[To go with this post on images of consumption and that post on what we eat in a week.]
"Each year, between 20 and 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated globally. Most of it winds up in the developing world."

Foreign Policy has a photo essay, "Inside the Digital Dump," about the ungodly mounds of electronic waste we ship over to China. Oh you should go take a gander. And I offer a few sample images here for the faint of clicking. They say, by way of preface, "Welcome to the digital dumping ground, where the poor make a living off other people's spare parts."



If you're looking for more on the subject check out Elizabeth Grossman's (2006) High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health and Giles Slade's (2006) Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. (Fancy that, here is a discussion between Grossman and Slade, at Grist; and here is a review of Grossman's book in the recent May 4th, 2007 issue of Science.) Both books offer more substance and detail than we're prepared to deal with.

Trying to find your way around this place? Like most expositions, we offer a map: 



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