The tragic costs of e-waste

as we begin the busiest time of year  for shopping and gift giving you may   be thinking about a new phone or laptop  this morning Seth Doane asks at what cost these are not the images we see in the  glossy advertisements enticing us to buy a new   cell phone laptop or TV but this should be part  of the picture because this is where many of our   electronics wind up strewn in mountains of garbage  across acres of land with tens of thousands of   people sifting through it in places like this  the African nation of Ghana we think a lot about   where products come from when we buy them less  so about where they go when we're finished one   researcher told us when we throw things away well  this is away it's also home for Mohammed Awal who   supports his mother and four kids by working  despite the risks here in this city of waste   in Ghana's Capital Accra what happens to your  body in doing this work if you see my body cut a   wound yeah you see there's another scar there this  dangerous difficult and yes Dirty Work is called   Urban mining it's all about extracting something  usable from the world's discarded electronic they do it because there's treasure here recovered  in this case by sawing a monitor circuit board   incredibly there's 100 times more gold in a ton  of smartphones than a ton of gold ore but finding   it comes with a real cost it's hazardous work and  safety equipment is not exactly standard children   children as young as 10 toil and sometimes  live amid this toxic garbage desperate for a   meager payday you're selling this this is all  copper Abdullah Illias endures the sweltering   heat to pluck out tiny pieces of copper so this is  maybe worth $3 the UN figures we produce around 50   million tons of electronic waste or e-waste every  year and this is is not what's supposed to happen   to it only 20% is formally recycled the vast  majority winds up in landfills or is dealt with   informally these places wouldn't exist without  the demand for the materials they extracts Muntaka   Chasant has been documenting the lives of those  living on the margins here what cannot be Pride   out is often burned to extract minerals one of  the ramifications of this is lead exposure among   Urban poor children but he urged us to see this  place with Nuance the reality is a murky polluted   gray e-waste provides opportunities for upward  social Mobility you're saying you can't just look   at this as all bad because this is creating jobs  absolutely but this is also dangerous polluting   the environment Seth we've been having this  same conversation for more than a decade now   and absolutely nothing has changed well we've  been talking someone set a fire here you look   at the pollution that goes into the sky behind  you yes this is what people in accra have been   living with and just across here is the largest  open Food Market in the city when you burn a lot   of chemicals are released poisonous chemicals  Anita Asimo is an environmental chemist at   Ghana's atomic energy commission she's not only a  scientist I me a mother myself and I wouldn't want   to give poisonous substances to my baby she'd seen  the smoke wafting over homes and markets and food   is regularly sold in the open at the dump so Anita  Asamoah whether those toxins were so pervasive   that they were even getting into the breast milk  of mothers what did you find when you examine this   breast milk PCBs these are poisonous substances  which can result in death which can result in   diseases like Cancers and infants are even more  susceptible to these chemicals these burdens are   the consequence of consumption in a much richer  West what you see here is the the result of the   very very short kind of Cycles we have in using  stuff you buy something you use it you throw   it away and you throw it away boss unable argues  producers need to consider a product's end of life   when designing it right now we're incentivized  to throw away stuff because it's cheaper to   buy a new one than actually have it repaired Bas  van Abel is a Dutch activist turned entrepreneur   whose investigations into mining practices led  him to start a company called fairphone its aim   is to create a more sustainable phone and cut  down on scenes like these unfortunately for   and electronics are designed in a way that you  can't really reuse components and parts of it so   what happens is that this whole product basically  goes into the oven and you burn it and you get the   minerals out of it it's a very stupid process  what do you mean stupid process well it's it's   you know it's kind of stupid to put something in  an incinerator that's that's put so much effort   into making most of the footprint of a phone is  in the making of it so the best thing is to keep   it as long as possible it's a bit thicker than  he showed us his fair phone which he Likens to   Legos because of its removable modular Parts pops  right off yours to open yours to keep the battery   is not glued in making it simple and inexpensive  to recycle or replace it's the same for the camera   lens and Screen fairphone which just launched in  the US and sells for up to $700 a piece has half a   million customers worldwide proof of concept they  say Americans on average upgrade their cell phone   every 2 and 1/2 years Fairphones under warranty  for five if you use your phone twice as long you   need to produce only half the amount of phones  and you have half the amount of electronic waste   it's a very simple calculation imprecise methods  of recycling produce more waste which bleaches   into the Earth Here pollutants and microplastics  run into a nearby River in the ocean on the beach   we found Plastics that were not exactly micro oh  our Nets fishermen told us how their Nets tear   because now their Catch of the Day often includes  E-Waste the refrigerators the laptops it shouldn't   be around the ocean causes harm it's your waste  so don't just shift your waist to us and tell us   that it's second hand you can use it come inside  Vincent Kyere calls himself The Graduate scrap   dealer he's a PhD who's been studying this dump in  the old one nearby known as Agbogbloshie for more   than a decade I think a lot of people will watch  this and be upset but also feel powerless what   can people consumers a world away do I believe  strongly that those who are producing this when   they put this materials on their Market they are  responsible for the end of life we reached out to   Apple the largest mobile phone seller in the US  Apple did not make someone available to talk with   us for this story but Samsung one of the largest  electronics manufacturers in the world invited   us to their store in Palo Alto California where  does the responsibility lie here in Ghana we hear   it's the producer I think every uh party in the  entire value chain has some responsibility Mark   Newton is the head of corporate sustainability at  Samsung us he says every product is designed with   the ultimate end of life life in mind this doesn't  look like a place that's encouraging me to hold on   to my phone longer it looks like some place that's  encouraging me to buy a new phone well of course   we want to excite you with the newest technology  but what's cool now we're making our highest   performing products with 20% recycled Plastics 20%  recycled glass 20% recycled Metals in the back of   this store there's the first stage of a recycling  operation Samsung takes back Electronics of any   brand Samsung has recycling centers International  in something like 50 countries but in Africa the   only one is in South Africa why not in Ghana  Nigeria these places where we know the need   really exists I think that we're really leaning  into that now so we've fairly recently recognized   that and in in made a significant commitment to  expand our collection Network globally but this   recycling effort is largely self- policed in  the United States us the most wasteful country   per capita on Earth is not part of this very  treaty America has not ratified an agreement   that 191 other countries support Bas convention  is the treaty that was supposed to deal with this   phenomenon of hazardous waste suddenly flowing to  developing countries and there is a strong Lobby   that is happy to have no trade restrictions on  waste Jim Puckett founded the basel Action Network   a watchdog Group which pushes for proper recycling  once the rich countries realized oh my God we got   a problem with hazardous waste the price went  up for properly managing it and so the export   trade took off sending tons of hazardous waste to  the developing World much of it getting through   customs under the guise of being repairable why  Ghana we have issues of compliance and enforcement   open the truck Vincent Kyere now runs a recycling  initiative Mountain Research Institute at the   dump site this is a small project but it is one  possible solution they buy cables to incentivize   people not to burn them there is a real gray  area here these are important jobs these are   livelihoods should I sit down and not eat because  if I bend somebody will die if I don't bend I will   also die so it was not a question of why don't you  close down the place it was rather a question of   how do you do this better this metal can be reused  Kyere's group is now building a partnership with   fairphone bas van abel started focusing on the  problems of mining these materials on the front   end wound up realizing much more can be done to  save what's already been pulled from the earth   the whole energy transition needs all these  minerals that are found in mines so the best   thing to do is also to make sure that we can get  recycled sources so that we don't get the minerals   only from mines but actually take it back from  the products that we already use it's all about   mining the precious materials we've carelessly  cast aside and managing our garbage with less [Music] waste [Music]

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 137,945

Keywords: Hazardous Waste, Sunday Morning, Technology, World

Id: 4GtWGHvX-rk

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2023