Blogpost 5/Discussion 10 Overall, 2nd Round for Group 4: eWaste

I watched the Frontline video on Ghana for this discussion:

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground. Frontline World. PBS, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html>.

 Questions/Ideas:

1.      [See 15:00 mins to 16:00 mins] A Chinese eWaste broker makes some statements on why the "recycling" is being done the way it is. He flat-out admits that it is hurting the environment, but also said that “I can only say one thing, if you want to do it environmentally, you have to pay. They have to invest in machinery, labor, everything. It isn’t worth it to pay so much money,”[PBS]. He also says to think about how China is a developing country and that "sacrifices" need to be made to "develop", as well as that it is "contained". 

•       Does the broker have a viable defense/reason for what he is doing/helping happen?  

•    Is there any way to fix this situation?                
• ·   [See approximately the first 5 mins of the Frontline video, and then this]:               

[Really the whole WALL-E movie fits with this topic of eWaste, but does go far beyond just this issue.]

Are we heading down the same road in our own universe? Can eWaste really be "contained" to a certain area?

3. The India portion of the Frontline video [about 16 mins in] argues that waste that waste can't        simply be contained. The country is now both mass producing and "recycling" [as well as some legitimate recycling] eWaste. I'd imagine China is doing the same now [the video was clearly made a while ago.]  What are we going to do once the eWaste "consumers" all become significant producers? Do we turn into WALL-E's world?

4. The Frontline video also exposes major security issues arising from leftover files on hard drives. A defense contractor's military contract was found on one of the report's test-purchased hard drives in Ghana. Here I would like to argue that better hard drive and other tech redesigns  are needed controlling eWaste. I have personally had several hard drives randomly fail while they were brand new [Seagates]. Once that hard drive fails, you can likely still read data, but you will not be able to write or change it, see the difference between a DVD-R[Read with 1 initial write] and a DVD-RW [Read/Write]. It is more difficult to change something than read it [RW's are much more expensive, especially Blu-rays].

• That said, would you be willing to spend more on hard drives[I'm talking 2x or more if you want to go to solid states] and other electronics if it could do one or more of the following:?
• Automatically clears all data if it fails [or think it fails] [note a miss-fail could still format it when it is still functional]
• Was guaranteed to be legitimately Eco-friendly, and recyclable. [3-6x as expensive]
• Sabotage your battery life on a phone , tablet, or laptop (4 hrs if you are lucky),  but keep the same price level in order to be more eco-friendly, 

                       or

• Carry around a phone that weighs 3 or more pounds, but with an eco-friendly battery  and the same price point?
• Same battery level as now, but 3x as expensive[but eco-friendly].

• The problem with any of the above mentioned changes though is that it would bring back manufacturing to Global North aka First World, but that creates another social justice issue. You would then have semi-educated Global South people, but they would lose their somewhat budding purchasing power as foreign investment left. 
• And without purchasing power, ordinary people do not have a say in a capitalistic/capitalistic-like[China] government, since every definition of Utopian capitalism relies on the notion of the free market running itself and evolving due to consumer's power to choose what kinds of goods and services they buy. Without purchasing power, producers have no desire or reason to innovate because their isn't any real chance for growth, and thus you end up with dead end, monopolies/duopolies, which quickly turn true to semi to kinda democracies into oligarchies[another idea shown in WALL-E].    

Works Cited

"EasyBib: The Free Automatic Bibliography Composer." EasyBib. Imagine Easy, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://easybib.com/cite/view>.

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground. Frontline World. PBS, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.   <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html>.

WALL•E Movie. "WALL∙E’s “Day At Work”." WALL∙E’s “Day At Work” - Youtube. Disney∙Pixar on Youtube, 26 June 2008. Web. 03 Oct. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHH3iSeDBLo>.