than they could be, thus more e-wastes are produced. United States, Europe and Canada, as well as China all produce significant amount of e-waste, however they cannot individually...