have u guys seen this?
On the e-waste trail - Witness - Al Jazeera English
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have u guys seen this?
On the e-waste trail - Witness - Al Jazeera English
this is not new news anything in particular we need to know
come on over to my place and dump it.....I won't even charge a fee
thats what im wondering about
we guys go looking for ewaste & theres people who dump container loads of it in 3rd world countries
theres people who recycle almost anything- why do companies have to do dump it in another part of the world?
wont it be better to sell their stuff to plastic recyclers?
they pay money to ship this stuff & they will earn money if they sell to recyclers- dont make sense.
or are there things that nobody recycles- so companies are looking for ways to get rid of it?
someone enlighten me..
They are dumping mostly things like CRT monitors, Refrigerators, Tube TVs, Old AC units etc. Things that a lot of places charge to take because of the recycling of freon and the glass. So instead of paying a couple bucks per unit they are shipping them out to sea to be dumped for pennies on the dollar. Economically for them it makes more sense to pay a couple grand to make it vanish and never hear from it again. It is not the right thing to do, but they're doing it just to make the stuff go away. But it doesn't go away for everyone. Obviously, we see where it is going.Quote:
Originally Posted by msmoorad
This is one of those topics that can easily get people wishing that we could do more as individuals. And unfortunately as a collective group, there is probably more experience and knowledge about the items here on this forum then there ever will be in the hands of the people making these decisions.
It's a hard call. There may be more to this than meets the eye.
I believe we have had people of Asian decent seeking to buy e-waste here in the United States .
It's my understanding that there are entire villages in China that specialize in processing e-waste. The people there might only be making a few dollars a day but that amount is an improvement in their standard of living.
How does the American workforce compete with that ?
The article in Al Jazeera seemed more focused on the environmental impact and the health impact on the workers.
It's called they want to duck doing it right. We've all seen the video of the ewaste dump in India I think it was. For those of you that haven't you could likely google it for the youtube link if someone doesn't post it.
Here in the states, we got all those silly rules an regulations. Somewhere like India, will turn it's eye to the environmental an health damage that is being caused. The video shows how messed up it is. Plus they'll do it cheaper if their charging. I mean..what a buck in a 3rd world country is like a nice week or 3 paycheck. I had a buddy from Honduras who drove a tow truck here in the states. He'd work 6 months, go back home, live like a king for 3 or 4 months, then come back an stack his cash again till time to go home. He was telling me when he goes home, he can take out his family an friends for a night on the town an in US Dollars he's spending like 20 bucks.
Here I found a video talking about India an Africa. It's by Greenpeace so might be some drama added I dunno, but it makes the point I can't with words. First few seconds is a kid burning a whole monitor it looks like. That should tell you right there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A5zVNpkuzk
http://rt.com/news/e-waste-illegal-environment-uk-043/
An another from Greenpeace..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JZey9GJQP0
Second should have a video in the article.
Sucks whats being done to these people an countries. This is also why I take TV's an break them down as much as I can, an take care of the glass. I don't want this happening to somewhere here where I live, or ending up in Asia or Africa an screwing these folks even more. If that makes sense.
That's my .02 on it. No refunds.
Sirscrapalot - If the ebola doesn't get you all the toxic crap being put into the earth will. - Me, an likely some tree hugger somewhere.
Ummm ... it's still a tough call. They are where we were fifty or a hundred years ago. They don't call them third world nations anymore. Instead they them developing nations. As their standard of living improves they will set the bar higher for environmental and health standards.
It's a matter of perspective:
We are among the wealthiest nations in the world. Even those among us who have the least, still have it much better than most in the world.
It's sort of like a rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth driving up in his shiny new BMW while you're shopping curbco.
Maybe he looks down his nose at you because you don't measure up to his standard.
All the while .... you're just doing what you have to do to survive. :-/
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The most compassionate thing we could do is to give them a hand up. If they want to do e-waste then invest a little bit in those countries and build facilities where it can be done properly.
My God, they aren't even doing it right.....
The guy with the hammer and crt board, he'd be better snipping the wire at the ends, that way when its burnt off, its all Copper Domestic.
Not a mix of Copper and Brass...
The guys burning the plastic off..
If the put it on a grate or something it'd burn better, also its still got the clips on it.
If its on a grate, air gets to it, it won't smolder, when its burnt off, the incomming air will cool the burnt Copper and that mrans kess oxides on it. It also heats the incomming air.
They should have some sort of 'afterburner', all that smoke will catch fire if its mixed with clean air and reignited, leaving less smoke and another source of heat.
Also, it looks like they are burning a crt degaussing cable...
If tgey used a knife and cut out the double layer of plastic tape off where the two external wires are.
They get the two plastic coated wires to burn off. And if they grab a few of the varnish coated wires inside, pull them out, and then use them to rip out the side of the plastic tape on the main cable, then do that the full length, they end up with nice clean shiney Copper #2....
And thats with no burning.....
Theres recycable stuff on the crt board too, its better to save the individual parts up, like the ferrite chokes etc, then do them all at the same time.
Not smash it up and then pick out the heatsinks.. Transisters have Copper in them, bitsa steel clips/screws etc.
But leaving the Brass clips on the Copper wire? Insane. Even with them clipped off they could burn the plastic off and end up with plain Brass.
Leaving the clips on makes the plastic harder to burn since they act as a heatsink and are covered with a blob of plastic too.
More burning equals more oxides equals less Copper and a lower grade too.
I have a take from this, and its probably unpopular. Africa, particularly where this was made...seems awfully **** lazy. It's a bunch of kids and teenagers. No adults, or very few. They burn it instead of cut it...also lazy, I'm sure it's universally true there as it is here, shiny=better price. You can't fix lazy, we didn't do this to them. Somewhere along the line their own governments took money from corporations, accepted the material and failed to produce a method to properly break it all down and dispose of it. Not like it would have cost money...they'd have made money accepting the material AND breaking it down. Frankly, no F**** given about that video. Y'all did it to yourselves I say.
yep some are getting paid less than 5cents a pound for copper
I just put an email into Al Gore and this practice will be stopping immediately. He said its not good for the environment so therefore it must stop. I should have asked him to get it shipped over here on his private jet. Maybe next time.