Agbogbloshie is a part of an emergent globalised scrap economy that links peripheral markets to global metal flows. In this post, Dagna Rams argues for the need to pay closer attention to the flow of recuperated metals out of Agbogbloshie.
This is a Twitter essay by Josh Lepawsky (@rubbishmaker) about one of many recent examples of reporting on the e-waste trade. Many of the problems specific to the article considered here can be found in a wide variety of reportage about the international waste trade more generally.
The US ‘tech sector’ has been a major source of toxicant releases. These interactive maps show the chemical legacy of electronic manufacturing in the US.
Are you an artist, musician, hacker, tinkerer, or generally a curious person, between 18 and 24 years?
What is the role of software in planned obsolescence and waste? It may play a greater role than hardware…
Repair and waste share many points of convergence from an analytical perspective (as well as a practical one!). Continent has just released a special issue all about repair:
A walk down this little street in Peru’s capital provides a glimpse into an understated network that quietly plays a critical role in reducing the environmental impacts of our global production and consumption patterns of electronic devices.
The lead researcher on a seminal work mapping the international traffic of e-waste responds to criticism of his research on material flows.
There is little evidence that transnational shipments of “e-waste” derive from attempts by exporters to elude strict environmental regulations and indicate rather that global flows are mainly driven by the quest for working or repairable secondhand devices, spare parts and recyclable materials.
“When recycling is framed as the solution to waste problems, as it so often is in the case of e-waste, both the problem and the solution are mismatched. Recycling post-consumer commodities will do nothing to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions (or any other wastes) arising during manufacturing, long before we purchase that which we will later throwaway or recycle.” Instead, we need to look at slowing production if we want to make an impact on electronic waste.
