April
2002
Editorial:
Have You Bought Your G4 Today?
By Catherine Clyne
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The commercial for the new iMac
is so-o cute! A guy passes a store window and notices a computer.
The computer screen is flat with
a long adjustable
metal neck. He stops and looks. The screen seems to return the stare.
He swings his head around; the screen swivels ‘round. He
turns this way; the computer screen turns in the same direction.
He turns
that way; the screen turns too. They face each other and he sticks
his tongue out. The computer’s CD-ROM tray pops open.
You just have to giggle.
Oh no, you groan, Now she’s going to tell me that even using my
computer is bad and that buying a new one is simply unconscionable.
I hate to be the killjoy, but that’s the gist of it. No, really.
Have you ever seen the guts of your computer, what’s behind the
screen, or what the circuit board looks like? Do you know what a semiconductor
chip is or what one looks like? Would you recognize a Pentium processor
if someone dropped one on your desk? Do you ever wonder who made that
speedy intelligent machine you can’t live without; or what makes
it “go”? How many computers have you bought in your life so
far? What did you do with the old ones?
Silicon microchips are not only in computers; less sophisticated chips
are in cell phones and other electronics. All of them contain a mixture
of metals and chemicals that are toxic to varying degrees. Hundreds
of chemicals are used in the process of making a microchip, including
acids and solvents, many of which are documented to be toxic by themselves;
who knows how hazardous they are when mixed together?
Reports are starting to surface about the negative health effects of
manufacturing high-tech equipment. In 1998 the Wall Street Journal reported
that a high rate of cancers were found in women who worked at a semiconductor
manufacturing plant in Scotland. The most recent issue of Mother Jones
(March/April, 2002) exposes the “dirty secret” behind the
semiconductor industry’s “clean rooms.” These rooms are
kept immaculate—void of dust and other contaminants—so that
the high-tech silicon wafers being made are not corrupted. Workers wear
thin protective “bunny” suits, designed, however, not for
protecting humans from exposure to hazardous materials, but to protect
the microchips from contamination by humans. The rooms are ventilated—often
to keep dust from coming in, not for exhausting toxic air out.
So, it should be no surprise that workers at an IBM semiconductor plant
in San Jose, California have seen an increase in cancer rates—co-workers
in their 30s, 40s and 50s diagnosed with cancer. Nationwide, some 250
employees and their families have filed lawsuits against IBM and other
companies for failing to warn them about the health risks they were
exposed to at work.
The high-tech industry is the fastest growing in the world—on both
ends: production and waste. Semiconductor manufacturing not only exposes
workers to extremely dangerous materials, the resources required are
staggering. The amount of electrical energy needed to make one standard
silicon wafer is roughly enough to keep a typical American household
going for two months. Then there’s the waste from production that’s
flushed out as sewage or carted off for dumping. And water. It might
surprise you, but millions of gallons of water are consumed in the microchip
manufacturing process every day.
On the horizon is a new breed of chips that are far faster and can contain
more information than anything currently on the market. Obviously folks
will clamor to get newer, faster machines as they become available;
but they already do. Computer consumption in the past few years has
jumped: up from one every four or five years, to every two years. The
new iMac boasts a “wicked fast” PowerPC G4 chip with Velocity
Engine. Cool.
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International expects the switch
from old wafers to new to be “the largest industrial transition
in history.” As it is, today’s manufacturing plants need one
to two million gallons of water a day for production; new plants are
expected to use 1.5 to 2.5 times more every day—roughly enough
water to supply a city of 60,000 people for one year.
The NIMBY Instinct
Now that making chips in the U.S. is a liability, what’s a company
to do? Implement stringent safety standards in their plants with sufficient
precautionary measures for employees? That’d be the logical thing
to do. But instead, they’re doing the proper multinational corporate
thing: Manufacturing plants are mushrooming abroad, in places like Malaysia,
the Philippines, China, India. That’s right. Send them offshore
and the liability for the well-being of workers evaporates. Out of sight,
out of mind—problem solved.
We’ve covered production. What about disposal? This is where the
Not-In-My-Backyard or “NIMBY” instinct kicks in. Forget carpal
tunnel syndrome, the deadliest thing about computers is what’s
inside.
As the report “Exporting Harm” in this issue details, obsolete
electronics— “E-waste”—are being shipped to and
dumped in Asian countries. The Basel Action Network (BAN) and Silicon
Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) investigated different areas where E-waste
is processed and have revealed a truly alarming picture. People are
dismantling our discarded computers, TVs and whatnot in hazardous conditions
with no protective gear. They’re hammering, prying, shredding,
dousing with acid and openly burning all kinds of things to scavenge
reusable parts and valuable metals. They’re actually recycling
the stuff, which is good, right? So what’s the big deal?
Not only are the salvagers inhaling a bouquet of toxic fumes and exposing
their skin and eyes to God-knows-what; dismantling releases poisons
into the surrounding environment and what’s left is dumped—in
fields, canals, ditches, municipal garbage dumps—creating surreal
mountains of computer innards, keyboards, wires, and plastic phone coverings.
We don’t need a Nobel laureate to tell us this spells trouble for
us all.
The problem is that E-waste is not really recyclable. It’s not
made to be safely dismantled or reused. Companies—primarily American—have
no incentive to do so. They do not bear the burden of the disposal of
the stuff they make, so they make “disposable” stuff; and
more of it because the more we buy, the richer they get. It’s that
simple.
The research done by BAN and SVTC not only details the poison levels
in the soils, water, and air of areas of Asia where E-waste is dumped,
they outline how the U.S. has obstructed the implementation of responsible
manufacturing regulation, thus allowing companies to continue to deny
responsibility for the safe disposal of the toxic products they make.
Through The Looking-glass
One of the most striking images from the “Exporting Harm”
research is a photo of a small boy, barefoot, sitting atop a mound of
E-waste in China [see cover]. That’s his backyard. Which brings
me back to that playful G4 screen and makes me wonder: Who is looking
back at us?
As E-retail continues to rise, computers and other electronics are becoming
obsolete more rapidly. With American workers starting to hold companies
accountable for endangering their lives, industry’s setting up
shop abroad. Given the track records of virtually every multinational,
it’s most likely that new factories will have little to no regard
for even minimal environmental standards or for the safety of the workers
who create the nifty semiconductors that make our computers “go.”
Odds are they’ll be low-paid women, who will be unaware of the
risks they are exposed to until it’s too late. Chances are they’ll
be hired on a temporary basis so that they won’t qualify for company
benefits and will have no standing if safety standards or pay equity
are questioned. It’s also possible that they will never use a computer
in their lifetime or understand what the Internet is—or care to.
Yet they see something most of us never see—the insides of our
computers. When we replace our toy with something speedier, even if
we pay someone to take the old one away or donate it to charity, it
inevitably ends up in our landfills or, as more Americans insist that
toxic waste go elsewhere, it’s shipped abroad, where it’s
dismantled, then dumped into the backyards of people who have no choice
whether or not to co-habit with poisonous waste.
I don’t want this stuff dumped in my backyard, do you? It’s
reasonable to assume that neither would those who quietly find it filling
their playgrounds—if they knew.
A solution is offered in “Exporting Harm,” but, ultimately,
the weight of the problem rests on our shoulders. If consumers demand
eco-friendly E-stuff, companies will make them. But until then, the
incentive’s not there, and another ship of waste has just embarked
for China.
The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has a “Clean Computer Campaign”
with information about various campaigns and computer products with
“green design” that are on the market, as well as a “report
card” scoring how socially responsible the major brands are. See
www.svtc.org or call
(408) 287-6707.
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