Greenpeace has been investigating the immoral and illegal e-waste dumping in developing countries since 2002. Here are some videos from E-waste. While we all advocate for more IT, at least students of BMGT 301-SG93 understand the sensitive issue of e-waste vis. a vis. more use of IT. Here are some videos from Greenpeace. Some are heart touching !
2 comments:
Great movies, Jiban.
"should we be responsible for the climate for the next generation?"
Should we be responsible? Sure, it is our waste after all. But as for what we should do with it, we should just leave it to the free market to decide (check out my blog for explanation "on the virtues of profit" http://lifeandecon.blogspot.com/). When the cost of waste becomes burdensome, market forces will compel a cleanup. Until then, the benefits of waste far exceed the costs.
One approach would be to address issues which are the root cause. Moore's Law seems to be a big problem. There is a perverse incentive in the market which pits firms against one another in an arms race to produce the fastest processor possible. This of course creates a large amount of waste. Some firms, like Apple, choose quality over quantity. Instead of bringing together independent components and integrating them into one PC, Apple designs every aspect of each component to function in harmony with one another. Often, Apple forgoes the "fastest" processors for ones which are reliable and work well with one another. This avoids the problem you mentioned in class, where the processing power of CPU's aren t fully implemented because supporting chips don't keep pace. The outcome: a computer which has a longer life than most, which in the end reduces waste. I think that other firms will see Apple's success and try to offer cheaper computers which are just as reliable and long-lifed.
-Shahin
It's amazing that these people work in this polluted environment. I don't know how they breath, let alone work. So said, everyone should rethink if they really need a new laptop,tv, ipod etc.
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