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Abstract for Chris Carroll's "High Tech Trash"

Claim: We are not disposing of our electronic waste properly which leads to a polluted earth. Not recycling this waste is also a waste of precious metals.
Statement of Claim: “People have always been proficient at making trash. Future archaeologists will note that at the end of the twentieth century, a new, noxious kind of clutter exploded across the landscape: the digital detritus that has come to be called e-waste.”

Subclaims:

1.Because we are becoming more advanced technologically, the technology we create becomes outdated faster.

2.Just because you dispose of your e-waste properly, doesn’t mean that the companies you disposed it to will be as responsible with it.

3.E-waste leaks toxic substances and damages the environment

4.Recycling e-waste may prove beneficial


Support
1.“Gordon Moore…observed that computer processing power roughly doubles every two years. An unstated corollary to “Moore’s law” is that any given time, all the machines considered state of the art are simultaneously on the verge of obsolescence.”

2.“…more than 70 percent of discarded computers and monitors, and well over 80 percent of TVs, eventually end up in landfills.”

“Dropping your old electronic gear off with a recycling company or at a municipal collection point does not guarantee that it will be safely disposed of. While some recyclers process the material with an eye toward minimizing pollution and health risks, many more sell it to brokers who ship it to the developing world, where environmental enforcement is weak.”

3.“e-waste… may leak lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, beryllium, and other toxics into the ground.”

“Yet for some people it is likely too late; a cycle of disease or disability is already in motion. In a spate of studies released last year, Chinese scientists documented the environmental plight of Guiyu, the site of the original BAN film. The air near some electronics salvage operations that remain open contains the highest amounts of dioxin measured anywhere in the world. Soils are saturated with the chemical, a probable carcinogen that may disrupt endocrine and immune function. High levels of flame retardants called PBDEs—common in electronics, and potentially damaging to fetal development even at very low levels—turned up in the blood of the electronics workers.”

4.“In addition to toxics, e-waste contains goodly amounts of silver, gold, and other valuable metals that are highly efficient conductors of electricity. In theory, recycling gold from old computer motherboards is far more efficient and less environmentally destructive than ripping it from the earth, often by surface-mining that imperils pristine rain forests.”

Warrants: The intended audience of this article are users of electronics who don’t know much about e-waste and how it is disposed.