E-Waste

            What is E-waste?


E-waste is electronic products that people throw away, e-waste is  dangerous because of all the chemicals that were use in the making of the products, also some  companies ship this e-waste to developing countries were it's burned to separate the metal and all the harmful chemicals that causes cancer and other illness are release into the air many times over small communities. And even when they reached the landfills in major cities the chemicals could leak into the water bed and later into lakes were it would cause illness all over the food chain, which includes us.



    
                                      
                                         Where does e-waste end up? By Greenpeace

In this video by green peace we can see that the e-waste, is shipped to developing countries such as Ghana. Although companies know that the e-waste is being dispose of in a harmful way they ignore this in order to raise company profit. If we all demand when buying their products that companies will dispose of our e-waste in a more environmental  and human friendly  way we can stop people from getting sick because of our waste. 

   Hidden Flow - The rising tide of European e-waste in West Africa.

By Consumers International

In this video by consumers international we learned that thousands of used PCs arrive in Lagos every month, 75% of which go straight to landfill. This is just some of the 6.6 million tons of European e-waste dumped on the developing world every year, despite international laws against it.                             

                             
                             E-Waste: Dumping on the Poor

In this video we  look at electronic waste or e-waste shipped overseas and the toxic effect it has on places such as Guiyu, China. This Chinese town is known as "trash town" because of the incredible amount of e-waste that is dumped here every year. It also takes a look at the countless people working there and at how they stay there because of the "good pay", which is 6 dollars a day without knowing that everyday they are exposed to highly toxic materials and fumes.

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/recent/apple-amazon-microsoft-dirty-energy/

Discussion Section:1. Identify some potential e-waste products that exist in our classroom/or school.The countless TVs, DVDs, computers even the one I'm using right now will eventually with time become e-waste.
2. What is the lifespan for each product? How can we help extend this, i.e. how can we reduce our usage?The life span of all those products are pretty long, but they are thrown away before they lifetime ends because they become the old model and there fore "useless". as it happens with almost any electronic products such as cellphones.
3. What do you believe is done at the end of the product's life, i.e. how is it disposed of?
I'm pretty sure that they are thrown away and provably sent to a developing country to be "recycle".


What do you think? leave a comment....