General Thoughts

These are just some general thoughts that I’ve had on class so far.

Some Pitfalls in Waste Export

During this first week of class, I stopped to think on the video and our field trips and tried to tie things together. It still surprises me how even nowadays we are still unaware of the lack of long term sustainable plans for the future and the lack of common environmental procedural consensus across countries. We might have a good sense of how things work within our borders but once we step into foreign territory we cannot really tell what really happens to the handling of waste and if any regulations are being implemented. Somehow, the way our system works is not sustainable, not only in the broad sense of not recycling enough within the country but also in the sense that developed countries export waste to developing countries, from which we also extract in huge part natural resources, and in which feeble governments allow this to happen. The problem raised is that by exporting cheap waste to other poorer countries with more space available and less safe workplace investment that are willing to take it, not only jeopardizes the emerging country’s standard of living conditions assuming that handling and safety are somewhat lower and sneaky in those countries, but also in the long run, the lack of supervision from abroad into those developing countries will result into an aggravation of the global environment, and that affects the developed countries too. It is also raised an ethical question here too. That is just a short-term plan but not a long-term. We think we recycle but do we really know what is the real destination of every material? Some of the materials like paper or plastic might be kept within the country, however where does electronic waste go? A follow up on the true externalized costs concept mentioned in class would be the technological equipment waste or e-waste. These links are some examples that really opened my mind into a new perspective and made me think more skeptically about our waste disposal final destination.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17782718

http://shanghaiscrap.com/2012/04/why-is-new-samsung-and-hp-material-being-dumped-in-guiyu-follow-the-bar-codes/

http://www.waterhealtheducator.com/upload/Illegal%20Waste%20Dumping%20Article.pdf

The True Cost of Cell Phones

One of the most fascinating topics presented in our class so far has been the idea of externalized cost. Externalized cost refers to the social cost, or an additional cost of a product that effects a third party. The externalized cost for cell phones are the violation of human labor rights in central Africa. Many of the materials used in the construction of cell phones are called conflict minerals because they are mined in under conditions of labor abuse and armed conflict across this region. The four main conflict minerals are: Coltan, Cassiterite, Wolframite, and Gold. These minerals are mined to produce tungsten, tantalum, and tin, which are integral to other technologies such as laptops and mp3 players.

The three main countries that extract conflict minerals are from the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. Many of the workers in these mines are children, and sometimes work up to 48 hour shifts. These mines have no safety regulations and are susceptible to mudslides and collapse, also the majority of the mines are under constant surveillance by armed guards.The profits obtained from the extraction and sell of these minerals are used to fund the military groups which replenishes their resources for armed combat instead of funding infrastructure, health care, or education.

The next you pick up your phone, think about the true cost that went into the creation of that device. Think of the countless labors endured by the miner who extracted the material to create a device that provides convenient communication for western society.

For information on conflict minerals visit the links below.
http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/content/initiatives/conflict-minerals
http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/conflict-minerals
http://conflictminerals.org/

Waste to Energy

After our field trip to Covanta, I was interested in learning more about waste to energy plants. I was especially curious about how well they could control emissions. I found a website that explained how WTE facilities have to follow very strict policies under the Clean Air Act or face closing. I was surprised to find that many even surpass the regulations and have cleaner emissions than required.

What companies make the most profit from recycling

Issues on Rare Earth Minerals

With the development of technology, rare earth mineral, which contains one or more rare earth elements as major metal constituents, plays an important role in the industry around the world, from cellphone manufacture to missile construction. Unlike other minerals, such as copper, which spread around most places, rare earth minerals only distribute in several areas, such as Africa and south Asia. Besides, 43% of the world rare earth mineral storage is in China.

However, rare earth mineral has been facing a lot of issues and is almost at an urgent point of running out.

Hold china as an example, when the world rare earth mineral market first opened, the price of rare earth mineral did not show its real value. Comparing to the price of gold and copper which has tripled,  the price of rare earth mineral has only increased 150%. People who live on rare earth mineral exploitation have to extract and sell a huge amount of those mineral to expand interests and gain profits. When the world market continues to develop and people begin to realize the real value of rare earth mineral, the price of rare earth mineral skyrockets. More people see the money underneath their ground and more people start to crazily extract those mineral. Jiangxi, a province in southern China, holds 36% of China's rare earth mineral storage and has encountered severe environmental problems of desertification, soil loss and water pollution. Besides environmental destruction, with the increase of rare earth mineral demand, people who only see the immediate interests smuggle the minerals and cause a huge amount of mineral waste while mining and transporting. Therefore, the storage of rare earth mineral is decreasing sharply.

To eliminate the issues above, rare earth mineral exporting countries begin to put restriction on rare earth mineral exploitation. This directly leads to problems to countries, such as japan, which purely rely on importing minerals to develop technology. With the restriction and decreasing amount, rare earth minerals are more and more difficult to get, but the world cannot stop developing for the shortage of rare earth minerals. 

The only ways to solve this problem is to invent substitutes and recycling. Rare earth recovery can be done from extraction from e-waste such as hard-disk drive and Air Condition Compressor. Household trash can also be a source of rare earth recovery that rare earth can be extracted in glass waste. 

There is no time to delay our actions. As our class promotes, be an active recycler to help the world!

What to do with Styrofoam

Today in class we separated our waste materials into their proper categories for disposal: recycling, composting or discarding to a landfill. As we were going through the items we ran into a problem with the material Styrofoam, we were unsure about where to place the particular material because it does not fit into the recycling categories: paper, plastic, metal, or glass. So that leaves us with the question of what exactly is Styrofoam, and where does it belong: the recycling bin, the compost box or the trash?