E-Waste Aff

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Gritz||Hu||Daniels||Sendar
eWaste Affirmative File
INDEX
Index
eWaste 1ac
Topicality Cards
Inherency Extensions
Biodiversity Extensions
Health Extensions
Consumerism Extensions
Neoliberalism Add-On
Neoliberalism Extensions
Environmental Injustice Add-On
Environmental Injustice Extensions
Solvency Basel Convention
Solvency Taxes
Solvency WEEE
Solvency Polluters Pay Principle
Solvency Superfund
Solvency EPR
Solvency Cost Internalization
Solvency CIL
Solvency General
Plan Popular
Plan Unpopular
AT: Voluntary CP
AT: Ban Waste CP
AT: Buy Back CP
AT: African Union CP
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15-16
17-26
27-32
33-42
43-49
50-52
53-55
56
57-58
59-60
61
62
63-65
66
67-71
72
73
74-75
76
77
78
79
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81
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Observation One: Inherency

TheUnitedStatesisthemostirresponsibledevelopedcountryontheissueofhazardous
wastedumpinginAfrica
NancyWeil,writerforIDGNews,2005.InfoWorld
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/28/HNewaste_1.html
TheBaselConvention,whichispartoftheUnitedNationsEnvironmentalProgram,isan
internationaltreatythatsetsupcontrols,enforcementmechanismsandrequirementsthat
signatoriesagreetofollow,includingpreventingandmonitoringillegaltrafficinhazardous
waste,promotingcleanertechnologiesandproduction,andfocusingspecificallyonhelping
developingnations.Thetreatyhasbeenratifiedby165countries;theU.S.isnotoneofthem.
TheU.S.signedtheConventioninMarchof1990,indicatingagreementwiththetreatyandthe
intentionofratifyingit,butthusfarhasnottakenthefinalstepinratification.Whileother
nationshavenotsignedatall,alongwiththeU.S.,onlyHaitiandAfghanistanhavetakenthat
stepandthenfailedtoratifythetreaty.TheBANreportondumpinginLagoscallstheU.S."the
worstactor"amongdevelopedcountriesthatperpetuatedumpingofhazardouswastein
developingnations."Astheonlydevelopedcountryabsentatthetableoftheworld'sonlywaste
treaty,theU.S.canbeviewedasnothingshortofaremarkableexampleofirresponsibility,"the
reportsaid."TheU.S.policyonelectronicwasteisshamelesslynegligent...Canada,likewise,
whilenominallyaBaselParty,seemsintentonignoringtheBaselwasteliststoavoidcontrolling
ewasteexports."
Over50milliontonsofelectricwasteisbeingdumpedonAfrica,exposingmuchofthe
Africanpopulationtodeadlytoxinssuchascadmium,mercuryandlead
JohnNjagi,writerforBusinessDaily,7/9/07
http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1824&Itemid=5810
Dealershavebeenaskedtoactonelectronicwaste,rankedamongtopenvironmentalpollutersin
thedevelopingworld.Electronicgadgets,whichincludecomputers,mobilephonesand
televisionsets,constitutealargeproportionofdumpsitematerialinKenya,exposingthe
populationtodanger.Lastmonth,theUnitedNationswarnedthatover50milliontonnesof
electronicwaste(ewaste)fromtheindustrialisedworldwasbeingdumpedinAfrica.Locally,
theremaynotbeasmanyPCsormobilephonesbeingdisposedoftocauseanalarmyet,said
MrTomMusili,theexecutivechairmanofComputersforSchoolsKenya(CFSK),anon
governmentalorganisationthatrehabilitatesusedcomputersfordonationtolearninginstitutions.
Butinthedevelopedworld,organisationssuchasMrMusilishavebecomethemostfavoured
channelforthedisposalofelectronicgadgets.Throughthischannel,computersasoldasthe
Commodore64thatwerelastusedintheUnitedStatesinthe80shavebeenshippedtoAfrica.
Oftenlefttorotinexpansivedumpinggrounds,electronicwastecontainsawiderangeoftoxins
includingcadmium,mercuryandleadthatcontaminatewatersourcesandwreakhavocon
agriculturalland.TheUNsaysmuchoftheewasteendsupongarbagedumpswherethey
decomposeandreleasedangerouselementssuchaslead,canadium,andmercury.
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And the problem will not go away; it is too much of a hassle for most Americans to prevent
eWaste
John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and Environment, 7-26-05, GAO, Observation
on the Role of the Federal Government in Encouraging Recycling and Reuse
Economic factors, such as cost, inhibit the recycling and reuse of used electronics. Consumers
generally have to pay fees and drop off their used electronics at often inconvenient locations to
have their used electronics recycled or refurbished for reuse. Consumers in Snohomish County,
Washington, for instance, may have to travel more than an hour to the nearest drop-off location,
which then charges between $10 and $27 per unit, depending on the type and size of the product.
Recyclers and refurbishers charge these fees because costs associated with their processes
outweigh the revenue received from recycled commodities or refurbished units. In addition to the
challenges posed by these economic factors, federal regulatory requirements provide little
incentive for environmentally preferable management of used electronics. The governing statute,
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, regulates the disposal practices of large generators
of hazardous waste (including electronic waste) but exempts individuals and households from
these requirements.
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Observation Two: Harms We isolate three advantages

Sub-point A is biodiversity
Without waste management we cannot have clean air, water, and food
The Basel Action Network, 8-24-06, Executive summary, The Digital Dump
At the same time as the illegitimate trade is quashed, Nigeria and other developing countries
must be assisted in creating environmentally sound waste management systems. This effort
should in no way be linked to the unsustainable exports of hazardous wastes to them, but rather
as a necessity for any country that must deal with all kind of wastes. Adequate waste
management is as vital to a society as clean air, clean water and clean food, for today, without it,
we will have none of these things we have taken for granted since the beginning of time.
Contamination decreases biodiversity by increased genetic mutations, decreasing heritable
genes, and decreasing genetic diversity
John W. Bickham, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences @ Texas A & M, 12-99,
Mutation Research 463
The conservation of genetic diversity has emerged as one of the central issues in conservation
biology. Although researchers in the areas of evolutionary biology, population management, and
conservation biology routinely investigate genetic variability in natural populations, only a
handful of studies have addressed the effects of chemical contamination on population genetics.
Chemical contamination can cause population reduction by the effects of somatic and heritable
mutations, as well as non-genetic modes of toxicity. Stochastic processes in small populations,
increased mutation load, and the phenomenon of mutational meltdown are compounding factors
that cause reduced fitness and accelerate the process of population extirpation. Although the
original damage caused by chemical contaminants is at the molecular level, there are emergent
effects at the level of populations, such as the loss of genetic diversity, that are not predictable
based solely on knowledge of the mechanism of toxicity of the chemical contaminants.
Therefore, the study of evolutionary toxicology, which encompasses the population-genetic
effects of environmental contaminants, should be an important focus of ecotoxicology. This
paper reviews the issues surrounding the genetic effects of pollution, summarizes the technical
approaches that can be used to address these issues, and provides examples of studies that have
addressed some of them.
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Loss of each species risks ecological collapse and human extinction
David Diner, Ohio State University J.D, Winter 1994, Military Law Review 161,The Army and
the Endangered Species Act: Whos Endangering Whom? Lexis
By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As
biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert
in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild
examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or
plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem
collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a
mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wing, mankind may be edging
closer to the abyss.
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Sub-point B is Health
eWaste poisons the food and water supply
Liz Carney, staff writer, 12-19-06, BBC World Service, Nigeria fears e-waste 'toxic legacy'
Meanwhile, the tips sit on swamp land, which increases the environmental risk as chemicals seep
into the high water table. Old computers can contain mercury, and heavy metals like nickel,
cadmium and chromium. Plastic casings use flame retardant chemicals and monitors contain
lead. Professor OladDele Osibjano of the University of Ibadan warns that overall, dumping ewaste is creating a toxic legacy. "We've found excess heavy metals in the soil, as well as in plants
and people who eat vegetables," he says.
"That has a lot of social health implications. You have grazing animals, people picking
vegetables and eating them, and then the drinking water containing [these toxins]." The
international Basel Convention is meant to regulate and control the movement of hazardous
waste from developed to developing countries - but it can be difficult to enforce. For a start, the
US - where many of the second hand computers come from - has not signed the convention.
European countries have - but a recent study revealed 48% of spot checks on exports of various
waste shipments showed they were illegal.
Toxic dumping hospitalizes thousands and leaves Africa as the global septic tank
Charles W. Schmidt, National Association of Science Writers, April 2002, Environmental Health
Perspectives Volume 110, Number 4
Heres a story that will curl your toes. In August, a rusted Greek tanker named the Probo Koala,
stopped in the Ivory Coast. The ship had been turned away from several European ports because
of its toxic cargo. In the middle of the night, the crew illegally unloaded 500 tons of toxic caustic
soda in 12 sites around the city of Abidjan. The resulting fumes sent 40,000 people in search of
medical care for respiratory problems, nosebleeds, and nausea. Eight people were fatally
poisoned and thousands fled the coast and moved into the rainforest to escape the fumes. The
tragedy led Senegalese ecologist, Haidar al-Ali, to remark: We talk of globalisation, of the
global village, but here in Africa we are under the impression of being that villages septic tank.
Tighter regulation on toxic waste across Europe has given rise to a new class of black-market
"garbage cowboys." They haul away computer parts, radioactive waste, pig dung, cell phones,
and just about anything else the rest of the world doesn't want and dump it on Africa's doorstep.
The practice is ravaging much of coastal Africa. The UNDP estimates that it costs about $2.50 to
dispose of a metric tonne of material in Africafar cheaper than the $250 it costs in Europe.
Western chemical and energy companies have been dumping their waste products off the coast of
Somalia since the early 1980s, taking advantage of the ravaged African nations broken
government. Fast forward to 2004 when the tsunami hit Somalias coast. The Sunday Herald of
Scotland, reports: along more than 400 miles of shoreline, the turbo-charged wave churned up
reinforced containers of hazardous toxic waste that European companies had been dumping a
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short distance offshore for more than a decade, taking advantage of the fact that there was not
even a pretend authority in the African failed state. The force of the tsunami broke open some
of the containers which held radioactive nuclear waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, flame
retardants, hospital waste and cocktails of other deadly residues of Europes industrial processes.
Electronic Trade is just a faade to justify the egregious irresponsibility of richer nations
contaminating poorer nations
Daily Champion, December 7, 2006, Nigeria; Nigeria As E-Waste Dump, Lexis.
THE cynical and dangerous habit of using Africa as a waste dump by western nations has moved
into the area of electronic waste which increasingly is finding its way into African countries.
A particularly alarming statistic says that about 100,000 computers are entering into Nigeria's
Apapa Lagos Port on a monthly basis. This would have been good news except for the fact that
about 75 per cent of these items are mere junk.
Revealing this at the opening of the 18th conference of parties to the Basel Convention on
environment in Kenya, the head of United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Mr
Achim Steiner, observed that "if these were good quality, second hand pieces of equipment, this
would perhaps be a positive trade of importance for development."
Instead, Mr Steiner said, "these items like old T.Vs, CPUs, phones, lap-tops are nothing but
electronic waste (e-waste) exported by devious developed countries' consumers and companies
to an African rubbish tip or land-fill".
The danger is that, if not checked, these junk electronic instruments which contain lead,
cadmium, mercury and other hazardous heavy metals will end up fouling up water sources in
Africa in addition to other hazards.
The world's richest nations are guilty of this chemical poisoning of Africa and Nigeria in
particular with their obsession with production methods that leave behind dangerous waste which
they illegally dump in Africa in the guise of trade
Lack of clean water and sanitation is a form of structural violence driven by legacies of
colonialism and present day corporations.
Joia S Mukherjee. Medical Director of Partners in Health. 2007. Structural Violence, Poverty
and the AIDS Pandemic http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v50/n2/full/1100376a.html
Current global inequalities are often the legacies of oppression, colonialism and slavery, and are
today perpetuated by radical, market-driven international financial policies that foment poor
health. Neo-liberal economic 'reforms' imposed on poor countries by international financial
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank force poor
governments, as the recipients of qualified loans, to decrease their public sector budgets,
privatize health services and, when they would rather invest their minuscule capital to protect
their vulnerable citizens and educate their children, these recipient countries are instead forced
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to march in lock step toward the 'free' market, enforcing policies such as user fees for health and
primary education. In poor countries, revitalizing the public health infrastructure and improving
the delivery of essentials such as vaccination, sanitation and clean water are critical aspects to
remediating the structural violence that underlies disease. It is only with ongoing, large-scale
international assistance that poor governments will be able to address the right to health in a
sustained way. Advocacy to redress the violations of the basic right to health must recognize that
more money is needed for health now, and for decades to come. Furthermore, the coercion by
international financial institutions of poor governments to restrict health spending only serves to
deepen inequalities in health care and perpetuate social injustice.
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Sub-point C is Consumerism
U.StechnologicalInnovationandConsumerismhasleadanexponentially
dangeroussituation,witheverythingultimatelybecomingwaste
CharlesSchmidt,writerforEnvironmentalHealthPerspectives,2002
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2002/1104/focus.html
Mostexpertsbelievethefullenvironmentalimpactofewasteisjustbeginningtobefully
realized.ThankstoMoore'sLawthe1965observationofIntelcofounderGordonMoorethat
computerprocessingpowerwasdoublingevery18monthsandcouldcontinueintothe
foreseeablefuturetheshinynewcomputerboughttodayisvirtuallyobsoletebythetimeit's
pluggedintothewallathome.Mostofthenowobsoletemachinestossedoutintherelentless
pushtowardsthetechnologicfuturearestillinstorage,accordingtotheSiliconValleyToxics
Coalition(SVTC),anenvironmentalgroupbasedinSanJose,California.Butasconsumers
upgradetheircomputersforthethirdandfourthtime,theseolderrelicsareincreasinglyfinding
theirwayintomunicipalwastestreams.Andtheproblemgoeswaybeyondcomputers.Other
obsoleteelectronicproductsarealsoaddingtothegrowingwasteproblem.Withtheemergence
ofDVDplayers,highresolutiontelevision,anddigitalflatscreenmonitors,traditionaltelevision
setsandVHSplayersarealsobeginningtoclutteruplandfills,contaminatingincinerator
feedstocksandaddingtowasteexportstodevelopingcountries,whereenvironmentalrecycling
anddisposalstandardsareoftennonexistentorignored.Salesofconsumerelectronicsgoods
frommanufacturerstodealersareexpectedtosurpass$95.7billionin2002,accordingtothe
ConsumerElectronicsAssociation.Thatfigurerepresentsavastamountoftechnology
technologythatwillundoubtedlysomedaybecomeobsolete.Thequestionis,whenitdoes,what
willwedowithitall?
Consumerism and its inherent obsolescence drives the e-waste problem
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, Dec. 2, 2006,
WORLD IN FOCUS; E-waste@large in Africa, The Advertiser, Lexis.
ACCELERATING trade in goods and materials across borders and across continents is one of
the defining features of the early 21st century. Another is the globalised phenomenon of
consumerism and what one might call built-in obsolescence, the relative cheapness of hightechnology products like mobile phones and computers and the way fashion is driving the
purchasing and discarding of products in a way unknown a generation ago.
Consumerism is driving economies but also drives a growing mountain of e-waste, with a wide
range of pollutants from heavy metals to chlorine compounds. Discarded electronic equipment,
or e-waste, is now recognised as the fastest-growing waste stream in the industrialised world.
While this new waste stream would be of environmental significance in any case, due to resource
and energy consumption, because of widespread use of toxic chemicals in today's hi-tech
equipment, such as brominated flame retardants in plastics and circuit boards, beryllium alloys in
connectors, lead-tin-based solders, lead- and barium-laden cathode ray tubes, mercury lamps, etc,
most of these electronic wastes are hazardous.
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<<Insert Kathyrns business !>>
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Thus the plan :

THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT SHOULD RULE THAT THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MUST PROVIDE FINANCIAL AND
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO CLEAN UP ELECTRONIC WASTE IN
AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA AND MUST FINANCE THE
PROGRAM THROUGH A PIGOUVIAN TAX ON UNITED STATES
CORPORATIONS THAT SHIP ELECTRONIC WASTE TO AFRICA
SOUTH OF THE SAHARA ON CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW
GROUNDS
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Observation Three is solvency

Extended Producer Responsibility is being touted as an effective way of approaching the
mounting E-Waste problem
Rolf Widmer, Global Perspectives on EWaste, 2005
http://www.rrrtic.net/archivos/ProyectoReciclaje/21Brasil_Widmer%20et%20al.%20Global
%20Perspectives.pdf
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is being propagated as a new paradigm in waste
management. The OECD defines EPR as an environmental policy approach in which a producer
s responsibility for a product is extended to the post consumer stage of the products life cycle,
including its final disposal (OECD, 2001). Keeping in line with the Polluter-pays Principle, an
EPR policy is characterized by the shifting of responsibility away from the municipalities to
include the costs of treatment and disposal into the price of the product, reflecting the
environmental impacts of the product. Legislators are increasingly adopting EPR policies to
manage various kinds of wastes, such as discarded cars, electrical and electronic appliances and
batteries, which require special handling and treatment. The EU, in 1991, designated e-waste as a
priority waste stream and in August 2004 the legislation on Waste from Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (WEEE) came into force (EU, 2002a), making it incumbent on manufacturers and
distributors in EU member states to take back their products from consumers and recycle them.
ProducerResponsibilityhassolvedempiricallyithashandledallthetoxicwastein
America
ThePittsburgPostGazette,12/12/2005(Lexis)
Thepolluterpaystocleanupthemess.Thatprinciplewasthebedrockfoundationofthe
SuperfundprogramwhenformerPresidentJimmyCartersignedthelegislationintolaw25years
agoyesterday.However,thepolluterpaysclauseoftheSuperfundlawexpiredin1995,shifting
mostoftheburdenforcleaninguptoxicwastesitesontotaxpayers'shoulders.Congress'srefusal
toreauthorizethattaxhaslefttheSuperfundweakened,withanuncertainfuture.Congressmust
againmakethepolluterspaytoenableSuperfundtocontinueitstraditionalwork,andtacklenew
responsibilities.AsaPennEnvironmentResearch&PolicyCenterreportjustnoted,those
includecleaninguptoxicpollutionleftbynaturaldisasterslikeHurricaneKatrina.Since1980,
SuperfundhashelpedtoprotecttheoneinfourAmericanswholivenearhighlypollutedtoxic
wastesites.Ithascleanedupsome1,000sites,includingmessesatNewYork'sLoveCanaland
Missouri'sTimesBeach.
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And EPR policies give incentives to manufactures to produce more environmental-friendly
designs
Carola Hanisch, environmental freelance writer, 2000. The American Chemical Society
http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/est/00/apr/hanis.html
Once companies realize that they are going to have to pay for waste management and recycling,
they have an incentive to make less wasteful products and to design for recyclability by reducing
the materials and parts used, particularly reducing the number of different plastics, labeling them,
and designing fasteners for easy disassembly. The German auto industry did this for its cars;
Xerox has done this for its office machines; and Kodak has done this for its single-use cameras,
which it takes back and recycles. We [are] see[ing] some standard design changes being made
for different types of products, says Bette Fishbein, of Inform, Inc., a New York City-based
nonprofit environmental research organization.
Full Cost internalization encourages the reduction and recycling of e waste

Shawn C. Morton, environmental policy analyst, 98
http://www.web.ca/~smorton/waste_trade.html
Similarly, it can be argued that by restricting the export of hazardous waste firms will be forced
to internalize in their production costs the full cost associated with hazardous waste disposal, as
required by the Polluter Pays Principle. By exporting hazardous waste to low cost countries,
assuming that such waste is not handled properly even by the standards of the importing country,
producers avoid paying the full costs of production, and the goods so produced are under priced.
In effect such low export disposal costs are unpaid environmental costs. A policy that restricts
hazardous waste exports to countries where waste is improperly disposed of ensures that the
disposal costs are incorporated into the prices of goods. This "full cost internalization" will
encourage the reduction, recycling and reuse of the wastes generated through the production
process.
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Even though the U.S. has not ratified the Basel Convention, customary international law
should restrict its e-waste exports
Joel Boon, J.D., University of Iowa College of Law, Spring 2006, Stemming the Tide of
Patchwork Policies: The Case of E-Waste, Lexis
Perhaps the most prominent treaty directed at waste is the Basel Convention on the Control of
Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, adopted in 1989, n121 and
a subsequent 1995 Basel Ban Amendment that "prohibits all transboundary movements of
[hazardous] wastes which are destined for final disposal from OECD [developed states] to nonOECD States [less developed states.]" n122 However, the United States, the single largest
producer of hazardous e-waste, has not ratified the Convention and is not technically
restricted by the treaty, n123 allowing for what is effectively "cradle to border" regulation.
n124 The Basel Convention prohibits parties to the Convention from trading in hazardous waste
with non-party states, but the onus still rests with the bound party and not the non-party, such as
the United States. n125
A case can be made that the Basel Convention, to which 166 countries are party, is considered
customary international law or a "general [principle] of law recognized by civilized
nations" in accordance with Article 38(1)(b) and (c) [*751] of the Statute of the
International Court of Justice. n126 In other words, the principle that rich countries should
not exploit poor countries by sending toxic waste to them is so widespread and strongly
supported within the international community that non-party states such as the United
States are legally bound to the principle, whether or not they have ratified the Basel
Convention. However, it is unlikely that transboundary shipment of hazardous waste rises to the
level of a jus cogens norm. n127
Nonetheless, "[a] norm that does not quite reach the status of jus cogens may still constitute
a law of nations [i.e., customary international law] if it is universal." n128 The existence of
several other regional and multilateral treaties that ban the import of hazardous waste into
the region or that further commit to not exporting hazardous waste to developing countries
supports the claim for customary international law. n129
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Topicality
(T) Hazardous waste is a public health issue
Thomas L. Milne, National Association of County and City Health Officials, 5/12/99, FDCH,
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, US House, lexis
1. Superfund and Hazardous Waste Site Clean-ups are Public Health Programs We believe
strongly that the underlying purpose of Superfund is to prevent disease and disability due to toxic
exposures. Human exposures to toxic substances have many potential adverse health outcomes,
including neurological damage, birth defects, and cancer. Identifying potential health hazards due
to dangerous contaminants in the environment and cleaning up hazardous waste sites are just as
important in protecting public health as are such traditional measures as vaccinating children to
prevent polio or diphtheria, or requiring safe food handling to prevent outbreaks of salmonella or
E. coli. Public health involvement in Superfund site assessment and remediation has been built
into the program from the beginning, primarily through the activities of the Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry. However, the full potential of public health approaches to
improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Superfund has never been fully realized. To achieve
this potential, the Superfund program must require early, strong, and full involvement of public
health agencies and experts at hazardous waste sites.
(T) Hazardous waste cleanup is public health assistance
Dale Russakoff, Staff Writer, 12-21-82, Washington Post
The federal government yesterday released a list of the 418 hazardous waste dumps across the
nation that it considers most dangerous to public health, making them eligible for federal cleanup
assistance under the Superfund program.
(T) Managing hazardous wastes under the Basel Convention is assistance to developing
countries
Sun Young Oh, American University, Spring 2006, Sustainable Development Law & Policy
Even though Articles 11(1)(c) and 16 of the Rotterdam Convention address international
cooperation and technical assistance for developing countries to improve their chemicals
management, they do not explicitly require developed countries to transfer technical support to
developing countries, nor do they provide for specific measures to monitor compliance. n10
Many countries recommend close collaboration with the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on
the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal ("Basel
Convention"), because it contains a specific mechanism to support regional assistance to
developing countries in managing hazardous wastes. n11 The Basel Convention aims to control
the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and utilizes a compliance mechanism to help
identify difficulties that arise in the implementation of the Convention. n12
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Topicality
(T) Human health is immersed in the environment
David B. Morris, Associate Editor of Literature and Medicine, 1996, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Project Muse, Environment: The White Noise of Health
Human health, then, is closely related to our environments--in ways complex and often
enigmatic. As we increasingly engineer the landscape to conform with human specifications, we
also seem to increase (certainly not to decrease) the general level of illness. There are of course
conspicuous success stories, as when U.S. cities improve the quality of their air, when forests
return to the northeast, or when the drainage of swamps prevents the breeding of malarial
mosquitoes. Yet some successes may be illusory or short-term: malaria is actually [End Page 10]
increased by human modifications of the landscape, while loss of wetlands leads to increased
salinity of coastal waters, with corresponding damage to marine ecosystems. 19 Small gains for
environmental quality in developed nations may be instantly erased by enormous damage in the
far more populous developing nations.
Prominent scholars emphasize that the earth resembles--may in fact be--an organism in need of
healing. 20 The main point is that a high-tech, energy-rich, consumer lifestyle has not brought the
developed world a period of unprecedented health, although life expectancy has increased.
Increased life expectancy has given rise to a new era of geriatric illness. More important,
material progress has been accompanied by new and newly intensified epidemic maladies, from
malnutrition, obesity, and chronic pain to depression, heart disease, and cancer.
Indeed, by-products of development have left industrial nations vulnerable to a growing list of
maladies that bode ill for future generations. Pollutants from insecticides and plastics, for
example, seem to create a synthetic estrogen that disrupts the normal functioning of biological
systems. Almost any newspaper can provide a survey of the bad news:
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eWaste is a growing problem with over 100 million new computers, monitors, and TVs each
year
Available estimates suggest that the amount of used electronics is large and growing, and that if
improperly managed can harm the environment and human health. While data and research are
limited, some data suggest that over 100 million computers, monitors, and televisions become
obsolete each year, and that this amount is growing. These obsolete products are either recycled,
reused, disposed of in landfills, or stored by users in places such as basements, garages, and
company warehouses. Available data suggest that most used electronics are probably stored. The
units still in storage have the potential to be recycled and reused, or disposed in landfills; or, they
may be exported for recycling or reuse overseas. If disposed of in landfills, valuable resources,
such as copper, gold, and aluminum, are lost for future use. Additionally, standard regulatory
tests show that some toxic substances with known adverse health effects, such as lead, have the
potential to leach from discarded electronics into landfills. Although one study suggests that this
leaching does not occur in modern U.S. landfills, it appears that many used electronics end up in
countries without either modern landfills or with considerably less protective environmental
regulations.
Only a very basic framework for eWaste handling exists in the status quo
In the absence of a national framework for dealing with the problem, a patchwork of potentially
conflicting state requirements appears to be emerging. Manufacturers in one state, for instance,
may have an advance recovery fee placed on their products, but the same manufacturers may
have to take back their products and pay for recycling in another. This patchwork may be placing
a substantial burden on recyclers, refurbishers, and other stakeholders. As GAO concludes its
work, it will examine the implications of these findings for the ongoing efforts among the states
to deal with this growing problem, for the various legislative solutions that have been proposed
to create a uniform national approach, and for options the federal government can pursue to
encourage recycling and reuse of electronics.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
eWaste is the fastest growing waste
Perspectives, Vol. 114, No. 4
All these programs have their work cut out for themthe electronics industry thrives on
obsolescence. Computers, cell phones, and other gadgets go out of date quickly, sometimes
within months of release. Indeed, e-waste is now considered the fastest growing segment of the
municipal waste stream in the United States. But the United States is also weak in legitimate
repair and reuse, discarding items that represent real income for educated repair people in other
countries. And Africa, with its own economy dependent on the leftovers, is left picking through
electronic trash. Theres just a lot more junk going to Africa now, Ingenthron says. In Asia,
the buyers tend to know more about the material than the sellers. But in Africa, its the other way
around.
Computers are built to be throwaway
Betsy M. Billinghurst, class of 2005 candidate for the Juris Doctor degree at the University of
Colorado, Spring 2005, Colorado Journal of Int'l Envt'l Law and Policy
Today, when faced with outdated computers, most consumers choose to purchase new and
improved models rather than pay to upgrade older but functional machines. As a result,
unused, outdated computers become part of a growing stream of e-waste, from which point these
products will most likely end up in either storage or landfills. One major contributing factor to
this e-waste problem is that most manufacturers design computers for disposal, which means
they use materials in their products (such as glass, steel, and plastic) that recyclers cannot easily
disassemble. As a result, computer parts are not only difficult to break apart, but they also
"cannot be upgraded separately." Therefore, consumers often discover that it is cheaper and
easier to go out and buy a new computer than it is to repair it or purchase an upgraded
component.
n26
n27
n28
n29
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
The eWaste problem is gigantic
With upgrade cycles that range from approximately two to three years, e-waste has become
the "fastest-growing portion of the municipal waste stream." The National Safety Council
(NSC) reported that in 1998, more than 20 million personal computers became obsolete in the
United States alone. In that same year, millions of additional computer parts also became
obsolete, including a total of 37 million computer monitors, printers, and scanners. Because of
our ever-changing technology, the number of obsolete computer products will only continue to
increase. The NSC estimates that by the year 2005, 60 million computers will start to become
obsolete each year, and that by 2007, the total number of obsolete computers and computer parts
will reach nearly [*405] 500 million.
Further, only eleven percent of the 20 million computers that became obsolete in 1998
(approximately 2.3 million units) were recycled that year. Based on this relatively small
amount of recycled computers, the EPA feared that nearly sixty-three percent of the 500 million
predicted obsolete computers (or 315 million computers) could be disposed of in landfills by
2004, left to slowly leach hazardous materials into the waste stream. In fact, the EPA estimates
that the 7.5 million tons of e-trash generated each year contributes "4 billion pounds of plastic,
1 billion pounds of lead, and 400,000 pounds of mercury into the waste stream." Thus, the
disposal of e-trash introduces chemicals into landfills that can pose a threat to the environment if
not managed carefully.
n31
n32
n33
n34
n35
n36
n37
n38
CurrentRecyclingandimportationpracticesforusedITequipmentarefraudulentanddo
moreharmthangood
WhileallofthemajorU.S.PCvendorshaverecyclingprogramsinplaceforusedITequipment,
suchproductsareoftensoldtobrokersfordisposalandwindupincountriessuchasNigeria,but
alsoelsewhereinAfricaandinAsia.Someoftheequipmentisrepairedorrefurbishedforusein
thosecountries,becomingimportantcomponentsinbridgingthe"digitaldivide,"butalotofthe
gearupto75percent,accordingtosomeestimatesisbeyondrepairandendsupindumpsor
landfills."Seenatgroundlevel,themassiveimportationofusedequipmentisasuccessstory
seriouslycloudedbythesmokeofagrowingenvironmentalandhealthdisaster,"theBANreport
said."Therealityisthatthisburgeoningnewtradeisnotdrivenbyaltruism,butratherbythe
immenseprofitsthatcanbemadethroughitandthoseinvolvedareobliviousto,orunconcerned
with,itsadverseconsequences.Toooften,justificationsof'buildingbridgesoverthedigital
divide'areusedasexcusestoobscureandignorethefactthatthesebridgesdoubleastoxicwaste
pipelinestosomeofthepoorestcommunitiesandcountriesintheworld.Whilesupposedly
closingthe'digitaldivide,'weareopeninga'digitaldump'."
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
TheUnitedStatesisthemostirresponsibledevelopedcountryontheissueofhazardous
wastedumpinginAfrica
TheBaselConvention,whichispartoftheUnitedNationsEnvironmentalProgram,isan
internationaltreatythatsetsupcontrols,enforcementmechanismsandrequirementsthat
signatoriesagreetofollow,includingpreventingandmonitoringillegaltrafficinhazardous
waste,promotingcleanertechnologiesandproduction,andfocusingspecificallyonhelping
developingnations.Thetreatyhasbeenratifiedby165countries;theU.S.isnotoneofthem.
TheU.S.signedtheConventioninMarchof1990,indicatingagreementwiththetreatyandthe
intentionofratifyingit,butthusfarhasnottakenthefinalstepinratification.Whileother
nationshavenotsignedatall,alongwiththeU.S.,onlyHaitiandAfghanistanhavetakenthat
stepandthenfailedtoratifythetreaty.TheBANreportondumpinginLagoscallstheU.S."the
worstactor"amongdevelopedcountriesthatperpetuatedumpingofhazardouswastein
developingnations."Astheonlydevelopedcountryabsentatthetableoftheworld'sonlywaste
treaty,theU.S.canbeviewedasnothingshortofaremarkableexampleofirresponsibility,"the
reportsaid."TheU.S.policyonelectronicwasteisshamelesslynegligent...Canada,likewise,
whilenominallyaBaselParty,seemsintentonignoringtheBaselwasteliststoavoidcontrolling
ewasteexports."
EventheU.SPostalServiceandDepartmentofEnergyisdumpingelectricwasteon
Africa.Itsmorethanaprivateissue
BillLambrecht,writerfortheSt.LouisPostDispatch,12/2006.BaselActionNetwork
http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2006/061218_pollutes_africa.html
TheU.S.governmentnotonlypermitstheexports,butitalsocontributestothem.InaLagos
warehouse,assettagsondilapidatedcomputersviewedbyaPostDispatchreportershowedthat
someoncebelongedtotheU.S.DepartmentofEnergyandtheU.S.PostalService.TheU.S.
EnvironmentalProtectionAgency,whichregulatesexports,issuednewruleslastsummer
requiringexporterstonotifythegovernmentbeforemakingshipmentsofcomputermonitors.
Buttherulesareunlikelytomakemuchofadentinthemurkyandlargelyunregulatedtradein
ewaste,witholdcomputerssometimespassingthroughmanyhandsbeforewindingupoffshore.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Over100,000CPUs,ofwhich75%areuseless,enterLogosairportinAfricaeachmonth
CharlesSchmidt,writerforEnvironmentalHealthPerspectives,2005(PublicMedCentral)
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1440802
Anestimated500shippingcontainersloadedwithsecondhandelectronicequipmentpass
throughLagoseachmonth,BANsinvestigationfound.Eachcontainercanbepacked,on
average,withaloadequalinvolumeto800computermonitorsorcentralprocessingunits
(CPUs),or350largeTVsets.LocalexpertscitedbyBANestimatethatanywherefrom25%to
75%ofthismaterialisuseless.Assumingthelowendofthisrange,onecouldhypothesizethat
volumesofewasteequalto100,000computersorCPUs,or44,000TVsets,enterAfricaeach
monththroughLagosalone.
DuetoitsinabilitytoprocessthegrowingeWaste,Africancountriesareforcedtoleaveit
accumulatingincountrysides,whereitcomesindirectcontactwithvillagersandfarm
animals
Hungryforinformationtechnologybutwithalimitedcapacitytomanufactureit,Africahas
becometheworldslatestdestinationforobsoleteelectronicequipment.Muchofthismaterialis
moreorlessfunctionalandprovidedingoodfaithbywellmeaningdonors.Butthebrokerswho
arrangetheseexportsoftenpadshippingcontainerswithuselessjunk,essentiallysaddling
Africanimporterswithelectronicgarbage.In2002,theBaselActionNetwork(BAN),aSeattle
basedenvironmentalgroup,madeheadlineswithitsinvestigationofewasteexportstoAsia[see
eJunkExplosion,EHP110:A188A194(2002)].Morerecently,BANexploredAfricase
wasteproblem,anddescribeditsfindingsinanOctober2005reporttitledTheDigitalDump:
ExportingReuseandAbusetoAfrica.BANcoordinatorJimPuckett,whovisitedNigeriaas
partofthatinvestigation,sawenormouspilesofewastethroughoutthecountryside,muchofit
routedthroughLagos,Africaslargestport.Wesawpeopleusingewastetofillinswamps,
Puckettrecalls.Wheneverthepilesgottoohigh,theywouldtorchthem....Residents
complainedaboutbreathingthefumes,butthedumpswerenevercleanedup.Wesawkids
roamingbarefootoverthismaterial,nottomentionchickensandgoats[whichwindupinthe
localdiet].
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U.SExporterstakeadvantageofthelesstechnologicallyadvancedAfricancountriesby
bankingonthefactthataworthlesscomputerintheU.ScansellforalotinAfrica,and
thusacontainerfilledwithmostlyunusablewastecanbepurchasedaslongasfewcheap
computersarealsoshipped
WhydoAfricanimporterspayforelectronicjunktheycantsell?Ifthecontentsofshipping
containersarepurchasedbyweight,notbythecombinedvalueofwhatsinsidethem,thenwaste
canbetransportedbyaveragingtheload.ItcostsanaverageofUS$5,000toshipa40foot
containerfullofusedelectronicsfromtheUnitedStatestoAfrica,accordingtoJimLynch,
seniorprogrammanagerforcomputerrecyclingandreuseatCompuMentor,aSanFrancisco
basednonprofitorganization.Oncethere,someofthisequipmentcanfetchahighprice:
OlayemiAdesanya,BANslogisticalcoordinatorinNigeria,saysafunctionalPentiumIII
computersellsforaboutUS$130onNigerianmarkets,whileaworking27inchTVmightsell
forUS$50.(Scrapcomponentsespeciallyworkingharddrivescanalsobereadilysoldin
Nigeriatosupplyanemergingreassemblyindustry.)Therefore,itdoesnttakemanyworking
unitstocovershippingcosts.Indeedonly40goodPentiumIIIcomputerspaysforanentire
container,leavingacomfortablemarginforprofitevenifthecontainerisloadedwithmostly
unusablewaste.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
InherencyExtension
ElectricWasteDumpinghasbecomeanenvironmentalproblemofepicproportions
Besidesleachingintosoilandgroundwater,burnedewastecancreatedioxins,aclassof
chemicalslinkedtocancerandinterferencewiththeimmunesystem.Ataconferenceof
membersoftheBaselConventionthatconcludedthismonth,representativesofsome120
countriesagreedtoaccelerateeffortstoreducehealthrisksfromewasteindevelopingcountries
byfightingillegalwastetraffickersandstrengtheningglobalcollaboration.AchimSteiner,
executivedirectoroftheUnitedNationsEnvironmentalProgram,referredtoewastedumpingas
oneoftheplanet'smostsignificantnewenvironmentalproblems."Wehavereachedapoint
whereboththeexpertsandthepeopleintheaffectedcommunitiesseethisasaproblemof
unexpectedproportions,"hesaidinatelephoneinterview.
WithoutGovernmentinterference,dumpingwillonlyintensify
MeeraSelva,writerforTheIndependent(UK),2006.TheBaselActionNetwork
http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2006/060921_toxic_shock.html
ThereisatraditionofburningrubbishalloverAfrica,butthisnewburningofelectronic
equipmentisincrediblydangerous,"saidSarahWesterveltoftheBaselActionNetwork,a
pressuregroupthatmonitorsthetradeinhazardouswaste."InChina,workersburnPVCcoated
wirestogetatthecopper,andswirlacidsinbucketstoextractscrapsofgold."TheUnited
NationsEnvironmentProgrammeestimatesthatworldwide,20millionto50milliontonsof
electronicsarediscardedeachyear.Lessthan10percentgetsrecycledandhalformoreendsup
overseas.AsWesterntechnologybecomescheaperandthelatestmachinecomestoberegarded
asadisposablefashionstatement,thisdumpingwillonlyintensify."Electronicgoodsarethe
fastestgrowingareaofretail,"saidLizParkes,headofwasteregulationattheEnvironment
Agency."Weneedtoencouragepeopletothinkaboutwhethertheyreallyneedanewelectronic
item,andtoconsiderwhathappenstothegoodstheythrowout."
TheE.P.AisawareofwastenegotiationsbeingmadewithAfricancountries
BeninHazardousWasteClaim,2000
http://www.american.edu/ted/benin.htm
IntheU.S.,theSolidWasteDisposalActlaysoutguidelinesandproceduresforthedisposalof
hazardouswaste.Underanamendmenttotheact,aU.S.basedcompanycanengagein
negotiationswithaforeigncompanyorgovernmentonwastedisposal,butmustnotifytheEPA
beforeactuallyshippingcargoesoutsidethiscountry.Theforeigngovernmentinvolvedthen
notifiestheEPAofitsdecisiontoacceptorrejecttheshipment.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
SendingeWastetoAfricaisespeciallydangerous,sinceAfricancountriesusuallyarent
wellversedwiththetechnologytheyarereceiving,andthusdontknowwhatisjunkand
whatisnt
Alltheseprogramshavetheirworkcutoutforthemtheelectronicsindustrythriveson
obsolescence.Computers,cellphones,andothergadgetsgooutofdatequickly,sometimes
withinmonthsofrelease.Indeed,ewasteisnowconsideredthefastestgrowingsegmentofthe
municipalwastestreamintheUnitedStates.ButtheUnitedStatesisalsoweakinlegitimate
repairandreuse,discardingitemsthatrepresentrealincomeforeducatedrepairpeopleinother
countries.AndAfrica,withitsowneconomydependentontheleftovers,isleftpickingthrough
electronictrash.TheresjustalotmorejunkgoingtoAfricanow,Ingenthronsays.InAsia,
thebuyerstendtoknowmoreaboutthematerialthanthesellers.ButinAfrica,itstheotherway
around.
Over1.2billionpoundsofleadhavebeenwastedfromcomputersthrough2004,creating
whatlookstobethelargesttoxicwasteproblemofthe21stcentury
Doyouhaveanoldcomputerinyourclosetathome?Oddsaretheanswerisyes.Ofcourse,it's
coveredindust,thekeyboardisgrimy,andyouhaven'teventurneditonforyears.You'dliketo
getridofit,butyoudon'tknowhoworwhere.Butrestassuredyou'renotalone.Obsolete
computersandotherkindsofelectronicjunkarepilingupeverywhere,creatingwhatsome
expertspredictwillbethelargesttoxicwasteproblemofthe21stcentury.Ifthatsounds
excessive,considerthefollowing:theglasscathoderaytubes(CRTs)foundintelevisionsand
computerdisplaymonitorseachcontainanaverageof4poundsoflead.Multiplythatbythe315
millioncomputersexpectedtobecomeobsoleteintheUnitedStatesby2004,andthereis1.2
billionpoundsofleadtoworryabout.ThecolormonitorsofmostcomputerscontainaCRTthat
failsfederaltoxicitycriteriaforleadandisclassifiedashazardouswastebytheU.S.
EnvironmentalProtectionAgency(EPA).Circuitboardsandbatteriesarealsofulloflead,in
additiontosmalleramountsofmercuryandhexavalentchromium.Plasticsusedinelectronic
equipmentposeahazardbecausetheymaycontainpolyvinylchloride,whichproducesdioxins
whenburned.Manyotherplasticsandsomecircuitboardscontainbrominatedflameretardants
(BFRs),severalofwhicharesuspectedendocrinedisruptorsthatalsobioaccumlateinanimaland
fishtissues.ArecentstudybytheCaliforniaDepartmentofHealthpublishedintheFebruary
2002issueofChemospherefoundveryhighlevelsofBFRsintheblubberofHarborSealsas
wellasinthebreastmilkofnursingmothersinCalifornia'sbayarea.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
TheU.Shasyettoimplementasuccessfulrecyclingpolicyhereorelsewhere
ThegoalforMassachusettsofficialsindeedforstakeholderseverywhereistoreuseorsafely
recycleasmuchelectronicwasteaspossible.ButintheUnitedStates,theelectronicsrecycling
industryisillequippedforthetask."Thebirthofelectronicrecyclinginthiscountryonlydates
backtoaround1994,"saysLaurenRoman,vicepresidentformarketingatUnitedRecycling
Industries,anelectronicsrecyclerbasedinWestChicago,Illinois."Thevolumeisstilllow.We
onlyrecycleasmallpercentageofwhat'soutthere."AccordingtotheNationalSafetyCouncil's
(NSC)May1999ElectronicProductRecoveryandRecyclingBaselineReport:Recyclingof
SelectedElectronicProductsintheUnitedStates,themostwidelyreferenced(andmostcurrent)
sourceofewastestatistics,only11%ofthe20millioncomputersthatbecameobsoleteinthe
UnitedStatesin1998wererecycled.(Therearenocomparablefiguresforothertypesof
electronicequipment.)Romansuspectsthateventhisnumberisoverstated.Alargepercentage
ofthecomputersdescribedasrecycledbytheNSCwereprobablyexportedoverseas,shesays.
"Therearen'tanydefinitivestandardsforrecyclersintheUnitedStates,"saysRoman."You
couldcallyourselfarecyclerwheninrealityyou'reabrokerwhofillscontainerswithelectronic
wasteandshipsthemtoChina."
TherearenolegalramificationsforexportingobsoleteelectronicsintheU.S,sinceitsall
beinglabeledasrecycling
Charles Schmidt, writer for Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2002/110-4/focus.html
Meanwhile,it'sperfectlylegalunderU.S.lawtoexportallformsofelectronicwaste,including
colorCRTswhicharelistedashazardouswastebytheEPA,aslongasrecycling,andnot
disposal,istheobjective.Thelegalityofthesewasteexportsissomewhatmurkyinthecontext
ofaninternationalagreementcalledtheBaselConvention,whoseaimistolimittheinternational
spreadofhazardouswaste,particularlytothedevelopingworld.Theconventionwasbrokered
bytheUnitedNationsEnvironmentPrograminBasel,Switzerland,in1989.[SeeEHP107(8)
4103,1999.]Ofthecountriesthatoriginallysignedtheconventionindicatingtheirintentto
ratify,onlytheUnitedStates,Haiti,andAfghanistanhavefailedtodoso.Partiestothe
conventionagreetomanagethosewastesdefinedbytheBaselConventionthataretransferred
amongthemselvesusingasetofevolvingcriteriathatconstitute"environmentallysound
management."(TheBaselConventionhasitsownlistofhazardouswastes,someofwhich
overlapRCRA[e.g.,colorCRTs],andsomeofwhichdonot.)Nonpartieshavenosuchlegally
bindingobligation.ThismeansthattheUnitedStatesisfreetoexportcolorCRTstoChina
whichhasbannedimportsofsuchitemswithoutincurringliabilityfortheenvironmental
managementofitsexportstypifiedbyrecyclinginGuiyu."Ouronlyresponsibilityistoremind
[partiestotheconvention]oftheirBaselobligations,"saysTonetti."Butthesearesovereign
nationsandtheywilldowiththewastewhattheywant."
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
InComparisonwithEuropeandJapan,theU.Sislaggingconsiderablyinitscontribution
toEWasteCleanupandneedstostepup
ElizabethGrossman,EnvironmentalJournalistandauthorofHightTechTrash,6/07
http://www.greendiary.com/entry/elizabeth-grossman-an-environmental-journalist-explores-theentire-life-cycle-of-high-tech-electronics/
Europe, the European Union, arguably has the most comprehensive laws regulating disposal of ewaste - and the EUs e-waste regulation is accompanied by a law restricting the use of certain
hazardous substances in electronics (standards which have quickly become virtually global), but
Japan has also set up a national system for collecting used electronics for recycling which is
mandatory, and other countries are following suit. As one of the worlds most prodigious users of
electronics, the U.S., which still has no national regulation or system for collection and recycling
lags conspicuously behind the EU and Japan.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Environmental threats are the most likely doomsday scenario
David B. Morris, Associate Editor of Literature and Medicine, 1996, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Project Muse, Environment: The White Noise of Health
Doomsday is an outmoded trope. What threatens us is not the end of the world, as if life could be
wiped out in a single cataclysmic mushroom cloud, but something more like endless, cumulative
deterioration in the name of progress. Its image bears closer resemblance to familiar scenes of
inner-city blight than to a bomb crater. Indeed, mere explosions, in a world grown jaded to
disaster, can often look like tawdry, anticlimactic, small-screen facsimiles of Hollywood. On 26
April 1986, for example, in the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl, Reactor Number 4 in an ageing
and poorly designed nuclear power plant blew up. Fire in the graphite moderators produced
radioactive gases and aerosols that over the next ten days contaminated some 3,500 square miles.
The accident was discovered by the outside world only when scientists detected a radioactive
cloud drifting over northern Europe. Teams of Soviet engineers and construction workers at great
peril soon encased the entire Chernobyl power plant in a thick concrete shroud. Once decently
covered, the infamous site slipped from public memory as just one more local technocratic foulup, like Bophal or the Exxon Valdes.
The catastrophe at Chernobyl, while no longer newsworthy, continues to have a significant
impact on human health. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, radiation exposure killed
some 250 people. 2 Indirect casualties are impossible to determine. The U.S. Department of
Energy predicts up to 28,000 fatal cancers from the Chernobyl releases. 3 Soviet authorities
estimate that 400,000 to 600,000 civilian and military workers engaged in multiyear cleanup
operations, with limited use of protective clothing. In Byelorussia alone, with a population over
ten [End Page 1] million, congenital abnormalities increased about 70 percent within four years.
Thyroid cancers and leukemia shot up; hypertension soared; animal studies showed severe
depression of the immune system. 4 Not surprisingly, the International Atomic Energy Agency
found that most of the villagers living in contaminated areas wanted to move away. 5 But can
anyone today really move away from the threats posed by environmental damage?
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Chemical contaminations destroy biodiversity
Although several factors are involved in the loss of the worlds biodiversity, chemical
contamination of the environment, including the effects of longterm, low-level chronic exposure
of populations, as well as short-term, acute exposures like oil spills, has been implicated in the
decline or disappearance of many populations. It was discovered in the 1940s that certain
environmental contaminants cause reproductive impairment in wildlife; and the extirpation of
many wildlife populations was explained by exposure to xenobiotics. Well-known examples in
North America include the Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican, and Peregrine Falcon. The field of
wildlife toxicology has investigated the connection between contaminant exposure and
population or ecosystem effects such as reproductive failures, population declines, acute toxicity,
and the movements of contaminants through food webs w5x. On the other hand, toxicologists
have focused on measuring contaminant levels in tissues and environmental samples and in
understanding the mechanisms of toxicity of the most pervasive contaminants. The field of
ecotoxicology has developed, with a decided emphasis on uncovering the potential human health
effects of these chemicals a natural result of our concern for human welfare.
Loss of biodiversity decreases the quality of human life
Although direct linkages between ecological effects and human health have proven difficult to
establish, the use of wildlife species as sentinels of environmental problems is the conceptual
basis for his connection w6x. Scientists, resource managers, and medical experts today widely
accept the idea that human society is dependent upon a healthy environment and that continued
environmental degradation threatens the quality of life. Recent concern has developed over the
potential chronic and transgenerational effects of environmental contamination. This has resulted
in part from the remarkable findings that many chemicals act as endocrine disruptors and
mimics, and that human sperm counts may have declined by as much as 50% in many
industrialized countries over the past few decades. Such issues are bound to have a profound
impact on wildlife and human health.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Chemical contamination adversely affects organisms DNA
Population-genetic and evolutionary effects of contaminant exposure have recently attracted the
attention of ecotoxicologists w815x. Genetic studies have been conducted on a few species of
vertebrates exposed to environmental pollution and have clearly demonstrated that chronic
chemical exposures can cause genetic damage w16x. The majority of the earlier studies utilized
protein electrophoresis, which is a good way to assay multiple nuclear protein-coding loci but
nonetheless has limited power of resolution. This is in spite of the fact that the past three decades
have witnessed the explosive development of molecular technology that has literally laid open
the genome for examination by population and evolutionary geneticists w17x. The capability
now exists to detect genetic variability within and among populations by a variety of sensitive
molecular procedures that allow sample sizes large enough to detect subtle changes in the genetic
make-up of populations. Moreover, the conceptual framework to understand the potential
evolutionary implications of any patterns that might be observed is provided by the fields of
conservation genetics, evolutionary genetics, and theoretical population genetics w18x.
2.1. Genetic effects in somatic cells
The class of genetic effects most commonly investigated by genotoxicologists are those which
occur in somatic tissues. Genetic alterations in somatic tissues can have a number of immediate
effects upon the cells involved, including cell death or transformation into malignancy w19x.
These are the easiest forms of genetic damage to detect because potentially millions of somatic
cells are available for analysis. Thus, various biomarkers have been developed to detect genetic
effects in somatic cells including chromosome analysis, micronucleus analysis, flow cytometry,
and strand break analysis, to name a few. However, somatic effects are relatively unimportant in
wildlife toxicology because the conservation and management of wildlife, and of ecosystems, by
necessity, focus on populations. Although the health of an individual is an important clue as to
the nature of the stress experienced by a population, the most profound and long-lasting
environmental effects occur at higher levels of biological organization w810x.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Chemical contamination causes the average population to be less fit and less fertile
When mutations occur in germ cells, they can potentially be passed to the offspring. Mutations
with large effects, such as chromosomal rearrangements, can lead to birth defects in the
language of medical genetics. The main concern here for environmental biologists, aside from
the obvious human health issues, is that induced heritable mutations lower the reproductive
output of an affected population since affected individuals have relatively low viability and
fertility. Thus, the conventional wisdom is that a higher mutation rate would have damaging
effects and lead to a lowering of the average fitness of the population. Cronin and Bickham w11x
reviewed the expected population-genetic effects of such mutations. They concluded that
induced mutations, which might result from acute exposure such as an oil spill, are not likely to
be a serious long-term problem for a large population because the more deleterious the mutations
and the greater their degree of expression, the more quickly selection excises them. In this paper,
we concern ourselves with the more serious situation in which populations are chronically
exposed to chemical contamination. Mutations with severe effects might only be the tip of the
iceberg. Indeed, most mutations are only slightly deleterious and can therefore only be detected
with difficulty in studies employing small time scales and reasonable sample sizes w20,21x. In
fact, unless great effort is expended to detect them, they may not be directly observable. Because
their individual effects are very slight, they have the potential to affect larger portions of the
population and persist for much longer periods of time. However, in the longer term, their effects
can substantially lower the viability and fertility of the population.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Toxicity will alter gene variability in populations
We hypothesize that population genetic responses to chemical exposures will affect genetic
variation in natural populations. Populations might respond with increased genetic Variation
resulting from new mutations directly induced by a mutagen, or decreased genetic Variation
resulting from population bottlenecks or selective sweeps that will also affect allele
frequencies_up to fixation.. In both cases, changes in allele frequencies can result as a
consequence of adaptation to contaminated environments. Bickham and Smolen w8x described
changes in allele frequencies and levels of genetic variability as emergent effects. Although
the original damage is at the molecular or cellular level, emergent effects are seen at higher
levels of biological organization but are not predictable based solely on knowledge of the
mechanism of toxicity of the chemical or chemicals producing the effect. Therefore, in order to
assess such effects on wildlife, it is necessary to employ ecological indicators outside of the
traditional realm of environmental toxicology.
2.4. Changes in genetic Variability: distinguishing
between induced alterations and those caused by
natural processes
Levels of genetic variability can be altered by a variety of natural processes. It can be increased
by gene flow, which is the effective exchange of migrant individuals among populations,
interspecific hybridization, and mutations. Of these, migration is by far the most important at
least for ecological _not evolutionary. time scales. Genetic variability can be reduced as a result
of bottlenecks and selection resulting from natural processes like diseases, climatic changes, or
weather patterns. In addition, seasonal variations and other patterns of population fluctuations,
such as the cycles observed in some rodent and insect species, might alter levels of genetic
variability.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Loss of biodiversity causes extinction
The previous calculations indicate that there are good reasons to worry about declining
populations as well as in the increase of mutation rates caused by dispersal of chemical
pollutants in the environment. The fundamental problem is that populations may not be able to
cope with probably the greatest rate of environmental disruption ever encountered in the history
of our planet w24,29x. These are not concernson a very short time scale, but rather on a much
greater one in which the survival of many species may be eroded by these invisible mutations.
Although the role that genetic factors play in the extinction of populations is controversial, it is
clear from our discussion that stochastic processes in small populations and increased mutation
rates resulting from chemical exposure are compounding factors that will cause fitness reduction
and accelerate the process of population extirpation.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Health Extensions
Waste leads to lead leaching
Regarding the issue of toxicity, the research we have reviewed to date is unclear on the extent to
which toxic substances may leach from used electronics in landfills. On one hand, according to a
standard regulatory test RCRA requires to determine whether a solid waste is hazardous and
subject to federal regulation, lead (a substance with known adverse health affects) leaches from
some used electronics under laboratory conditions. Tests conducted at the University of Florida
indicate that lead leachate from computer monitors and televisions with cathode ray tubes
exceeds the regulatory limit and, as a result, could be considered hazardous waste under RCRA.6
On the other hand, the studys author told us that these findings are not necessarily predictive of
what could occur in a modern landfill. Furthermore, a report by the Solid Waste Association of
North America suggests that while the amount of lead from used electronics appears to be
increasing in municipal solid waste landfills, these landfills provide safe management of used
electronics without exceeding toxicity limits that have been established to protect human health
and the environment.7
eWaste poses a serious health risk
AfricaFocus 3-9-06
A new investigation by the toxic trade watchdog organization, Basel Action Network (BAN), has
revealed that large quantities of obsolete computers, televisions, mobile phones, and other used
electronic equipment exported from USA and Europe to Lagos, Nigeria for "re-use and repair"
are ending up gathering dust in warehouses or being dumped and burned near residences in
empty lots, roadsides and in swamps creating serious health and environmental contamination
from the toxic leachate and smoke.
The photo-documentary report entitled "The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and
Abuse to Africa," exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade
in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe
and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. In Lagos, while there
is a legitimate robust market and ability to repair and refurbish old electronic equipment
including computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones, the local experts complain that of the
estimated 500 40-foot containers shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75% of the imports
are "junk" and are not economically repairable or marketable. Consequently, this e-waste, which
is legally a hazardous waste is being discarded and routinely burned in what the
environmentalists call yet "another "cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of
developing countries."
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eWaste is full of hazardous chemicals
Mark I Levenstein, staff writer, 11-8-06, Foreign Policy Your e-waste's journey to Africa
Even with so much junk, Nigerian importers are able to make a quick buck because of high local
demand for electronic goodsPentium III computers sell for about $130 and a 27-inch
television will set you back around $50. The remainder, equivalent to approximately 100,000
computers per month, ends up in dumps and landfills. That electronic waste (e-waste) is chockfull of pollutants like lead, cadmium and mercury that then seep into the ground and water
supply. When the mounds of waste get too high, they are burned, releasing toxins from the
plastic casings into the air. (For more about how we're destroying Africa with waste, check out
Travis's post, The Global Village's Septic Tank.)
eWaste is has tons of toxic chemicals
The bright and dark sides of Africas information technology sector are both evident at the Ikeja
Computer Village, near Lagos, Nigeria. Thousands of vendors pack this bustling market, one of
three major hubs where imported used electronics are repaired and sold. Computers, fax
machines, cell phonesif you want one, you can find it here, spruced up and ready to buy.
But beyond the thriving storefronts and the piles of refurbished wares, a darker picture emerges.
Up to 75% of the electronics shipped to the Computer Village are irreparable junk, according to
the Computer and Allied Product Dealers Association of Nigeria, a local industry group.
Nigeria has a thriving repair market, but no capacity to safely deal with electronic waste, most of
which winds up in landfills and informal dumps. Thats a problem, because this e-waste can be
toxic: much of it is loaded with potentially toxic metals including lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Whats more, electronic components are usually housed in plastic casings that spew carcinogenic
dioxins and polyaromatic hydrocarbons when burned.
eWaste is health hazard to daily life
BAN coordinator Jim Puckett, who visited Nigeria as part of that investigation, saw enormous
piles of e-waste throughout the countryside, much of it routed through Lagos, Africas largest
port. We saw people using e-waste to fill in swamps, Puckett recalls. Whenever the piles got
too high, they would torch them. . . . Residents complained about breathing the fumes, but the
dumps were never cleaned up. We saw kids roaming barefoot over this material, not to mention
chickens and goats [which wind up in the local diet].
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eWaste processing is unsafe labor
Asia does, in fact, have a thriving electronics recovery industry that supplies manufacturers with
recycled raw materials. While the practice does have its benefits, as noted above, it also exploits
women and child laborers who cook circuit boards, burn cables, and submerge equipment in
toxic acids to extract precious metals such as copper. BAN documented these practices, which
have dire health and ecological consequences, during its 2002 and 2004 visits to China.
However, BAN investigators didnt witness this type of activity in Nigeria. Puckett speculates
this might be because waste volumes there arent yet high enough to realize profits from
recovery. In that case, he suggests, it could be just a matter of time before the same hazardous ewaste extraction methods observed in China emerge in the Lagos street economy.
eWaste will destabilize ecosystems and poison the food supply
Alastair Iles, research fellow at Energy and Resources group and University of California, 112004, Global Environmental Politics - Volume 4, Number 4, pp. 76-107, Project Muse
Diverse impacts going well beyond toxics exposures may also be relevant, ranging from health,
labor, energy use, to political oppression. Disposal and recycling may destabilize ecosystems
through contamination or materials accumulation, putting water supplies or locally grown foods
off limits (as in Guiyu, China). Much coltan, a valuable metal used in circuit capacitators in cell
phones and computers, is linked to devastating societal effects.93 These result from national
armies and militias perpetuating the civil war in the Congo to profit from coltan mining. The
current situation in the Congo, however, is nebulous because so little information is externally
available and verifiable. Hence there needs to be accounting of the composite effects of
technologies in their whole life cycle, as well as analysis of the verifiability and certainty of
claims made about these impacts.
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eWaste contains tons of lead, polyvinyl chloride, brominated flame retardants, and
hexavalent chromium
If that sounds excessive, consider the following: the glass cathode ray tubes (CRTs) found in
televisions and computer display monitors each contain an average of 4 pounds of lead. Multiply
that by the 315 million computers expected to become obsolete in the United States by 2004, and
there is 1.2 billion pounds of lead to worry about. The color monitors of most computers contain
a CRT that fails federal toxicity criteria for lead and is classified as hazardous waste by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Circuit boards and batteries are also full of lead, in
addition to smaller amounts of mercury and hexavalent chromium. Plastics used in electronic
equipment pose a hazard because they may contain polyvinyl chloride, which produces dioxins
when burned. Many other plastics and some circuit boards contain brominated flame retardants
(BFRs), several of which are suspected endocrine disruptors that also bioaccumlate in animal and
fish tissues. A recent study by the California Department of Health published in the February
2002 issue of Chemosphere found very high levels of BFRs in the blubber of Harbor Seals as
well as in the breast milk of nursing mothers in California's bay area.
eWaste is not tracked
The fate of most of the e-waste produced in the United States remains a mystery. Experts assume
the majority is landfilled, incinerated, exported, or just abandoned in storage. Even the recycled
minority is hard to track. This is partly because the recycling industry is composed of a veritable
jungle of overlapping specialists: primary recyclers that refurbish products for resale; secondary
recyclers that "demanufacture" equipment to extract raw materials such as metals, plastic, and
glass; smelters that use CRT glass as inputs to produce raw metals; and so-called "third party"
resellers--typically nonprofit organizations--that sort and repair obsolete products for resale or
donation. These terms are used interchangeably in different contexts, and there aren't any
standardized methods to account for product flows from one sector to the next. As a result, endof-life data for recycled electronics in the United States are virtually nonexistent.
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Specific health risks of eWaste
According to the SVTC, a lack of data complicates our understanding of the potential health
effects from exposure to e-wastes. Ultimately, e-waste poses the most direct health risks when it
degrades and the internal chemicals are released to the environment. Lead and mercury are
highly potent neurotoxins, particularly among children, who can suffer IQ deficits and
developmental abnormalities at very low levels of exposure. Cadmium, a toxic metal found in
circuit boards, is listed by the EPA as a "probable human carcinogen," and also produces
pulmonary damage when burned and inhaled. Hexavalent chromium, also used in circuit boards,
has been found to produce lung and sinus tumors when inhaled at high doses.
In addition to metals in electronics, many environmentalists worry that the BFRs in plastic pose
health risks. BFRs are among a group of bad actors known as persistent organic pollutants-specifically, chemicals with a high affinity for fats that travel the world and accumulate in
human, animal, and fish tissues. Animal experiments have shown that a number of these
chemicals affect thyroid function, have estrogenic effects, and act through the same receptormediated pathways as does dioxin, which is among the most potent animal carcinogens known.
Further, environmentalists charge, electronics recyclers have not really come to grips with the
special environmental problems that they say are inherent in the prolific use of BFRs in e-waste
plastics. "There have been almost no studies on the ultimate fate of BFRs when they are melted
or burned in recycling or incineration applications," says Jim Puckett, coordinator for the Seattle,
Washington-based Basel Action Network (BAN) that serves as a watchdog on issues of "toxic
trade."
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eWaste poisons the food and water supply
Liz Carney, staff writer, 12-19-06, BBC World Service, Nigeria fears e-waste 'toxic legacy'
Meanwhile, the tips sit on swamp land, which increases the environmental risk as chemicals seep
into the high water table. Old computers can contain mercury, and heavy metals like nickel,
cadmium and chromium. Plastic casings use flame retardant chemicals and monitors contain
lead. Professor OladDele Osibjano of the University of Ibadan warns that overall, dumping ewaste is creating a toxic legacy. "We've found excess heavy metals in the soil, as well as in plants
and people who eat vegetables," he says.
"That has a lot of social health implications. You have grazing animals, people picking
vegetables and eating them, and then the drinking water containing [these toxins]." The
international Basel Convention is meant to regulate and control the movement of hazardous
waste from developed to developing countries - but it can be difficult to enforce. For a start, the
US - where many of the second hand computers come from - has not signed the convention.
European countries have - but a recent study revealed 48% of spot checks on exports of various
waste shipments showed they were illegal.
Ultimately, while some international manufacturers now run their own take-back schemes and
have pledged to produce "greener PCs" with fewer harmful ingredients, the UN has now called
for an end to Western countries using Africa as a landfill for useless electronics. And Professor
Osibanjo says it is a call that needs an urgent response. "E-waste is an emerging issue in Africa,"
he says. "Developed countries should try to love their neighbour as themselves, and not give to
their neighbour the things they don't want."
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Signs of progress are just a faade eWaste risks health hazards and prevents countries
from being able to produce their own innovation
Unfortunately, BANs latest investigation in Lagos, Nigeria, a new hotbed of high-tech growth
and impressive entrepreneurial spirit, reveals these visions to be the stuff of dreams. Seen at
ground level, the massive importation of used equipment is a success story seriously clouded by
the smoke of a growing environmental and health disaster. The reality is that this burgeoning
new trade is not driven by altruism, but rather by the immense profits that can be made through it
and those involved are oblivious to, or unconcerned with, its adverse consequences. Too often,
justifications of building bridges over the digital divide are used as excuses to obscure and
ignore the fact that these bridges double as toxic waste pipelines to some of the poorest
communities and countries in the world. While supposedly closing the digital divide, we are
opening a digital dump. In the current scenario of global electronic hand-me-downs, witnessed
in its nascent stages in Lagos, Nigeria, rich developed countries lose an opportunity to enable
their own national recycling infrastructure, cleaner technologies, and the development of
innovative designs to prevent further toxics use. And, at the same time, the developing countries
are increasingly victimized by a disproportionate burden of the worlds toxic cyber waste.
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Lead from eWaste causes brain damage and impairs development
Layne Nakagawa, Environmental Studies major at Evergreen State College, June 2006,
EarthTrends Environmental Essay Competition Winner
Lead can be found in circuit boards and monitor cathode ray tubes (CRTs). Lead is particularly
dangerous to the environment because of its ability to accumulate and persist in plants, animals,
and microorganisms (Puckett et al. 2002: 11). The bioaccumulation of lead in the human body is
particularly harmful because its primary target is the central nervous system. Lead can cause
permanent damage to the brain and nervous system, causing retardation and behavioral changes.
Infants and young children are particularly susceptible because of the impairment of cognitive
and behavioral development it can cause (Ryan et al. 2004: 19A).
Cadmium from eWaste cause renal damage and kidney poisoning
Cadmium can be found in SMD (surface mount device) chip resistors, infrared detectors and
semiconductors (Puckett et al. 2002: 11). Like lead, cadmium is particularly toxic to humans
because it accumulates in the human body and poses an environmental danger due to both acute
and chronic toxicity (Puckett et al. 2002: 11). Renal damage is the most common effect of
cadmium toxicity. Cadmium that enters the system through the gastrointestinal tract resides in
human kidneys with a half-life of 10-20 years (Nordberg et al. 1985).
Mercury from eWaste inhibits enzymatic activity and causes cell damage
Mercury is the most prevalent toxic metal found in e-waste. It is in circuit boards, switches,
medical equipment, lamps, mobile phones, and batteries. Mercury transforms into
methylmercury in water, where it can accumulate in living organisms, typically via fish,
concentrating in large fish and humans at the top of the food chain (Puckett et al. 2002: 11).
Mercury is readily absorbed by the human body, ultimately inhibiting enzymatic activity and
leading to cell damage (Boyer et al. 1959).
Plastics from eWaste can leach into the environment
The most abundant component of e-waste is plastics. Plastics comprise almost twenty-three
percent of a typical desktop computer (Microelectronics 1995). They are used for insulation,
cables and housing for all electronic devices; the variety of products available for recovery
complicates the de-manufacturing process. Due to the complex recovery process, large amounts
of plastic e-waste are disposed of through landfills, incinerators and open burning, allowing toxic
substances to leach into the environment.
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eWaste has adverse affect on the nearby population
M.H. Wong, Croucher Institute for Environmental Sciences, 12-06, Science Direct
The present study demonstrated the export of toxic chemicals from developed to developing
countries, through uncontrolled recycling of e-waste in the receiving countries. Concentrations of
POPs and heavy metals/metalloid detected in the Guiyu air were high when compared with those
from other cities, which were primarily due to incomplete combustion of e-wastes (e.g., plastic
chips, wire insulations, PVC materials and metal scraps). This led to the severe pollution of soils
by POPs (PCDD/Fs, PBDEs, PAHs, and PCBs) and heavy metals, which may also affect the
surrounding environment such as rice fields and rivers by atmospheric movement and deposition.
Dumping of waste materials at riverbanks further led to the rather high concentrations of all
these toxic chemicals in river sediments which received the dumped materials. The
concentrations of some of the POPs and heavy metals in different environmental media are
alarming, when compared with data available in other regions/countries. It is envisaged that
under such high concentrations of toxic chemicals, the workers and local residents will be
adversely affected through inhalation, dermal exposure and oral ingestion of contaminated
drinking water and food. As the Chinese Government has tightened up the import regulations, it
is expected that a substantial quantity of e-waste will find their way to other countries in the
region, and we have to ensure that the same mistakes should not be made in these countries.
Laundry list of problem with computers
Amos Batto, Microcontroller programmer, Convergent Design , 2007, A Better Upgrade, Not a
Faster Throw-Away http://www.ciber-runa.net/guide/BetterUpgrade--ActivistGuide.html
Not only is the creation of computers an environmental and social disaster, their disposal is
similarly detrimental. Every time we junk our old PC, we are contributing to a looming toxic
waste problem. CPUs and monitors contain a welter of chemicals and heavy metals which can
cause cancer, birth defects, and hormone disruption and damage body organs if they are allowed
to leak into the environment. CPUs contain chromium which damages DNA and mercury which
harms the nervous system and kidneys. The PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and brominated flame
retardant plastic in your computer releases carcinogenic dioxins and furans when manufactured
and/or burned. The wires are coated with plastics which leach out phthalates which cause birth
defects. A Cathode Ray Tube monitor is a veritable toxic waste container with lead, phosphorous,
cadmium, barium, mercury, zinc, and vanadium inside. Despite the fact that the EPA banned the
dumping of CRTs in October 2001, the lack of enforcement ensures that many CRT monitors
will continue being dumped in municipal waste so that the 3 to 8 lbs of lead in each monitor can
potentially leach into the ground water. Roughly 40% of 7 the heavy metals in US landfills,
including lead, mercury, and cadmium, come from discarded electronics. According to the
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, the 315 million American computers which have become
obsolete contain 1.2 billion pounds of lead.23
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Asaresultofmasswastedumps,childrenarepaidverylowwagestocollectandcleanup
thecontents,posingserioushealthriskssuchasleadpoisoningandcancer
KimberlyJohnson,writerforNationalGeographicNews,10/2006.TheBaselActionNetwork
http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2006/061030_toxic_dumping.html
OnthesedumpschildrenscavengeforthecontentstheycanearnaroundUS$2adayby
collectingcomponentsbutarealsoputtingtheirhealthseriouslyatrisk.Studiesbythe
NigerianMinistryofEnvironmentsuggestthatbasiccomponentssuchasleadarebeing
recoveredandthensmeltedinpeople'sbackyards,whichposesahugeriskofleadpoisoning.
AndresearchatNigeria'sUniversityofIbadanwarnedofa"chemicaltimebombscenario",with
childrenhighlysusceptibletotoxicsubstanceswhichcouldleadtolongtermcancersaffecting
thelungsandallpartsofthebody.
The farther the receiving country is from the producer of the EWaste, the more likely the
waste is going to create environmental problems
Another important component in the link between hazardous waste and sustainable development
is that of the proximity principle. The principle, espoused by the European Union in its
regulation of hazardous wastes, is based on the concept that the closer to the source of
production that the waste is dealt with then the greater the likelihood that it will be handled in an
environmentally safe manner. By exporting hazardous waste there is less incentive for firms to
alter their production methods and for consumers to switch to alternative products that generate
less waste. In expanding the distance between its production, consumption and disposal there is
less awareness of the environmental consequence that arise from disposing of hazardous waste
(out if sight out of mind). However, when waste is disposed of closer to home, -- that is where it
is produced and consumed -- this awareness is present. This can ultimately create a demand for
both production and consumption patterns that produce less hazardous waste. It was original
awareness of the problems associated with hazardous waste that created the existing tough
regulatory regime in most Northern countries.
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We live in a world full of obsolescence and over consumption
More than any other technology of recent date, the computer has become the quintessence of
modern society. Computers have transformed how we work, communicate, and entertain
ourselves. Computers fill our homes, our workplaces, and our imaginations in a way that few
technologies do. We spend much of our lives in constant contact with computers. If we are not in
front of a monitor screen, we are likely to be found with cars, stereos, TVs, and toys which have
computer chips embedded inside. Perhaps the very ubiquity of the computer in our lives causes
us to loose sight of the social and environmental impacts of our beloved technology. In our
minds, computers are the stuff of modernity--the clean and efficient purveyors of information
and entertainment which makes our lives rich. We rarely question the costs of this technology,
even when we reach into our pocketbooks to buy another. With increasing voraciousness we
consume new computers and junk them just as rapidly.
When confronted with your suddenly outmoded PC, the first question you should ask yourself is
not what type of new computer to buy next, but why do we live in a world where the technology
which was so shiny and new a couple years ago is now the junk poisoning our planet. We should
be asking ourselves if we truly need a new computer every couple years and what will each new
computer allow us to do that we can't already do. More importantly, what can we do to change
our world so that we don't need to consume and junk a PC every couple years? This guide
provides suggestions for what you can do to minimize the social and environmental costs of
using computing technology and how you can help reform the computer industry so it does not
burden the world with such costs.
EWaste is driven by dangerous system of consumerism where people are constantly looking
to replace their current technology
The recycling chain begins when consumers, governments, and corporations in Europe, the US,
and other industrial nations decide that their equipment is obsolete. Obsolescence is a contextladen concept. Many of the 60 million PCs that may become obsolete in America yearly can be
reused or upgraded. Yet consumers in industrial countries, notably the US, are culturally
reluctant to upgrade or buy refurbished computers.15 They perceive buying new machines as
cheaper than upgrading, because they are not aware of the ecological and health impacts of raw
materials, manufacturing, and disposal, which are externalized from prices. To win market share,
and to assure ongoing growth, software, chip, and hardware manufacturers put a premium on
new designs that remake product lines every 2-3 years.16 Because computers are increasingly
built as systems (the Intel-Windows PC model), software or semiconductor chip changes can
force many otherwise usable parts, such as imaging and storage devices, into premature
retirement. Together, these consumption and market factors create an impetus for technology
turn-over.
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Americas are addicted to consumerism every 3 years they upgrade the working for new,
faster, and more power consuming models
Unfortunately, the modern tech economy is based on the premise that hardware should be made
obsolescent every couple years. Using modern computing technology becomes an cycle of
wasteful upgrades every 2 or 3 years. Tech companies driven by need for continual growth to
sustain their overblown stock value are finding it increasingly difficult to sell to an already
saturated market. To induce us to continually consume anew, they are forced to produce more
and more powerful computers that will throw last years upgrade into sudden obsolescence. As
Intels Andrew Grove candidly admitted, We eat our own children, and we do it faster and faster
... Thats how we keep our lead.1
The needless quest to antiquate last year's processor drives chip makers to plan dual and
quadruple core processors now that they have reached the practical limits of forcing more clock
cycles per second through a tiny sliver of silicon. Meanwhile, harddrive makers are drawing up
plans for terabyte drives, since the billions of bytes of storage in todays drives aren't enough
space to hold all the data that will be coursing through these multiple processor cores. ATI and
nVidia, in turn, churn out power gobbling behemoths to transform all that data into 3-D
fantasylands on our screens that will induce us to open our wallets. As if one GPU isn't enough,
now they are devising schemes to sell us two and even four graphics cards to process in parallel
the billions of pixels per second required to create the latest firstperson shooter mayhem. The
folly of trying to endlessly "eat our own children" with more and more powerful chips becomes
apparent as we survey the roundup of 700 watt power supplies which are being devised to make
all this excessive processing possible.2 Today's energy-sucking behemoths have moved so far
from the original IBM 8088 PC that ran on a 1.5 watt CPU and sipped from a 63.5 watt power
supply3 that one commentator compared the modern PC to the obsolete gas-guzzling muscle cars
of the 1960s.4 When the relentless quest for more power doesn't induce enough consumption, the
industry turns computers into statements of style with incompatible case designs and colors.
They dream up a plethora of embedded gadgetry and techno chic fashion like iPods so there is
always something novel on the market to tickle our consuming desires.
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Software companies are in on the conspiracy they make increasingly inefficient programs
that will demand upgrades to handle their bloated, buggy functions
Meanwhile, the software companies realize that they will only be able to endlessly sell us more
software, if they produce buggy bloatware which forces us into upgrade cycles. If we arent
coerced to buy the upgrade to fix the bugs in the last version, we will be forced to buy the latest
software because we cant interchange data with our peers who are using the latest formats which
last years software cant read. Computers have revolutionized the production and dissemination
of information, but we can only access that information if we continually upgrade to the latest
technology capable of reading it. Each upgrade of the latest bloatware consumes so much more
memory and processor time that we are forced to upgrade our hardware at the same time. Once a
number of our peers upgrades, we can not risk being left incommunicado and must upgrade just
to keep up with the frenetic herd. Each new computer packs millions more transistors, sucks
more current, and requires more cooling fans just to function, yet we rarely pause to question the
insanity of riding this technological whirlwind.
Captivation by the wonder of technology, society ignores the original purpose
Each upgrade is regarded as an advancement to be hailed as progress in our society, but we must
ask ourselves what have we really done except consume more resources to do the same job as
before. MITs Nicholas Negroponte observes: Today's laptops have become obese. Two-thirds
of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine
different ways.5 Undoubtedly, it is a technological wonder that todays desktop computer can
pump 2.5 Gb/s of visual eye-candy down a single PCI Express line so we can edit movies at
home and play the latest first person shooter from Id Software. Titillated by the latest novelty, we
often forget to ask ourselves what is the purpose of our technology.
Without retreating into Luddism, asceticism, or anachronistic views of a rosy pretechnological
past, we need to pause and ponder our real needs and ask how computers help us fulfill those
needs. Technology pundits hailed the fact that last year Americans bought 67.2 million personal
computers--one for every 4.5 Americans6-- yet they failed to ask what real benefit all those
computer purchases brought. The Computer Industry Almanac notes that roughly 75% of
computer purchases in America are replacements of an existing unit. The strongest growth is in
notebook sales, which are sold mainly to people who already own a desktop computer.7
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Consumerism and over consumption exacerbate global inequalities
Computer consumption in the US is part of a general trend of overconsumption in all the
developed countries which deprives the majority of the world of valuable resources. According
to a 1998 UN Human Development Report, 20% of the world's population living in the most
developed nations account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures. Meanwhile, the
bottom 20% living in the 4 world's poorest countries only consume 1.3%. Computers, like so
many other amenities of our wealthy lifestyle, require vast amounts of energy. The 20% that live
in the most developed nations consume 58% of the world's total energy, while the bottom 20%
only use 4%.12 Surveying the vast inequalities, the UN report soberly concludes that
tomorrow's human development depends upon changing today's consumption patterns. The
report commences with a clarion call for us to reevaluate the ways in which we consume:
Consumption clearly contributes to human development when it enlarges the capabilities and
enriches the lives of people without adversely affecting the well-being of others. It clearly
contributes when it is as fair to future generations as it is to the present ones. And it clearly
contributes when it encourages lively, creative individuals and communities. But the links are
often broken, and when they are, consumption patterns and trends are inimical to human
development. Today's consumption is undermining the environmental resource base. It is
exacerbating inequalities. And the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality environment
nexus are accelerating. If the trends continue without changenot redistributing from highincome to low-income consumers, not shifting from polluting to cleaner goods and production
technologies, not promoting goods that empower poor producers, not shifting priority from
consumption for conspicuous display to meeting basic needstoday's problems of consumption
and human development will worsen.
. . . In short, consumption must be shared, strengthening, socially responsible and
sustainable.13
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The discourse of consumerism controls all of modern life
Ilya Winham, Macalester College, Fall 2001 Democratic One-dimensionality and the Curse of
Consumption http://lilt.ilstu.edu/critique/Fall2001Docs/iwinham.htm
The combined effect of science and technology encapsulated in the process of industrialization
has emancipated more productive energies in a hundred years than stands to the credit of prior
human history in its entirety. Our basic needs are supplied with an efficiency new to history.
With industrialization, the machine became the model of the intelligible and the miracle that is to
transport man into the kingdom of happiness and freedom. However, it is clear today that the
conquest of natural energies has not accrued to the betterment of democratic man to the degree
its proponents have championed.[52]
Contemporary liberal discourse introduces the economy not only as a set of private
institutions, but as a sphere of social life within which choosing rather than learning occurs. This
is the source of the commonsense notion of the economy as a site that produces things according
to the preferences of its participants.[53] Instead of asking how to elevate or improve peoples
preferences, it asks how best to satisfy them. However, the economy produces people; and
democratic man develops his needs, powers, capacities, consciousness and personal attributes
partly, arguably primarily, through the way he goes about transforming and appropriating his
natural environment.[54] These appropriations are more or less in the form of commodities and
gadgets.
The system of commercial exchange has come to preside over all of democratic mans
relations with fellow citizens. Every aspect of public and private life is dominated by the
quantitative. As proof of this charge, think of the simplest pleasure, like a walk along the river,
which is typically measured in terms of distance on the clock. The individual-whos-got-hismoneys-worth and who exists by that standard, I argue, is no individual at all. Material well
being is only a great good, Theodore Roosevelt reminds us, as a means for the upbuilding upon
it of a high and fine type of character, private and public.[55] That is to say that democratic
man, insofar as he aspires toward some measure of human perfectibility, cannot disentangle
himself from the necessity of cultivating the nobler, civic ends of his soul. The growth of
productive forces, Dewey and Jrgen Habermas stress, is not the same as the intention of the
good life. It can at best serve it.[56]
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The ethic of consumers is integrally tried to the constant pursuit of happiness
Consumerism, according to Dewey, is the notion cultivated by the economic ruling class that
creative capacities of individuals can be evoked and developed only in a struggle for material
possessions.[57] We can see this flourishing today, as consumers buy encyclopedic displays of
elaborately enshrined gadgets to create the diversified experience they ultimately seek. Indeed,
all societies pursue experience, not mere survival. Industrial gadgets, however, yield a wavering
stream of satisfaction, and yesterdays delightful purchase may be dumped in todays trashcan.
Nonetheless, consumers keep searching: The reality principle may block enjoyment of some
purchases, but the pleasure principle makes consumers persist, cheerfully or desperately.[58]
Put succinctly, American consumers are constantly in pursuit of happiness to use Lockes
phrase, consuming as though they only have one life to live. In American society, this may be
the only shared characteristic of consumption choices.
Consumption, however, typically provides consumers with a mere ticket of admission to
future experience. The problem is that consumption shuts itself up to a sort of fatalism and
witnesses with a stoical countenance the fruitless efforts of democratic man to realize a rational
and total human existence. He desires, he pursues, he obtains, he is satiatedbut not for long;
he desires something else, and begins the pursuit anew. The process whereby former luxuries
become basic needs perpetuates the system of production and consumption, a system where
want increases in and with abundance, and improvements, which increase the productive power
of labor and capital, increase the reward of neither. [59]
E Waste has become the fastest-growing source of solid waste in the world due to consumer
drive to replace old electronics
Martin Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times, 2/11/07 (Lexis)
http://web.lexisnexis.com/universe/document?
_m=d427555c977c77c4013e1dcd3abb0f7e&_docnum=2&wchp=dGLbVzbzSkVb&_md5=045b4dc9ae355123a6027358e9f5ed34
Household junk notwithstanding, e-waste recycling is a growth business in California these days.
The amount of e-waste, which includes the packaging, generated each year in the United States
grew by 17% from 2000 to 2005, making it the fastest-growing source of solid waste on the
planet, said John Shegerian, chief executive of Electronic Recyclers International Inc. in Fresno.
Among the drivers are the changeover to new, feature-laden cellphones -- Americans toss out
130 million mobile phones a year, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates -- and the
rapid replacement of TVs and computer monitors that use cathode ray tubes, or CRTs, with flatpanel devices. The release last month of Vista, Microsoft Corp.'s first new computer operating
system in five years, could add to the pile by prompting home computer users and businesses to
invest in new PCs -- relegating older models to the waste stream.
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Consumerism is a cycle of control that forces people to continually upgrade
The curse of consumption is that in consuming to break free from the masses and individuate
himself, democratic man cannot prevent all others from doing the same. Like the person who
decides to stand up in a theater to get a better view, the end of his action is defeated once all
other persons have stood up to get a better view. Today this is known as the keeping up with the
Joneses effect. Individuals, by pursuing their own interest through the purchase of gadgets
which are ultra-fashionable and technologically innovative often cause themselves collective
stress and strain, as if their actions tightened an invisible ratchet that made life collectively
worse. Like everyone standing up in the theater, they find themselves no better off than before
and no different than anyone else. It is repressive, observes Marcuse, precisely to the degree
to which it promotes the satisfaction of needs which require continuing the rat race of catching
up with ones peers and with planned obsolescence, enjoying freedom from using the brain,
working with and for the means of destruction.[60] Work to survive, survive by consuming,
survive to consume, the hellish cycle never ends. If we accept that what we buy is deeply
implicated in the structures of social inequality and domination, then the idea that boundless
consumption promotes the general welfare or human perfection collapses.
In the Republic of Consumption, the consumer-citizen is king. In America there is, ostensibly,
equality before consumption and freedom through consumption. Democracy, along with
industry, has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage and race. This should be a cause for
celebration. However, consumption, by its logic of things, forbids all qualitative difference and
recognizes only differences of quantity between values and between men. To be poor nowadays
merely means possessing a large number of poor objects. Only quantity and pace matter. From
now on the ability to consume, faster and faster, greater quantities of cars, alcohol, houses,
computers and lovers, will show how far up democratic man is on the hierarchical social ladder,
will show how different he is from his neighbors and the masses. From the superiority of blood
to the power of money, from the superiority of money to the power of gadgets, democracy has
produced a civilization of stereotyped and vulgar detail: A nice nest for Marcuses onedimensional man.
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Neoliberalism Add-on
eWaste trade follows by neoliberal models
Key reasons why recycling chains now extend from industrial to Asian developing nations
include the development priorities of governments, the relative weakness of regulatory and
institutional oversight, the appearance of recycling entrepreneurs, and the rise of neoliberal
market demands by international financial institutions. Rather than just a race to the bottom
occurring, where wastes are shipped to the countries with the least regulatory protection and
most deplorable economic conditions, the international economycoupled with local and
regional developmentshelps channel wastes to countries also endeavoring to reach the top, at
least according to neoliberal, industrial development models.
The e-waste trade is false symbiosis and altruism. It only further reinforces the
North/South, developed/undeveloped, rich/poor binaries.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, Dec. 2, 2006,
WORLD IN FOCUS; E-waste@large in Africa, The Advertiser, Lexis.
Due to the lack of financial resources available to most people in developing countries, much of
the growth in the information technology sector in developing countries has been fuelled by the
importation of hand-me-down, used equipment from rich, developed countries, whose consumers
are all too happy to find buyers for it. As a result, many brokers and businesses have sprung up to
channel used equipment from rich to poor. This sounds like it might have the makings of a
classic ''win-win'' situation, where the north can shovel away much of its growing e-waste
mountain that threatens groundwater in landfills and is proving to be a serious burden for local
municipalities, and at the same time benefit those who are too poor to afford brand-new
equipment. A further claim of victory for the environment could be made, because the cheap
labour in developing countries can make repair and re-use of the old equipment feasible, giving it
a longer life and forestalling the need for more products to be manufactured. Unfortunately, the
Basel Action Network's latest investigation in Lagos, Nigeria, a new hotbed of hi-tech growth
and impressive entrepreneurial spirit, reveals these visions to be the stuff of dreams. The reality
is that this burgeoning new trade is not driven by altruism but rather by the immense profits that
can be made through it, and those involved are oblivious to or unconcerned with its adverse
consequences. Too often, justifications of ''building bridges over the digital divide'' are used as
excuses to obscure and ignore the fact that these bridges double as toxic waste pipelines to some
of the poorest communities and countries in the world. While supposedly closing the digital
divide, we are opening a digital dump.
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Neo-liberalism legitimizes the destruction of all humanityit sacrifices whole populations
on the altar of market fundamentalist dogma.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics,
University of Coimbra, 03 (Bad Subjects, Issue #63, April, bad.eserver.org/issues/2003/63/santos.html)
According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it should
try to save humanity by destroying part of it. This is a salvific and sacrificial destruction,
committed in the name of the need to radically materialize all the possibilities opened up by a
given social and political reality over which it is supposed to have total power. This is how it was
in colonialism, with the genocide of indigenous peoples, and the African slaves. This is how it
was in the period of imperialist struggles, which caused millions of deaths in two world wars and
many other colonial wars. This is how it was under Stalinism, with the Gulag, and under Nazism,
with the Holocaust. And now today, this is how it is in neoliberalism, with the collective sacrifice
of the periphery and even the semiperiphery of the world system. With the war against Iraq, it is
fitting to ask whether what is in progress is a new genocidal and sacrificial illusion, and what its
scope might be. It is above all appropriate to ask if the new illusion will not herald the
radicalization and the ultimate perversion of the Western illusion: destroying all of humanity in
the illusion of saving it.
Sacrificial genocide arises from a totalitarian illusion manifested in the belief that there are no
alternatives to the present-day reality, and that the problems and difficulties confronting it arise
from failing to take its logic of development to ultimate consequences. If there is unemployment,
hunger and death in the Third World, this is not the result of market failures; instead, it is the
outcome of market laws not having been fully applied. If there is terrorism, this is not due to the
violence of the conditions that generate it; it is due, rather, to the fact that total violence has not
been employed to physically eradicate all terrorists and potential terrorists.
This political logic is based on the supposition of total power and knowledge, and on the radical
rejection of alternatives; it is ultra-conservative in that it aims to reproduce infinitely the status
quo. Inherent to it is the notion of the end of history. During the last hundred years, the West has
experienced three versions of this logic, and, therefore, seen three versions of the end of history:
Stalinism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the plan; Nazism, with its logic of racial
superiority; and neoliberalism, with its logic of insuperable efficiency of the market. The first
two periods involved the destruction of democracy. The last one trivializes democracy,
disarming it in the face of social actors sufficiently powerful to be able to privatize the state and
international institutions in their favor. I have described this situation as a combination of
political democracy and social fascism. One current manifestation of this combination resides in
the fact that intensely strong public opinion, worldwide, against the war is found to be incapable
of halting the war machine set in motion by supposedly democratic rulers.
At all these moments, a death drive, a catastrophic heroism, predominates, the idea of a looming
collective suicide, only preventable by the massive destruction of the other. Paradoxically, the
broader the definition of the other and the efficacy of its destruction, the more likely collective
suicide becomes. In its sacrificial genocide version, neoliberalism is a mixture of market
radicalization, neoconservatism and Christian fundamentalism. Its death drive takes a number of
forms, from the idea of "discardable populations", referring to citizens of the Third World not
capable of being exploited as workers and consumers, to the concept of "collateral damage", to
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refer to the deaths, as a result of war, of thousands of innocent civilians. The last, catastrophic
heroism, is quite clear on two facts: according to reliable calculations by the Non-Governmental
Organization MEDACT, in London, between 48 and 260 thousand civilians will die during the
war and in the three months after (this is without there being civil war or a nuclear attack); the
war will cost 100 billion dollars, enough to pay the health costs of the world's poorest countries
for four years.
Is it possible to fight this death drive? We must bear in mind that, historically, sacrificial
destruction has always been linked to the economic pillage of natural resources and the labor
force, to the imperial design of radically changing the terms of economic, social, political and
cultural exchanges in the face of falling efficiency rates postulated by the maximalist logic of the
totalitarian illusion in operation. It is as though hegemonic powers, both when they are on the
rise and when they are in decline, repeatedly go through times of primitive accumulation,
legitimizing the most shameful violence in the name of futures where, by definition, there is no
room for what must be destroyed. In today's version, the period of primitive accumulation
consists of combining neoliberal economic globalization with the globalization of war. The
machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction.
Neoliberal models of eWaste misinterpret the risk it actually poses
Dominant neoliberal, modernist development models are important in the production of e-waste
risks. They not only help generate electronics manufacturing and use within developing
countries, but createor fail to addressan underlying cause of careless e-waste
entrepreneurialism in these countries, namely poverty and the absence of alternative, multiple
development pathways. As developing countries seek technology to industrialize and provide
benefits for their citizens, the resulting technology and materials flows may create new
ecological and health problems that result not because of trade between developed and industrial
regions, but from activities within developing regions. Conversely, the development models that
developing country governments choose to pursue, encouraged or even imposed by international
financial agencies and middle class consumption demands, can create conditions conducive to
entrepreneurs profiting from e-waste recycling by poorly paid workers who lack access to
community micro-credit banks or small-scale manufacturing.100 Yet e-wastesif safely treated
can also provide valuable informal sector opportunities that governments may want to
suppress, viewing them as incompatible with modern development.
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eWaste trade follows by neoliberal models
Simultaneously the materials used in computers further weaken the economics of
recycling in both industrial and Asian countries. Many e-wastes are negligible in market value,
either inherently, or because they are contaminated, difficult to separate properly, or cannot be
recycled, like many plastics combinations. In New Delhi, according to Toxics Link (an
environmental NGO), the iron frames taken from color monitors are sold for 13 cents (Rs. 6) per
kilogram; the broken glass from CRTs is sold for 1 cent (50 paise) a kilogram; and the
Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene used in plastic casings sell for 33 cents (Rs. 15) per kilogram.28
Conversely, several metals are highly valuable: gold pins are sold at $65.18 (Rs. 3,000) per
kilogram and lead is sold at $2.17 (Rs. 100) per kilogram. The difference is that, when very low
labor costs in Asia are considered, these prices can lead to e-waste dealers profiting sizably.
OEMs are further undermining recycling economics by adopting designs that are increasingly
lighter, use less valuable metal materials, and use more plastics or plastic-metal components that
cannot be readily recycled.29 Recycling companies in the US demand upfront payments from
consumers to recover their costs. Therefore, without subsidies from consumers or governments,
recyclers in industrial nations are unlikely to profit except by exporting computers to regions
where labor costs are low and dealers can pay good prices. One American businessman, Mark
Dallura, of Chase Electronics near Philadelphia commented: I could care less where they go.
My job is to make money.30 Another US recycler says: You get paid to pick it up, and you get
paid by people who want to take it away.31
Key reasons why recycling chains now extend from industrial to Asian developing
nations include the development priorities of governments, the relative weakness of regulatory
and institutional oversight, the appearance of recycling entrepreneurs, and the rise of neoliberal
market demands by international financial institutions. Rather than just a race to the bottom
occurring, where wastes are shipped to the countries with the least regulatory protection and
most deplorable economic conditions, the international economycoupled with local and
regional developmentshelps channel wastes to countries also endeavoring to reach the top, at
least according to neoliberal, industrial development models.
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eWaste importers put the lives of others in danger to support neoliberal ideals
A factor driving e-waste imports is that numerous small entrepreneurs have materialized
throughout Asia and perceive profit-making opportunities. Recycling cultures, waste markets,
and trader networks are far larger and more established than in many industrial countries. In
countries like India, Thailand, and China, consumers are more willing to reuse or buy
remanufactured equipment. 33 Old computers tend to be used much longer. Recycling
entrepreneurs have created greater access to materials or technologies, which can be beneficial
and efficient. Since the mid-1990s, they have built complex trading networks with their
counterparts in Europe and the US. These entrepreneurs, however, are often indifferent to labor,
ecological, and health conditions. Interviewed by an US journalist, Yang Xiong Hong, a dealer in
Guiyu, China, explained: I cant control what goes here. If I didnt do this work, someone else
would.34 He professed no regrets over burning computer housings and exposing residents to
toxics. Another, anonymous dealer claimed: We dont mean to pollute the environment. Were
just peasants trying to make a decent living.35
Making companies take responsibility will attack the root cause of eWaste, the products
Since the late 1980s, environmental justice has emerged as a compelling approach to evaluating
the distributive and structural effects of human activities on the health and environment of
specific populations. Environmental justice is not simply about identifying disadvantaged
communities or criticizing unequal treatment in government policies and corporate decisions.
The ongoing processes of environmental degradation are driven in part by the existence and
creation of inequalities in the resulting impacts. Weakening livelihoods, for example, may
intensify pressures to accept ecologically damaging development. Moreover, the global
environmental politics of defining problems and shaping change may vary greatly depending on
whether actors focus on justice or on something else. The absence of ostensibly local
environmental problems such as e-waste from global political agendas may reflect the failure of
nations and international agencies to attend to the justice dimensions which would reveal
the transnational character of the problems.68 Looking at whether justice is being done may lead
to demanding that industry and government take precautionary action aimed at root causes rather
than seeking technical solutions that recyclers should implement.
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In the status quo only producers know the harmful effects of computers
In implementing environmental justice in production systems, therefore, attention needs to focus
on who has control over, or has input into the knowledge used in technology design, supply, use,
and recycling. For example, computers include toxics as design specifications, yet this may be
invisible to consumers because they are not privy to these specifications. Instead, manufacturers
have most of the knowledge and resources needed to prevent the risks embedded in their
technologies, whereas recyclers, consumers, and villages do not share this capacity. This
knowledge is increasingly transnational in character. While many computers are now
manufactured in Asian developing countries, most design choices are made by computer
companies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and NEC that are headquartered in industrial
nations (namely Japan, the US, and Europe).94 Increasingly, contract designers and
manufacturers in Asian developing countries may make key design choices. Nonetheless, they
tend to follow the lead of their industrial nation counterparts. For example, the Taiwanese
semiconductor sector knows that adverse worker health impacts may exist and that redesign is
preferable, yet is waiting for the US Semiconductor Industry Association to act.95 How
computers are designed, what performance they are expected to have, and how often product
lines are turned over reflect the practices, beliefs, and economics that have accreted in industrial
nations over the past 25 years.
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Environmental Injustice Add-on
eWaste is environmental injustice
This type of very damaging toxic trade, similar in many respects to the export of ewaste revealed
in Exporting Harm, is precisely the type of trade which the global community sought to prohibit
in the late 1980s with the adoption of the Basel Convention. Indeed, a substantial amount of this
burgeoning trade to Africa and probably throughout the developed world is in fact illegal under
the Basel Convention. Yet it appears that far too many governments are looking the other way
and are failing in dramatic fashion to properly enforce and implement the Convention for postconsumer electronic waste by failing to require adequate testing and labeling to certify
functionality and quality of the equipment to ensure that it does not equate to trade in hazardous
waste.
Environmental injustice is ecological violence on the poor
Fourth, the development of tools and methods to trace justice issues transnationally (rather than
simply using site-specific analyses) is beginning. Scholars are realizing that environmental
problems frequently materialize through the distances between causes and effects. Princen shows
how consumption effects can occur far from the points where production decisions and activities
occur, thus leading to break-downs in accountability.83 Defining justice, therefore, cannot be
limited to specific sites, but must be placed in a broader transnational context of social, political,
and economic differences between countries. Hence Rees and Westra apply the ecological
footprint tool to illustrate how industrial countries have appropriated most of the benefits of
material growth while developing countries bear most environmental burdens. They argue that
overconsumption by the rich visits ecological violence on the poor.84 Rees and Westra look at
the amount of resources that a nation uses and how much land would be needed to provide these
resources, as a way to compare consumption between countries. Taking a different approach,
ORourke and Connelly provide a comprehensive overview of the global oil industrys health,
ecological, labor, welfare, and economic impacts across the initial stages of the fuel life cycle.85
They emphasize analysis of who controls the decisions and activities leading to environmental
injustice, and conclude thatwhile governments are responsible for deficiencies in regulation
and enforcementit is oil corporations, often headquartered in industrial nations, that control
most impacts from extraction and processing in developing regions.
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Environmental injustice restricts peoples power to choose the environment over money
Environmental justice analyses, however, have become more multi-faceted and theoretically
deeper in several ways since the mid-1990s. First, ongoing controversy exists over the meanings
and scope of justice. Andrew Dobson argues that seeking environmental justice may not
achieve social justice.72 Economically poor communities may be politically willing to accept a
hazardous waste site because it promises employment and local government income. They
perceive jobs as competing with environmental protection. One issue, then, is why Asians should
not be able to choose to profit from degradation even if many Westerners would not be willing
to. As seen in the e-waste case, economic justice may be important to the village enterprises of
China and India. Halting e-waste imports could mean a weakening of efforts to rebuild village
economies even if these are ecologically degrading. In response, Low and Gleeson point out that
the ability of people to choose is frequently problematical because of underlying power and
economic conditions.73 People also lack the perfect information needed to appreciate the full
effects of how environmental goods are distributed in a global production system.74
Eliminating environmental injustice push the problem from the post-consumer to the
producer
Third, there is also growing insight that environmental justice is most felicitously defined as
targeting the production of risk as a structural or systemic property of the global economy. Low
and Gleeson argue that the focus on distributive and spatial justice has only reinforced industry
power and government inertia by allowing the underlying causes of risks to go unchallenged.80
Likewise, Daniel Faber stresses that justice is not about eliminating unequal distribution but
about eliminating the causes of hazards for everyone, not just specific disadvantaged groups.81
Otherwise, risks may only be displaced somewhere else. For example, designing computers with
toxic constituents generates risks that manifest further downstream in the production system. A
more effective approach, these scholars assert, is to require industry to prevent the risks in the
first place by better design. Green chemistry and pollution prevention are means of achieving
justice for everyone by collectively reducing unsustainable practices. Greater community
participation when making production decisions is also desirable. Therefore, the concepts of
productive justice and procedural justice are becoming important in calling for precautionary
intervention.82 The production of risk is seen as a more effective way to map justice throughout
highly complex industrial chains stretching globally.
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We must acknowledge the social and environmental injustice that is taking place when
dealing with the issue of eWaste- ignoring it will lead to nothing ever getting accomplished
Since the late 1980s, environmental justice has emerged as a compelling approach to evaluating
the distributive and structural effects of human activities on the health and environment of
specific populations. Environmental justice is not simply about identifying disadvantaged
communities or criticizing unequal treatment in government policies and corporate decisions.
The ongoing processes of environmental degradation are driven in part by the existence and
creation of inequalities in the resulting impacts. Weakening livelihoods, for example, may
intensify pressures to accept ecologically damaging development. Moreover, the global
environmental politics of defining problems and shaping change may vary greatly depending on
whether actors focus on justice or on something else. The absence of ostensibly local
environmental problems such as e-waste from global political agendas may reflect the failure of
nations and international agencies to attend to the justice dimensions which would reveal the
transnational character of the problems.68 Looking at whether justice is being done may lead to
demanding that industry and government take precautionary action aimed at root causes rather
than seeking technical solutions that recyclers should implement.
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Maintaining the Basel Convention will solve for eWaste
This then is our foremost recommendation. Governments must pressure manufacturers to remove
the toxic chemicals from this massively proliferating industry at the earliest possible date. And
until that time, strict enforcement of the Basel Convention for the hazardous hand-me-downs
must become the norm. Thankfully, some countries have already embarked on such measures of
responsibility. Australia is noted especially for seeing the problem described in this report before
most, and now implementing rules that require full testing of electronic waste to certify
compliance with the Basel Convention prior to any export. BAN also highlighted the number of
consumers that currently fail to take responsibility for their wastes either with respect to the
environmental concerns or likewise with respect to the concern of protecting data privacy. As
part of its investigation BAN gathered hard-drives and found shocking amounts of private data
exported along-for-the-ride with the toxic waste which should be safeguarded at all costs.
Thus, consumers of electronics, especially major consumers such as banks, transnationals,
government agencies, universities, school systems, etc., must be called upon to conduct due
diligence for their entire waste chain. All businesses and citizens must ensure that none of their
e-waste discards are directed to the thousands of ewaste brokers and so-called recyclers now
offering cheap rates and empty promises. Pains must be taken to uncover what may be false
promises of recycling or repair and the ability to take your old computer away. That magical
place called away might just be a burning dump on the other side of the world.
European countries have made progress under the Basel Convention
Since the inception of the Basel Convention, European communities have presented a detailed
document that specifies methods for regulating e-waste. The Directive on Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment, or WEEE Directive, was presented and accepted by the European
Parliament on January 27, 2003. The directive's purpose was to prevent e-waste from becoming a
problem by reusing or recycling recoverable electrical parts (European Parliament 2003a). An
amendment to the original directive forced producers to internalize external costs, such as
recycling and proper disposal, instead of burdening the consumer with costs for proper disposal
(European Parliament 2003b).
In 2001, Japan implemented their Specified Home Appliance Recycling Law, which requires
manufacturers to take back their electronic products and home appliances (Ministry of the
Environment 2005). The national law also makes it illegal to dump any electronic waste or home
appliance in municipal landfills or roadsides (Ministry of the Environment 2005).
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U.SratificationoftheBasilTreatyiskeytosolvingwastedumping
OlakitanOgunbuyi,oftheNigerianFederalMinistryoftheEnvironment,wasassignedbyher
governmenttotackleewasteandotherdumpingissues.InterviewedinNigeria,shesaid
officialshavesearchedmorethantwodozenshipsandappointedacommissiontofindsolutions.
ButshesaidNigeria'syoungdemocracythenationisjustsevenyearsremovedfrommilitary
ruledesperatelyneedsU.S.cooperation."TheUnitedStatesmusthelpusontheseBasel
issues,"shesaid.BackintheUnitedStates,MattHale,directoroftheEPA'sOfficeofSolid
Waste,saidhisagency'snewrulesrequiringnotificationwhencomputermonitorsareshipped
forrecyclingare"asignificantnewrequirementthatwillgivebetterinternationalcontrols.""We
certainlyseedeplorableconditionsthatneedtobeaddressed.Ourviewisthatthereareelements
ofcommerceherethatarelegitimate,butweneedtomakesurethatitoperatesinasafe
manner,"hesaid.Ayearago,JimPuckett,coordinatoroftheBaselActionNetwork,filmedthe
Nigeriandumpsandmarketsandhasusedtheevidencetopressforrestrictionsonewaste
dumping.WhenhereturnedlastweekfromtheglobalgatheringinNairobi,Puckettsaidhewas
heartenedthatmanycountriesaretakingewastethreatsseriouslybuttroubledbytheU.S.
refusaltoratifytheBaselConvention.Henotedthatjustthreecountriessignedthedumping
treatyyearsagobuthavesincerefusedtoratifyit:Afghanistan,HaitiandtheUnitedStates.
"They(U.S.officials)justsatonthesidelinesinNairobi.Theonlyseriousflyintheointmentis
theirresponsibilityoftheUnitedStates,"heasserted.
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Solvency Taxes
Tax incentives will help solve the eWaste problem
The purpose of this article is to compare the different plans to manage e-waste in the United
States and the European Union, as juxtaposed against the backdrop of the Basel Convention.
Although the European Union and the State of California have moved in similar directions to
curtail hazardous wastes and decrease the amount of e-waste, this article suggests that the answer
to the problem does not lie merely in increased government bureaucracy and resources, but
rather through a collaborative effort between government and industry. For example, the
government could offer manufacturers tax incentives to create take-back programs for older
products containing hazardous wastes, while also mandating a phase-out of certain hazardous
wastes within new products beginning on some agreed upon date. These incentives and
collaborative programs would allow developing and developed countries to continue a free trade
in electronic products, while at the same time operating to decrease interstate recycling costs and
protect third-world workers from exposure to the most dangerous chemicals.
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Solvency WEEE
Modeling the WEEEs fees would help solve eWaste issues
Finally, the United States should enact as federal law a "modified" version of the EU's WEEE
directive. Under the WEEE directive, manufacturers in the European Union are forced to take
back their own products. As a result, the European Union appears to have given a strong
incentive to manufacturers to make products that they would want to take back by forcing the
manufacturers to internalize the costs of their reclaimed products. The new California law,
EWRA, fails to give such an incentive to manufacturers. Under the EWRA, manufacturers are
only required to collect an up-front fee, which will be shifted to the consumer and reflected in the
price of the product. Once the consumer purchases the product, the manufacturer's responsibility
for the product ends, and the government's responsibility begins. In essence, the EWRA creates
more government oversight and management, and provides little incentive to the manufacturers
to develop better and more efficient products.
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Solvency Polluters Pay Principle
The polluters pay principle will deter obsolescence
If recycling costs are not built into their business plans, computer makers will continue to create
products which become obsolete rapidly, so they can sell more in the future. A recycling program
which holds manufacturers responsible, however, would encourage computer makers to built
longer lasting products which are easily upgradeable and more compatible with preexisting
technology. Today, computer makers encourage software companies to create programs which
hog more memory and processing time so people will buy new hardware, but in an economy
based upon Extended Producer Responsibility, Dell and HP would be calling up Microsoft and
Adobe to demand they write leaner, more efficient programs so they won't have to recycle their
equipment as often. In an EPR economy, computer makers and software firms would get out of
the business of rapid sales and planned obsolescence and move toward lease and support
contracts which provide a steady income while maintaining equipment longer. When a computer
company's revenue is based upon supporting and maintaining equipment, bloatware and bugs in
software will no longer be treated as a way to get people to buy the next upgrade or a mere
problem for the tech support department.
SuperfundhasbeensuccessfulincleaningupU.SToxicWastesiteswithmoneycoming
fromthepolluterpaysprinciple
LoisGibbs,ExecutiveDirectorofthecenterofHealth,EnvironmentandJustice,2003
http://www.besafenet.com/Reinstate.html
Twentythreeyearsago,PresidentCartersignedthefederalSuperfundprogramintolawtoclean
uptoxicwastesitesandensurethatpolluters,nottaxpayers,paidthecosts.Italsocreateda
specialfundfilledbyfeesontheuseofhighlytoxicchemicalsandpetroleumproductstoclean
upthousandsofabandonedwastesitesacrossthecountry.Carter'ssigningmeantthatinfamous
toxicwastesitessuchasNewYork'sLoveCanal,the20,000tontoxicchemicaldisasterthat
spurredtheoverwhelmingpassageofthelaw,wouldbegintobecleanedup.Itmeantthat
thousandsofmotherswholedthefightforlivablecommunitiesafterincreasedmiscarriages,
birthdefectsandotherhealthproblemsplaguedtheirfamilies,friendsandneighbors,wouldhave
awaytogettheirhometownscleanedup.SincetheSuperfundprogrambegan,the
EnvironmentalProtectionAgencyhascleanedup890ofthemosthazardoustoxicwastesitesin
communitiesaroundthecountry,including44inWashington.EPA'senforcementofthe
"polluterpaysprinciple"hasbeentheguidingforceinmakingthesecleanupshappen.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
SolvencyPollutersPayPrinciple
SuperfundusesthePollutersPayPrincipaltoreplenishthefundandtodetercompanies
frompollutinginthefirstplace
BarnabyJ.Feder,1991(TheNewYorkTimes.Lexis)
_m=515895f3812d798f8dcd80461bf1cb62&_docnum=2&wchp=dGLzVlz
zSkVA&_md5=51d491860050b29a7e47ea34ae071939
UndertheSuperfundlaw,theE.P.A.isauthorizedtoaccumulateafundtoinitiatecleanups.The
moneycomesfromspecialtaxesonindustryaswellasCongressionalappropriations.But
CongressalsowantedtheGovernmenttobereimbursedforeverythingitspent,bothtoreplenish
thefundwhichlastyeartotaled$5.5billionandtomakecompaniesfarmorecarefulabout
contributingtohazardouswasteproblems.SoCongressarmedtheE.P.A.withavarietyoflegal
weaponstogetthatmoney.Theagency'satombombisjointandseveralliability,adoctrinethat
allowsittopinallitscostsononeormoredeeppocketcompaniesagainstwhomithasstrong
evidence.Thenitisuptothosedefendantstofindandsueotherpartiesthatoughttosharethe
burden.Thatincludesanyoneconnectedwithowning,operatingorsendingwastetothesite.
PollutersPayiskeytothesuccessofthesuperfund
http://web.lexinexis.com/universe/document?
_m=7d9ab8762e1923c93bfea05eb9a82a59&_docnum=5&wchp=dGLzVlz
zSkVA&_md5=5e884047626d5d5f5b8be8517ac575c5
Thepolluterpaystocleanupthemess.Thatprinciplewasthebedrockfoundationofthe
SuperfundprogramwhenformerPresidentJimmyCartersignedthelegislationintolaw25years
agoyesterday.However,thepolluterpaysclauseoftheSuperfundlawexpiredin1995,shifting
mostoftheburdenforcleaninguptoxicwastesitesontotaxpayers'shoulders.Congress'srefusal
toreauthorizethattaxhaslefttheSuperfundweakened,withanuncertainfuture.Congressmust
againmakethepolluterspaytoenableSuperfundtocontinueitstraditionalwork,andtacklenew
responsibilities.AsaPennEnvironmentResearch&PolicyCenterreportjustnoted,those
includecleaninguptoxicpollutionleftbynaturaldisasterslikeHurricaneKatrina.Since1980,
SuperfundhashelpedtoprotecttheoneinfourAmericanswholivenearhighlypollutedtoxic
wastesites.Ithascleanedupsome1,000sites,includingmessesatNewYork'sLoveCanaland
Missouri'sTimesBeach.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
SolvencyPollutersPayPrinciple
PollutersPayassuresSuperfundadequateFunding
http://web.lexinexis.com/universe/document?
_m=7d9ab8762e1923c93bfea05eb9a82a59&_docnum=5&wchp=dGLzVlz
zSkVA&_md5=5e884047626d5d5f5b8be8517ac575c5
EversincetheSuperfundpollutertaxexpiredin1995,RepublicansinCongresshavebalkedat
renewingit.Fromasurplusof$3.8billionin1996,thefunddwindledintobankruptcybythe
2004fiscalyear.Taxpayersnowfootthebillforthe3in10toxiccleanupswherethereisno
responsibleparty.FederalbudgetsundertheBushadministrationhaven'tprovidedenough
money,andfewertoxicsitesaregettingcleanedup.Reinstatingthepolluterpaystaxwould
assureSuperfundareliablesourceofrevenue,andputitoncourseforanother25yearsof
protectingtheenvironment.
APolluterPaysPrincipleSolvesEwastebuildup
MarkFontecchio,newswriterfortheNewDataCenter,10/06(NationalewasteLegistaltionto
Keephardwarecostslowers)
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid80_gci1223160,00.html
Ifewasteisnotdisposedofproperly,itcouldharmtheenvironmentandpeople.Somestates
havevariedregulationsregardingthedisposalandreuseofewaste,andCongressisstartingto
wakeuptotheproblem,butoversightintheU.SisstillweakcomparedtoEurope,where
continentwideregulationshavepassedregardingthemanufactureanddisposalofewaste.
Majorservermanufacturerswouldprobablyprefernolegislationatall,butfederalregulations,
asopposedtolocalones,enablethemtostandardizeequipmenttakebackprograms.Iflegislation
onelectronicwasteisvariedstatetostateandcitytocity,manufacturerscouldpaymoreto
recycleproducts,andthecostcouldtrickledowntoendusers.DavidDouglas,Sun'svice
presidentofecoresponsibility,saidnationallegislationwouldworkbestandsimilarlytothe
WastefromElectricalandElectronicEquipment(WEEE)directiveintheEuropeanUnion(EU),
whichsaysresponsibilityforewasterestsonmanufacturers.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency Superfund
Superfundsreachisbroadenoughtoincludeeventhesmalltimepolluters
BarnabyJ.Feder,1991(TheNewYorkTimes.Lexis)
zSkVA&_md5=51d491860050b29a7e47ea34ae071939
Justasimportant,manygroupsnotablybanksandmunicipalitieshavebeenstunnedby
Superfund'sreach.Thelawcontainssuchbroaddefinitionsofwhocanbeheldliableforcleanup
coststhattheyhavefoundthemselvesnamedalongsidechemicalgiantsasdefendants.Onlya
fewbankshavebeennamedsofar,butsomecourtshavesuggestedthatsimplyforeclosingon
contaminatedpropertycouldtriggerliability.Municipalities,andhundredsofsmallbusinesses
thatrelyonthemforwastedisposal,havediscoveredthatthesmallamountofhazardous
materialintheirsolidwasteisenoughtodragthemintoSuperfundcases.
SuperfunddeterscompaniesfromPolluting
AmySimpson,1998(ThePlainDealerPublishingCo).Lexis
zSkVA&_md5=eb8f65edb6c68b49a76205ec017709ad
CongresspassedtheSuperfundlawin1980,inresponsetodisasterslikethetoxiccontamination
ofneighborhoodsatLoveCanal,N.Y.ThecoreprincipleoftheSuperfundprogramisthat
pollutersnottaxpayersshouldpaytocleanupthemesstheycreated.Inadditiontoproviding
moneyforthecleanups(andensuringthattaxpayersdon'tfootthebill),thepolluterpays
principlecreatesapowerfuldisincentiveforpolluterstocontinueirresponsiblydisposingof
wastes.Ifthepollutersknowtheyhavetopayforcleanups,theysimplywillnotpolluteasmuch.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency EPR
EPR makes producers internalize externalities
The more EPR legislation which is passed on the state and local level, the more pressure will
grow for a good national e-waste recycling policy. A state recycling manager surveyed by
Michele Raymond notes, "The establishment of state policies will exert pressure on the
manufacturers and the federal government to continue to work toward a solution."171 For this
reason, it is critically important is to get more programs like Maine's in states and municipalities
across the country. As more localities implement producer take-back laws, the electronics
industry will come to see the wisdom of having a national producer take-back program so it can
avoid the heavy costs of complying with hundreds of local recycling programs.
Extended Producer Responsibility is being touted as an effective way of approaching the
mounting E-Waste problem
Rolf Widmer, Global Perspectives on EWaste, 2005
http://www.rrrtic.net/archivos/ProyectoReciclaje/21Brasil_Widmer%20et%20al.%20Global
%20Perspectives.pdf
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is being propagated as a new paradigm in waste
management. The OECD defines EPR as an environmental policy approach in which a producer
s responsibility for a product is extended to the post consumer stage of the products life cycle,
including its final disposal (OECD, 2001). Keeping in line with the Polluter-pays Principle, an
EPR policy is characterized by the shifting of responsibility away from the municipalities to
include the costs of treatment and disposal into the price of the product, reflecting the
environmental impacts of the product. Legislators are increasingly adopting EPR policies to
manage various kinds of wastes, such as discarded cars, electrical and electronic appliances and
batteries, which require special handling and treatment. The EU, in 1991, designated e-waste as a
priority waste stream and in August 2004 the legislation on Waste from Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (WEEE) came into force (EU, 2002a), making it incumbent on manufacturers and
distributors in EU member states to take back their products from consumers and recycle them.
U.S policy makers favor voluntary EPR regulations, in fear of economic consequences
Extended producer responsibility (EPR)a policy option requiring producers to be financially or
physically responsible for their products after their useful lifeis rapidly growing in popularity
among European and some Asian countries. EPR requires that producers either take back spent
products and manage them through reuse, recycling, or remanufacturing, or delegate this
responsibility to a third party, a so-called producer responsibility organization (PRO), which is
paid by the producer for spent-product management. Some countries, such as the United States,
consider mandated EPR programs, as in Europe, too costly. Instead, they favor voluntary
agreements among stakeholders.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency EPR
EPR policies are already showing up on a state level
Sheilla Miller, Environmental Attorny-at-law, 2005. Lexis
_m=d427555c977c77c4013e1dcd3abb0f7e&_docnum=4&wchp=dGLbVzbzSkVb&_md5=82599617a436907bc0b342c5c44aa8cd
As we have reported previously, increasing public concern over solid waste management is
spurring consideration of "extended producer responsibility" (EPR) and "shared responsibility"
approaches to waste minimization and reduction. A case in point is the divergent electronic waste
(E-waste) legislation in Maine and California. Maine's E-waste law implements EPR principles
by placing the burden for disposing of E-waste in the state squarely on manufacturers. In
contrast, California's Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003 imposes an advanced recovery fee
(ARF) on consumers to cover the costs of recovering and recycling cathode ray tubes and other
similar display devices.
The EPR paradigm internalizes the currently external cost of recycling for manufacturesthis improves recyclability and increasing production responsibility
The idea underlying EPR is that placing responsibility for waste management with producers
creates a strong incentive for them to redesign products with an aim toward less material use and
improved recyclability. Waste management produces external costs that are not included in
product prices. Take-back obligations create a valuable incentive for producers to start thinking
about problems that they usually just leave for society to take care of, explains Gertrude LbbeWolff, a professor of environmental law at the University of Bielefeld in Germany.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency EPR
EPR policies lead to more environmental-friendly designs- its empirically proven
An Government implemented EPR policy would unify the over 9000 independent recycling
programs in the U.S
There is no comprehensive, federal EPR law in the United States, although states and cities have
created recycling programs calling for specified percentage diversions of waste from the waste
streamthere are about 9000 curbside recycling programs in the United States. To push
recycling markets for plastics, California, for example, is trying to enforce its mandate on
recycled content in rigid plastic containers.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency EPR
EPR policies lead to more environmental-friendly designs- its empirically proven
An Government implemented EPR policy would unify the over 9000 independent recycling
programs in the U.S
There is no comprehensive, federal EPR law in the United States, although states and cities have
created recycling programs calling for specified percentage diversions of waste from the waste
streamthere are about 9000 curbside recycling programs in the United States. To push
recycling markets for plastics, California, for example, is trying to enforce its mandate on
recycled content in rigid plastic containers.
EPR Regulations lead to producers designing more environmentally friendly designs and
stops the exportation of EWaste to impoverished countries
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, 2007
http://www.etoxics.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_extended_producer_responsibility
The concept behind Producer TakeBack or EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) is that if we
require electronics producers to take financial responsibility for the disposal of their old and
obsolete products, they have greater incentive to design toxic-free electronics that are cheaply
and easily recycled. This not only alleviates the consumer and taxpayer burden, but it potentially
diverts millions of pounds of e-waste from being dumped or burned. Producer Takeback also
mandates that e-waste is recycled responsibly and not sent to prisons or exported to
impoverished countries where workers and children get paid as little as 25 per hour to smash
apart toxic components without proper protection.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency EPR
Government Enforced EPR Take-back programs are the most effective way of solving for
E-Waste
Clean Production Action.org, 2007 (Clean Elements of an EPR Plan)
http://www.cleanproduction.org/Producer.Key.Examples.php
The most effective EPR take-back programs are enforced by government regulations that
mandate individual financial and physical take back of the product, but also set incentives for
clean product design. To avoid the implementation of regulatory EPR mandates, manufacturers
in the United States have started to set up voluntary take back programs that charge an end-oflife fee to consumers. For example, under increasing pressure from regulators to deal with
electronic waste, major electronic manufacturers, like Dell, Hewlett Packard, and IBM have set
up voluntary programs whereby they charge consumers a $2030 fee for taking back the
product. The return rate for these programs has been very low. In some cases, the end-of-life fee
has led to illegal dumping. Voluntary programs are often financed by the consumers, which
provides little to no incentive for the producer to redesign their products.
EPR programs must deal with historic waste
Clean Production Action.org, 2007 (Clean Elements of an EPR Plan)
http://www.cleanproduction.org/Producer.Key.Examples.php
EPR programs need to account for orphan and historic waste as well as current end of life
product waste. Years ago product designers did not design for re-use or recyclability. However
this waste must be dealt with. The responsibility for financing the management of orphan waste
equipment can be shared proportionally to each producers respective share of the market. This is
how historic automobile and electronic waste has been dealt with in Europe
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency Cost internalization
Full Cost internalization encourages the reduction and recycling of e waste
Similarly, it can be argued that by restricting the export of hazardous waste firms will be forced
to internalize in their production costs the full cost associated with hazardous waste disposal, as
required by the Polluter Pays Principle. By exporting hazardous waste to low cost countries,
assuming that such waste is not handled properly even by the standards of the importing country,
producers avoid paying the full costs of production, and the goods so produced are under priced.
In effect such low export disposal costs are unpaid environmental costs. A policy that restricts
hazardous waste exports to countries where waste is improperly disposed of ensures that the
disposal costs are incorporated into the prices of goods. This "full cost internalization" will
encourage the reduction, recycling and reuse of the wastes generated through the production
process.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency CIL
Laws must be based off of international norms
While strengthening policies and laws can enhance environmental justice, they can also wreak
injustice through their failure to take account of transnational design, manufacture, use, and
recycling chains. Policies and laws are fashioned with national boundaries and beneficiaries in
mind, yet may simply lead to the export of problems or costs overseas. In California, a new state
law was enacted in 2003, forbidding the disposal of computers in landfills and encouraging
recycling through upfront consumer charges for manufacturer take-back. However, the law did
not prohibit the export of obsolete computers or impose tracking obligations on computer
donors.126 Thus stronger domestic regulation may encourage higher e-waste exports from the
US. Similarly, new laws may not guarantee that greener electronics are sold and recycled
within Asian countries. In the European Union, two laws will transform the management of ewastes from 2006 onwards. Manufacturers selling computers in Europe must not only take back
electronics for recycling, but must eliminate a number of toxic substances from computers
through design strategies. These laws may nonetheless lead to injustice propagating along supply
chains to Asia where manufacturers are less able to afford the costs of making a transition to new
materials and designs.127 Yet consumers, retailers, and manufacturersas well as environments
and citiesin Europe may benefit the most from cleaner electronics. Whether or not improved
technology designs are also available in Asia is yet another critical issue. With Asias growing
technology use, requiring greener electronics in Asia would be a highly precautionary step.
The U.S. should be responsible for the e-waste it exports according the customary
international law since in 1972
Nicole C. Kibert, Associate Attorney Carton Fields, 2003, Journal of Land Use Vol. 19:2,
Extended Producer Responsibility: A Tool for Achieving Sustainable Development
As early as the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in
Stockholm, environmental awareness has been a priority of the international community
who recognized that economic security and development are directly tied to the health of the
environment. At Stockholm, the Declaration of the United Nations Conference of the Human
Environment, which is commonly referred to as the Stockholm Declaration, was adopted.4
Principle 21, which holds a state responsible for harm originating in that state which harms
another state, is the most famous of the Stockholm Declaration principles and has been
deemed customary international law.5 Besides the Stockholm Declaration, the most important
outcome of the Stockholm conference was the formation of the United Nations Environmental
Program (UNEP), which still functions today.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency General
Putting responsibility on producers is key to challenging consumerism
Finally, as this article argues, the consumption of consumer products and technologies demands
greater scrutiny. Virtually no analyses have been done on consumer products.86 Even where
researchers investigate the impacts of computer technology, their work is confined to
manufacturing, specific geographical regions, and corporations, largely within the US. Pellow
and Park, for example, have analyzed the environmental and labor impacts of Silicon Valley.87
Silicon Valley has the largest concentration of Superfund sites in the US, resulting from poor
chemicals management practices at early manufacturing plants. Nonetheless Pellow and Park do
not attend to the overseas supply chains and manufacturing centers that Silicon Valley computer
companies operate or contract with, let alone recycling chains offshore. During the 1990s, the
trend to move electronics plants overseas and to rely on contract manufacturing in Asian
countries accelerated rapidly.88 The contemporary electronics industry and its consumers are no
longer located solely in industrial nations, but are distributed across the planet, demanding a new
perspective: that of transnational technology and material flows.
Understanding the effects of eWaste will promote responsibility
It is crucial to appreciate how e-waste risks are created and perpetuated through the global
production system, with its many supply, distribution, and recycling chains. These risks emerge
through a combination of product life cycles, corporate control over design and manufacturing
choices, and a pervasive lack of information about what electronics contain. The industrial
production system that produces consumer technology also helps create e-wastes and shift these
to more vulnerable countries. What is unjust about e-wastes is not only created at the stage of
disposal and recycling, but in earlier stages. Electronics industry actors and policy-makers have
largely analyzed e-wastes as an end of life issue, implying that waste disposal, recycling rates,
and adequate recycling capacity determine whether or not adverse impacts result.89 Therefore,
the predominant response has been to improve the recycling infrastructure and to increase
recycling to close the loop. Investigating e-wastes demonstrates, however, that e-waste risks
are heavily shaped by what happens in the earlier stages of the computer life cycle, not simply by
policy, industrial, and institutional deficits at the point of obsolescence. A fundamental reason
why workers in Asia are exposed to toxics is because of the confluence of factors that computer
design helps cause. E-wastes, moreover, represent only a part of all environmental and societal
impacts of electronics.90 Raw materials, manufacturing, and use all present their own impacts,
which may be more or less unequally shared between countries and socio-economic groups
depending on the production chain stage. Computer use, for example, generates effects that are
mostly experienced in industrial nations: the exposure of consumers to chemicals dissipating
from computer housings and to mercury emissions from coal-fired plants generating
electricity.91
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency General
Targeting the manufactures assumptions will lead to a clean computer supply
Consequently, it is crucial to target the assumptions of manufacturers in industrial nations
regarding whether and how computers can be redesigned to be greener. Since 2000, most
leading Japanese OEMs have begun to phase out toxics such as lead and cadmium, use more
recycled materials, use non-halogen plastics, enhance the recyclability of components, reduce the
use of complex plastic-metal components, and procure toxic-free materials.96 Such features,
however, are mainly limited to the Japanese market. In August 2002, NEC did release the
PowerMate Eco in the US market. This new PC does not use any of 36 potentially toxic
chemicals,97 uses NuCycle plastic that is 100% recyclable, contains no toxic flame retardants,
and does not emit hazardous substances such as dioxins on being incinerated. Such a computer
would greatly reduce the toxic exposures that Asian recyclers and communities currently face.
Such design shifts, if in a very early phase, highlight how the global production system can
change. The Japanese companies were responding to not only a new domestic law requiring the
take-back of electronics and increasing consumer demand for environmentally beneficial
products, but also to new global market opportunities created by the EU Waste Electronic and
Electrical Equipment and the Removal of Hazardous Substances laws.98 Consumption may also
create new demand for ecologically sounder computers in industrial nations. American and many
Asian manufacturers, however, have not yet acted and may be forced to play catch-up to more
progressive companies. US companies still emphasize domestic US recycling systems instead of
redesign because they do not perceive themselves as liable for the problems appearing in Asia
and do not have to compensate or remediate damage such as deteriorating water and food
supplies.99
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Plan Popular
The public supports eWaste legislation
Major George J. Konoval, Deputy Regional Environmental Counsel, 2006, Air Force Judge
Advocate General School
The e-waste problem has historically received little attention at the federal legislative level.
Federal legislation proposed over the last two years approached the problem primarily through
tax credits to manufacturers who establish recycling programs, tax credits to consumers for
recycling, and fees upon manufacturers to establish [*152] national, state, and local e-waste
recycling programs. Because of the relative lack of attention given this issue by Congress, a
wide range of stakeholders, to include manufacturers, recyclers, retailers, consumer groups, and
environmental groups, have expressed growing concern.
n16
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Plan Unpopular
Bush is ideologically opposed to the plan
Sadly, the Bush administration seems to be ideologically opposed to any form of environmental
regulation which is mandatory, may raise costs, or sets firm targets. In effect, manufacturers have
been given a pass to pollute from our government. The EPA's faith that voluntary recycling will
effectively solve the looming e-waste problem is misguided. Although Dell and HP should be
commended for promoting recycling (albeit under pressure), their recycling programs will
probably only be used by a small fraction of their customers. Dell reports that their 2003
recycling rate for individual consumer products equaled 3% to 5% of their total consumer sales.
Most computer makers report rates around 2%. Even if these rates improve in the coming years,
the number of PCs being dumped in US landfills every year will still continue rising because of
the rapid growth in new PC sales every year. Clearly, we can't depend upon voluntary recycling
programs by manufacturers to solve the e-waste problem. Experience in places like Norway,
where there is a 90% recycling rate for e-waste, shows that the most effective recycling programs
which reduce waste are mandatory so that no manufacturer can gain a competitive advantage by
not participating.155 HP probably lobbied in support for Maine's new mandatory recycling law
for CRTs and flat panel displays, because HP doesn't want to be the only manufacturer
shouldering high recycling costs when its competitors can undercut it by not recycling.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
AT: Voluntary CP
Voluntary action without enforcement fails
Regulation and policy also help shape the production of e-waste risks. The failure of
governments to introduce or enforce regulation can generate injustice by allowing e-waste
exports and imports to occur, entrepreneurs to exploit unemployed laborers, and facilities to
appear and operate without scrutiny. Likewise, the weaknesses of the international hazardous
waste regime in prohibiting transnational e-waste movements, and in monitoring and enforcing
national regulatory measures, can allow the global production system to proceed with
externalizing risks. Conversely, governments can pressure recyclers, importers, and
manufacturers to reduce exposures to risk, while activist groups worldwide can demand
regulatory changes, expose e-waste problems, and link e-waste effects to manufacturer decisions.
Electronics manufacturers may voluntarily agree to improve their recycling and design efforts.
Yet these efforts can exacerbate injustice through failing to target the underlying societal
conditions producing e-waste risks and by letting manufacturers and populations in developing
countries bear the burdens of improved technology without gaining the benefits.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
AT: Ban waste CP
Just a ban will not solve
In an era where not only neoliberal ideologies dominate the global economy, but consumers,
governments, and companies are ill-informed because of the distances pervading the global
production system, more is needed than simply a global ban on e-waste trade or boosted
recycling efforts. Action needs to aim at the underlying causes of e-waste impacts, namely
poverty, lack of industry accountability, and weak regulatory activism. Only then can policies
and institutions effectively address e-wastes as transnational technology and material flows.
Completely banning E-waste trade can hurt African economies, denying them useful and
reusable materials
The recent (COP III, Sept. 1995) decision under the Basel Convention to ban the export of
hazardous waste that is destined for recovery operations (example: recycling) from OECD to
non-OECD countries has also drawn objections. Such a ban prevents the trade in recyclable
materials that, in some cases, are vital components to the economies of the South. While these
countries may be able to productively utilize some hazardous waste a ban takes away an
important source of secondary raw materials. Countries that are not yet in a position to adopt
environmental policies on par with the North should not be denied the opportunity to obtain
secondary raw materials and to participate in the recyclable market.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
AT: Buy back CP
Unicor prison workers face inhumane conditions
Our toxic e-waste is exported abroad to endanger other people's health and poison their
environment, because the US government has refused to ratify the 1994 Basel Convention
banning the international trade in hazardous wastes. Unlike the 165 other nations which have
ratified the Convention, the US has been remarkably unwilling to control what happens to its ewaste, to the point that it failed to implement the treaties of the Organization for the Economic
Cooperation and Development(OECD) which control the trade in hazardous waste.38 For this
reason, the computer you give to a recycler is likely to end up as acid wash and plastic ash in
Nanhai, China or Karachi, Pakistan. Even if your old computer doesnt leave the US, it may be
recycled by prison labor working in a toxic environment. Recycler UNICOR processed 44
million pounds of e-waste in 2004. It employs a 1000 inmate employees in seven penitentiaries
who are paid between $0.23 and $1.15 an hour. UNICOR gives prisoners hammers and tells
them to break CRT screens when they are only wearing regular prison uniforms, cloth gloves,
and simple dust masks for protection. The prisoners eat their lunches surrounded by toxic dust
which permeates their clothes and hair. This same dust gets tracked through out the prison,
because the prisoners don't have facilities to wash off or change their clothes after leaving the
work site. When a safety manager at the Atwater Federal Penitentiary in the San Joaquin Valley
filed a complaint with OSHA about the unsafe working conditions, the prison tried to silence him
and cover-up the problem. Even after the prison had hastily cleaned up the facility, an OSHA
inspector still found a number of safety violations for working around hazardous materials and
tests showed lead, barium and cadmium in the air of the prison.39
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
AT: African Union CP
RegulationofexportsmustcomefromtheU.Ssincetheareasonwhichthematerialsare
beingdumpeddonotnecessarilyhavetheinfrastructuretodoso
KimberlyJohnson,writerforNationalGeographicNews,10/2006.TheBaselActionNetwork
http://www.ban.org/ban_news/2006/061030_toxic_dumping.html
Oftenshippersclaimtobedonatingelectronicstodevelopingcountriesbutareneverrequiredto
provethatthegoodsarestillfunctional.Theloopholeleavesanopendoorforunscrupulous
dumpingofjunkedelectronics,Puckettsays.Nigeria,forexample,hasreceivedabout500
containersofelectronicequipmentwithinthelasttwoyearsundertheguiseofdonations.At
least75percentoftheshipmentwasunusableandsowashauledtoopenfieldsandburned.
Leadusedincircuitboardsandmonitors'glasstubesgoesintothegroundwater,andtheburning
plasticsreleasedeadlycancercausingfumes."ThatistheconstantassaultthatAfricais
receiving,"Puckettsaid."It'shappeningonadailybasis."Stemmingthetideofsuchshipments
mustbedoneontheexportside,especiallygiventhatdevelopingcountriesoftendon'thavean
infrastructuretoenforceproperwastemanagement,Puckettadds."TheU.S.isaglaring
renegadecountryinthisissue,"withnocontrolsinplaceoversuchexports,hesaid.About80
percentoftheelectronicmaterialU.S.consumerstaketorecyclersisgoingalmostimmediately
offshoretodevelopingcountriesinAsiaorAfrica,hesays."Everycountry,"hesaid,"should
takeresponsibilityfortheirwaste."
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency Buy Back
Switzerland proves the buy back programs force internalization of costs
James E. McCarthy, Specialist in Environmental Policy, 7-19-02, http://www.grrn.org/escrap/congressional_research_service_7-02.pdf, Report for Congress
Switzerland was the first country to enact broad legislation: on January 14, 1998, the Swiss
enacted an ordinance on separate collection and recycling of electronic waste.21 The ordinance,
which went into effect on July 1, 1998, requires separate collection and recycling of electronic
waste, including electronic equipment used at home as well as office equipment, computer
equipment, communications equipment, and household appliances. According to the ordinance,
consumers are required to take used equipment back to a manufacturer, an importer, or a retailer.
Retailers are required to take back old equipment if they offer the same sort of product for sale.
Wholesalers and intermediaries likewise have an obligation to accept returns, although they can
arrange for waste equipment to be delivered directly to a waste-handling facility.
Manufacturers and importers are only required to take back equipment of their own brand (or, in
the case of importers, of brands that they import). This reinforces one of the ordinances primary
objectives, which is to serve as an incentive to manufacturers to consider the question of waste
management during the design of a product. Manufacturers who produce equipment that is easily
disassembled and made of materials easily recycled and causing little pollution can thus reduce
their costs vis-a-vis their competitors.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Buy Back = Neoliberal
Buy Back Programs enforce neoliberal norms
The ordinance leaves most details of the recycling and management of returned items to industry
or to state-level (canton) governments. Regulations on the recycling and management of the
returned items and permitting or authorizing the necessary facilities, for example, are left to the
cantons. The ordinance contains no requirements on financing; determining how to finance and
structure the return system is left to industry and the markets to decide. The Swiss federal
government does have one other role, however: the regulation of exports, in order to insure that
disposal in other countries is in accord with those countries regulations and is respectful of the
environment.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Solvency Mechanism Exists Now
The Dutch system takes advantage of a Pigouvian tax
Dutch computers are collected through a separate system, not through NVMP. There are no
recycling fees paid directly by consumers in this system; rather, producers and importers are
paying the costs of computer recycling, in proportion to each companys share of the products
returned. About 25% of the products returned are orphans (i.e., the manufacturer is no longer
doing business in the Netherlands). The cost for managing these products is split among
companies still in business according to each companys share of the recycled products. One
potential inequity of this system is that it places a heavier burden on companies that had a large
market share in the past, irrespective of their current sales. New entrants to the market, by
contrast, do not pay for the management of historic or orphan waste, even if they have a
significant share of current sales.25
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Ban sends waste to China
A ban of eWaste will just have it be sent to China
An important issue related to this option, would be whether to regulate exports of CRTs and other
e-waste, as well as prohibiting their disposal in the United States. Exporting Harm, a recent
report by the Basel Action Network and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, concludes that such
exports (often identified as being for the purpose of recycling) have served as a means of
escaping from U.S. regulation, and in many cases pose serious health and environmental threats
in the receiving countries. According to the report, Informed recycling industry sources estimate
that between 50 to 80 percent of the wastes collected for recycling are not recycled domestically
at all, but very quickly placed on container ships bound for destinations like China.33 Thus,
restrictions on disposal without accompanying controls on exports might simply transfer a
greater share of the problems associated with management of the waste overseas.
On the other hand, a prohibition on the export of materials collected for recycling would cut
recyclers off from many of the markets able to reuse the materials. A significant portion of the
manufacture and assembly of CRTs and computers occurs in Asian countries. If recovered
materials cannot be shipped there, recycling and reuse will be difficult to achieve.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
China Cards
E-waste causes Chinese instability
Joshua Muldavin, professor of geography and Asian studies at Sarah Lawrence College,
International Herald Tribune, 1-1-06, In rural China, a time bomb is ticking
The recent police killing in China's Guangdong Province of as many as 20 villagers who were protesting the
government's seizure of land for a power plant is symptomatic of an emerging pattern of rural unrest that challenges
the very legitimacy of the Chinese state and the development path on which it has embarked. China's fabulous
growth since the 1980s was achieved through environmental destruction and social and economic polarization which
now threaten its continuation. This paradox puts the state in near panic as it tries to hold down the resulting
widespread unrest in the countryside. While rural strife is not new - in 1994, I witnessed thousands of peasants in
Henan Province fight a local government militia over unpopular taxation and state policies - its scope and frequency
have increased greatly.
Rural unrest is the biggest political problem China faces today, even though lethal violence in such events is rare. In
2004, according to official estimates, there were 74,000 uprisings throughout the country - a result of widening gaps
between rich and poor, and between urban and rural areas, and between the rapidly growing industrial east and the
stagnating agricultural hinterlands. Guangdong - a booming epicenter of foreign direct investment, with thousands
of new factories of global as well as Chinese corporations - embodies these inequalities most intensely. It is not
surprising that the province has become a focus of resistance to development as peasant lands are overrun with
industries.
Peasant land loss is a time bomb for the state. While avoiding full land privatization and, until recently, massive
landlessness of the rural majority, Beijing still allows unregulated rural land development for new industries and
infrastructure. Land seized from peasants reduces their minimal subsistence base, leaving them with what is called
"two-mouth" lands insufficient to feed most families, thus forcing members of many households to join China's 200
million migrants in search of work across the country. In many areas where I have carried out research, some
households have lost even these small subsistence lands, swelling the ranks of China's landless peasants, who
number a staggering 70 million according to official estimates.
Peasants are losing their land to roads, power plants, dams, factories, waste dumps and housing projects for wealthy
city-dwellers escaping urban pollution and small apartments. Compensation for land seizures is minimal and not
nearly enough in a rural society where collective welfare mechanisms no longer exist because of post-Mao reforms.
Such circumstances - combined with unresponsive local governments - force residents to take desperate means to try
to limit the resulting increase in vulnerability. On Dec. 6, peasants in Dongzhou, Guangdong, blocked access to a
power plant after years of petitions and peaceful protests had failed to get them promised compensation for their
confiscated lands.
The Chinese state is very clear on the rural roots of the 1949 revolution, ones emanating from massive inequality
and social insecurity. But there is a new clarity now for peasants and rural workers, who have seen the state
increasingly side with the newly rich over the past two decades, often at a direct cost to themselves, their families
and communities.This harks back to the period prior to China's 1949 revolution when enormous numbers of landless
peasants formed the core of the largely rural movement led by Mao and others. Following their victory, it was the
redistribution of land to the poorest peasants that gave the Communist Party its greatest enduring legitimacy in rural
areas. It is the loss of this legitimacy that lies at the heart of the most recent strife. Beijing could use the violence in
Guangdong as an opportunity to address the structural roots of the larger unrest - environmental, social and
economic. Instead the state is opting to characterize the killings as the mistake of an overly zealous local police
officer rather than a systematic attempt to contain rural discontent by any means.
The dilemma for China is not a public relations one, nor is it about how to cope with this one particular set of events.
Unless overall policies are altered to address the needs of China's vulnerable rural majority, Beijing will surely face
more protracted and violent challenges from the victims of the country's development "success."
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
China Cards
Pollution and environmental degradation kills 400,000 annually, spreads violence, and
could destabilize China entirely
Nathan Nankivell, The Jamestown Foundation, 12-3-05, China Brief, China's pollution and its
threat to domestic and regional stability http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2758.html
Chinas environment is edging closer to a condition of crisis with each passing day. Pollution and environmental
degradation have already left scars and will continue to create problems as the situation worsens. While it may be
possible for China to mitigate the impact of environmental damage through coordinated policies, effective spending,
and sound future planning, Beijing is unable or unwilling to prescribe such measures. As an undeniable fact on the
ground, it is imperative for prudent policymakers to consider the geostrategic implications of not just a superpower,
but of an environmentally-ravaged China as well.
There is little disagreement that Chinas environment is a mounting problem for Beijing. The country produces as
many sulphur emissions as Tokyo and Los Angeles combined but with only a fraction of the vehicles; China is home
to 16 of the worlds 20 most polluted cities; water pollution affects as much as 70 percent of the country; air
pollution is blamed for the premature death of some 400,000 Chinese annually; crop returns are steadily decreasing
in quantity and quality because of polluted land and water; and solid waste production is expected to more than
double over the next decade, pushing China far ahead of the U.S. as the largest producer (The Economist, August
19, 2004).
It continues
As the impact of pollution on human health becomes more obvious and widespread, it is leading to greater political
mobilization and social unrest from those citizens who suffer the most. The latest statement from the October 2005
Central Committee meeting in Shanghai illustrates Beijings increasing concern regarding the correlation between
unrest and pollution issues. There were more than 74,000 incidents of protest and unrest recorded in China in 2004,
up from 58,000 the year before (Asia Times, November 16, 2004). While there are no clear statistics linking this
number of protests, riots, and unrest specifically to pollution issues, the fact that pollution was one of four social
problems linked to disharmony by the Central Committee implies that there is at least the perception of a strong
correlation.
For the CCP and neighboring states, social unrest must be viewed as a primary security concern for three reasons: it
is creating greater political mobilization, it threatens to forge linkages with democracy movements, and
demonstrations are proving more difficult to contain. These three factors have the potential to challenge the CCPs
total political control, thus potentially destabilizing a state with a huge military arsenal and a history of violent,
internal conflict that cannot be downplayed or ignored.
Protests are uniting a variety of actors throughout local communities. Pollution issues are indiscriminate. The
effects, though not equally felt by each person within a community, impact rich and poor, farmers and businessmen,
families and individuals alike. As local communities respond to pollution issues through united opposition, it is
leaving Beijing with no easy target upon which to blame unrest, and no simple option for how to quell whole
communities with a common grievance.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
China Cards
Unrest over environmental problems will overthrow the communist party and cause
transitional violence
Moreover, protests serve as a venue for the politically disaffected who are unhappy with the current state of
governance, and may be open to considering alternative forms of political rule. Environmental experts like Elizabeth
Economy note that protests afford an opportunity for the environmental movement to forge linkages with democracy
advocates. She notes in her book, The River Runs Black, that several environmentalists argue that change is only
possible through greater democratization and notes that the environmental and democracy movements united in
Eastern Europe prior to the end of the Cold War. It is conceivable that in this way, environmentally-motivated
protests might help to spread democracy and undermine CCP rule.
A further key challenge is trying to contain protests once they begin. The steady introduction of new media like cell
phones, email, and text messaging are preventing Chinas authorities from silencing and hiding unrest. Moreover,
the ability to send and receive information ensures that domestic and international observers will be made aware of
unrest, making it far more difficult for local authorities to employ state-sanctioned force.
The security ramifications of greater social unrest cannot be overlooked. Linkages between environmental and
democracy advocates potentially challenge the Partys monolithic control of power. In the past, similar challenges
by Falun Gong and the Tiananmen protestors have been met by force and detainment. In an extreme situation, such
as national water shortages, social unrest could generate widespread, coordinated action and political mobilization
that would serve as a midwife to anti-CCP political challenges, create divisions within the Party over how to deal
with the environment, or lead to a massive show of force. Any of these outcomes would mark an erosion or
alteration to the CCPs current power dynamic. And while many would treat political change in China, especially the
implosion of the Party, as a welcome development, it must be noted that any slippage of the Partys dominance
would most likely be accompanied by a period of transitional violence. Though most violence would be directed
toward dissident Chinese, a ripple effect would be felt in neighboring states through immigration, impediments to
trade, and an increased military presence along the Chinese border. All of these situations would alter security
assumptions in the region.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
China Cards
Chinese instability causes Taiwan invasion
M.D. Nalapat, Driector of the School of Geopolitics of the Manipal Academy of Higher
Education, United Press International, 7-26-04, Avoid a Kuwait in Taiwan
Apart from the unlikely event of Taiwan declaring formal independence, the prospects for a war will rise in
proportion to the degree of internal instability in China. The new regime headed by President Hu Jintao is seeking to
dismantle the old economic structure dominated by manufacturing, replacing it with one that incorporates modern
sectors such as biotech, information technology and space at its core. This could involve the loss of hundreds of
thousands of jobs, and consequent unrest. Should such instability spiral upward to levels beyond the capacity of the
security infrastructure to cope with, a war over Taiwan could become the ultimate anti-riot weapon, once again
uniting the Han population behind the Communist Party.
The potential for conflict has become higher as a result of the unique situation China finds itself in today when, for
the first time since Lin Biao in the 1960s, the party no longer seems to be in control of the gun. Former President
Jiang Zemin is using his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to carve out a space independent of the
Chinese Communist Party, a process that could lead to a rise in the influence of the men in uniform over policy not
seen since Lin's time.
When combined with the essential defenselessness of Taiwan (there is no defense as effective as strong offensive
capability, an option the United States has denied Taiwan, the prospects for a miscalculation on the Saddam-Kuwait
model are growing. Rather than seek to wish it away, Washington needs to face up to the reality that it could be at
war with China within a decade, face up to this as energetically as the PRC itself is doing with its crash program of
military modernization and refinement of asymmetric warfare against a "more powerful enemy." No prizes for
guessing who that enemy is.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
China Cards
Chinese emigration to Russia because of pollution leads to Nuclear War
In addition to the concerns already mentioned, pollution, if linked to a specific issue like water shortage, could have
important geopolitical ramifications. Chinas northern plains, home to hundreds of millions, face acute water
shortages. Growing demand, a decade of drought, inefficient delivery methods, and increasing water pollution have
reduced per capita water holdings to critical levels. Although Beijing hopes to relieve some of the pressures via the
North-South Water Diversion project, it requires tens of billions of dollars and its completion is, at best, still several
years away and, at worst, impossible. Yet just to the north lies one of the most under-populated areas in Asia, the
Russian Far East.
While there is little agreement among scholars about whether resource shortages lead to greater cooperation or
conflict, either scenario encompasses security considerations. Russian politicians already allege possible Chinese
territorial designs on the region. They note Russias falling population in the Far East, currently estimated at some 6
to 7 million, and argue that the growing Chinese population along the border, more than 80 million, may soon take
over. While these concerns smack of inflated nationalism and scare tactics, there could be some truth to them. The
method by which China might annex the territory can only be speculated upon, but would surely result in full-scale
war between two powerful, nuclear-equipped nations.
Working with wealth nations on pollution prevent instability and security concerns
Pollution and environmental degradation, not traditionally considered security concerns, should be accounted for in
security assessments of China and the region. Social unrest, the potential for large-scale political mobilization, and
democratization are increasingly challenging CCP power and legitimacy. These trends, when linked to political
change, could lead to outbreaks of violence, possible large-scale emigration, economic instability, and other
concerns.
In facing such a serious problem, China would benefit from further foreign assistance and expertise. As the health of
China and its economy is inextricably linked to all of the worlds most developed economies, wealthy states and
NGOs should consider additional courses of action to help China form a credible environmental movement
supported by legal experts, academics and Party officials sympathetic to change. Although not a complete solution,
increased foreign assistance may be a step in the right direction. Alternatively, and if left untreated, Chinas
environment will worsen and threaten stability in one of the most populated and dynamic areas on Earth.
Pollution kills Chinese growth

While unrest presents the most obvious example of a security threat related to pollution, several other key concerns
are worth noting. The cost of environmental destruction could, for example, begin to reverse the blistering rate of
economic growth in China that is the foundation of CCP legitimacy. Estimates maintain that 7 percent annual growth
is required to preserve social stability. Yet the costs of pollution are already taxing the economy between 8 and 12
percent of GDP per year [1]. As environmental problems mount, this percentage will increase, in turn reducing
annual growth. As a result, the CCP could be seriously challenged to legitimize its continued control if economic
growth stagnates.
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Consumerism Cards
Society has internalized the idea the one must consume to get better
Democratic mans entire culture has internalized consumerism to such a degree that individuals
lack the psychological wherewithal to create enjoyment for themselves. This seems to arise from
our one-dimensional idea about ourselves. We believe that we can be satisfied in materialistic
and physical ways. It follows that the more democratic man can consume, the happier he will
be; the more America can produce, the better place it will be in which to live. It has become
axiomatic to democratic man that progress and development consists in multiplying material
possessions and increasing physical comforts. It is this idea of productivity as a way of life that
expresses perhaps more than any other the existential attitude in industrial civilization; it
permeates the philosophical definition of the subject in terms of ever transcending ego. Man is
evaluated according to his ability to make, augment, and improve socially useful things.[61]
The society of democratic man is characterized by the values of efficiency, economic rationality
and productivity, at the expense of the wider goals of the community. In this light, then, we can
say that:
Freuds definition of Eros as striving to form living substance into ever greater unities, so that
life may be prolonged and brought to higher development takes on added significance. The
biological drive becomes a cultural drive. The pleasure principle reveals its own dialectic. The
erotic aim of sustaining the entire body as subject-object of pleasure calls for the continual
refinement of the organism, the intensification of its receptivity, the growth of its sensuousness.
The aim generates its own projects of realization: the abolition of toil, the amelioration of the
environment, the conquest of disease and decay, the creation of luxury. All these activities flow
directly from the pleasure principle[.][62]
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Consumerism Cards
Consumerism makes us a slave to the system people are willing to sell their health and
status to be high on the consumption ladder
As we have seen from Dewey, advanced industrial societys projects of realization condition
democratic man to strive for meaningful existence in the market. In such a situation, purchasing
power is a license to purchase power, pleasure and status. The old Marxist proletariat sold its
labor power to survive; what little leisure time it had was passed pleasantly enough in
conversations, arguments, drinking, making love, rioting, celebrating and other sorts of
merrymaking. Democratic man, however, sells his labor power to consume. When he is not
engaged in repetitive, stupefying work or rapaciously striving to climb the labor hierarchy, he is
being persuaded to buy himself objects to distinguish himself in society and to effect happiness.
Only when the economy of consumption disappears will democratic man gain sight of the
necessary conditions for the reclaiming of his freedom to engage in healthy, critical selfreflection and self-interest toward the long-term aspiration of individuation by means of the nonrepressive mastery of nature. An end to this state of one-dimensionality would mean an end to
the tumultuous life progression of getting-on, and the beginning of the dawn of the art of living.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Consumerism Cards
Consumerism is causing all of society to head towards a one-dimension reality of survival
by consumption
Under democratic social conditions, wealth alone does not confer power or individual
particularity. Under the purview of consumable goods, the significance of money passes to
objects with more handsome exchange- and use-value. Consumer goods become wrapped in
ideology; they are the true signs of power. The ideology of consumption becomes the
consumption of ideology. Democratic man buys a bottle of vodka and gets as a gift the lie and
magic that accompanies it, whereas Totalitarian man buys ideology and gets as a gift a bottle of
vodka. The ideology itself draws its essence from quantity: an idea reproduced again and again
in time. It tends to lose its content and become more and more pure quantity. Theoretically,
Totalitarian and Democratic regimes are taking a common path toward one-dimensionality, the
former thanks to their advanced economy of production, the latter thanks to their economy of
consumption. In this one-dimensional social structure, mere survival through consumption is
both necessary and sufficient.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Consumerism Cards
One dimensionality dehumanizes and commodifies life extracting out all uniqueness and
reduces life of the real person to a state of just functioning
In this condition, one thing has disappeared: the project of total life, a will to live totally:
human fullness. The commodity dehumanizes human life. Democratic man becomes the image
of the commodity. Whatever he possesses possesses him in return. In its process of
commodification, industry subjects democratic man to society, to social ordinarinessit
generalizes him. He must grasp for some individuality against the absolute power and logic of
advanced industrial society:
[W]hen at length the time arrived when nothing in the individuals immediate and real
environing world was any longer made, shaped or fashioned by that individual for his own
purposes; when everything that came, came merely as the gratification of momentary need, to be
used up and cast aside; when the very dwelling-place was machine-made, when the environment
had become despiritualised, when the days work grew sufficient to itself and ceased to be built
up into a constituent of the workers lifethen man was, as it were, bereft of this world. Cast
adrift in this way, lacking all sense of historical continuity with past or future, man cannot remain
man. The universalization of the life-order threatens to reduce the life of the real man in a real
world to mere functioning.[64]
In manufactured gadgets turned out in large quantities, no attempt is made to achieve a unique
and precious quality, to produce something whose individuality makes it transcend conformity.
Being mere gadgets obtainable at a moments notice in exchange for money, they lack the
personality of that which is produced by personal effort. Hence we speak of democratic mans
one-dimensional state.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Consumerist people are devoid of all freedom and choice
Liberty has been proclaimed, but has been found impossible to realize for democratic man. The
logic of advanced capitalism, to put it uncharitably, does not make its people freer. In
Philosophies of Freedom, Dewey emphasizes that real freedom must be actualized through
interaction with objective conditions.[65] Dewey and Marcuse both argue that real freedom is
something that comes to be. In the words of Dewey, We are free not because of what we
statistically are, but inasfar as we are becoming different from what we have been.[66] In other
words, freedom is the capacity to become different, to negate the given existence and go beyond
to not adapt to the order of things.
But in advanced industrial America, social conditions merely allow for outward freedom,
which is freedom of choice and market activity, but this choice is limited to what is given, what
is out there.[67] The market can only offer market freedom, that is, a choice between prefabricated alternatives. The conditions of what Marcuse calls inner freedomhuman freedom
are destroyed and lost by industry and the curse of consumption. Advanced industrial society
offers no conditions for the individual in which he may become and remain himself.[68]
Democratic man, through consumption, does not exercise his freedom: free choice among a
wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain
social controls over a life of toil and fearthat is, if they sustain alienation.[69] Liberty is
reduced and diluted in the degree to which it lowers itself to the plane of consumption.
Advanced industrial society is a one-dimensional world-concept: it fails to see that man belongs
to two planes of being. This means that there is not only such a thing as freedom in society, but
freedom from society as well, a freedom which is based on something quite other than
society.[70] The curse of consumption denies democratic man individuality and independence
of his life on the plane of human existence. No freedom is granted to the plane of human
personality and potentiality, while for the material, full liberty is offered. Without freedom from
the rule of merchandise over man, Marcuse writes, no freedom is possible.[71]
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Consumerism Cards
A consumerist economy reduces people to just objects
The most appropriate measure of freedom is not how much freer we are now compared to some
time in the pastnot how many different things we can buybut a critical measure of freedom
is what could be and what has gotten in the way of realizing what could be. For Marcuse, the
consumer economy has gotten in the way of freedom and has become a conservative force. To
quote Marcuse at length:
The so-called consumer economy and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second
nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for
possessing, consuming, handling, and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments,
engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of
ones own destruction, has become a biological need in the sense just defined. The second
nature of man thus militates against any change that would disrupt and perhaps even abolish this
dependency of man on a market ever more densely filled with merchandiseabolish his
existence as a consumer consuming himself in buying and selling. The needs generated by this
system are thus eminently stabilizing, conservative needs: the counterrevolution anchored in the
instinctual structure.[72]
Democratic man, in these lines, is made dependent upon the commodity form. The coercive
restraint of immediate necessity lays its harsh hand upon the mass of men. In the end, men do
what they can do; they consume the passivity and empty time that the necessity of production
offers them. The masses are fed and housed, and in their eyes their reduction to mere objects
of the apparatus and of the administered life, which performs every sector of modern existence,
represents objective necessity, against which they believe there is nothing they can do. So long
as anything stands in the way of the realization of oneself, then, freedom will not exist, and
democratic man will exist in a state of unfreedom. In short: Society still is organized in such a
way that procuring the necessities of life constitutes the full-time and life-long occupation of
specific social classes, which are therefore unfree and prevented from human existence.[73]
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Consumerism Cards
AT: Consumerism makes more free time
Consumerism has not resulted in more free time. Most Americans are working more now than
they ever worked in the last 30 to 40 years.[74] They have shorter vacationstwo weeks
compared to one month in Europe. The National Sleep Foundation published a study, reporting
that:
Americans are suffering from a serious sleep deficit while also cutting back on leisure activities
and sex as they spend more time at work.Work was the only activity to which more people
said they devoted longer hours than they did five years ago. About four in ten people said they
worked at least a 50-hour week. More interviewees said they had less sex now than in 1996.[75]
Everything that makes democratic man into a consumer adapts him to the order of things
makes him old. Time-which-slips-away is what fills the void created by the absence of the self.
The harder he runs after time, the faster time goes: this seems to be the evident law of
consumption. The loss of free time does not de-legitimize the system of domination; on the
contrary, it refers to the constantly increasing productivity and domination of nature which
keeps individualsliving in increasing comfort.[76]
AT: Consumerism leads to more happiness
Advanced industrial society has not produced more happiness. After 1900, real consumption
rose at extraordinary rates. Yet surveys of happiness reveal that this development has not
increased happiness, For the percentage of Americans who report themselves very happy was
no greater in 1970 than in 1946.[77] The irresistible conclusion, according to Lebergott, is that:
Our economic welfare is forever rising, but we are no happier as a result.[78] Furthermore,
any excitement that could still be found in the pursuit of pleasure is fast disintegrating into a
succession of mechanical gestures, and democratic man hopes in vain that their rhythm will
speed up enough to reach even the ghost of an orgasm. The consumer cannot and must not attain
satisfaction: the logic of the consumable object demands the creation of fresh, false needs, yet
the accumulation of such false needs exacerbates the malaise of people confined with increasing
difficulty solely to the status of consumers.
DDI 07 Marks/Clark
Customary International Law Spills over
Customary International Law spills over to all parties
Mark Eugen Villiger, Climate Change Damage and International Law, 2006, Customary
International Law and Treaties: A Manual on the Theory
Modification arises in the practice of States parties applying the conventional rule, or dehors the
convention in the practice of non-parties. In the case of a larger membership, practice will
usually originate among the parties, and eventually spill over to non-parties. Thereby, some
parties will originally maintain or apply, without permission of other parties, a different solution
to a situation actually requiring the application of the conventional rule. Modification thus
originates in a derogation from often a breach of the conventional rule. Originally, a few
States will diverge from the rule. If objections or protests are not encountered, more States may
follow. As the number of States which apply, assert, or acquiesce in, the new rule increases, the
number of defections from the original rule will correspondingly mount. The new rule is
established when there is evidence of general, uniform practice and opinio juris of parties and
non-parties. Between the original breach and the final formation of the new rule, neither the old
nor the new rule is clearly established. The early stages of the emerging opinion thus represent
the typical period of legal uncertainty, in which practice gradually hardens into law.

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DDI 07 Marks/Clark

Observation One: Inherency

Observation Two: Harms We isolate three advantages

Thus the plan :

Observation Three is solvency

Full Cost internalization encourages the reduction and recycling of e waste

Pollution kills Chinese growth

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