I’ve been learning about something you have probably never thought about: e-waste.
It’s actually a pretty interesting subject. Did you know that a single ton of e-waste contains more gold than 17 tons of gold ore?
Anyway, some fascinating trash-related articles:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/gold-fever-creates-gold-recycling-opportunities.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/garbage-into-gold-mining-alternative.php
Here’s the link to the PBS FrontLine documentary: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html
I found these idiotic comments interesting:
David Montgomery
Fernandina Beach, FL
I just recently heard someone state that one of the biggest problems with the free market is that it doesn’t factor in peripheral costs (social, environmental, systemic) … enterprises generally only factor in costs to themselves. This seems like an example of an immense “cost” that was never fully considered.
Hollywood, Florida
In first semester microeconomics, we were taught that “negative externalities,” like the topic of this piece, is one of about five situations in which markets fail. Governments must do what markets fail to do.
LOL.
If markets failed at producing something, then there would be a huge demand for that thing, and then supply would match it, and then the market would not have failed to produce that thing.
And what the hell is “social cost” or “system cost”???
As for “environment cost”, take it up with the free market courts…
Yup, I remember back in the early '90s when Indian companies began importing e-waste to smelt it down and sell off ingots containing precious metals, rare earths etc to manufacturers. Bear in mind that gold is just small fry compared to other much rarer and exotic “intentional impurities” contained in semiconductors.
Of course there’s no need to say why it’s more convenient to put old motherboards in a container and ship them half a world away instead of processing them locally…