The Island of Misfit Toys

This past Sunday, when 60 Minutes aired a piece about the forsaken places that our old electronics go when we throw them away, I was reminded of the old Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer claymation holiday special about the Island of Misfit toys. In the special, the Island of Misfit toys was a place all of the old and unwanted children’s toys ended up years after Santa brought them shiny and new to children around the world. The island, was a scary and desolate place, filled with throw away toys far from the warm homes and loving arms of their former owners.

In the 60 Minutes special we’re taken to Guiyu, China a hot bed of the world’s illegal electronic waste trade. Here old, computers, ipods, CRT TVs and cell phones are melted down and scrapped for the precious metals they contain: gold, copper, cadmium, lead and more. The process is deceivingly simple, If there is a circuit board involved, heat it over an open coal fire to melt off the lead solder, if there’s gold plating on circuits, use a mix of volatile acids to leach the gold out. And for what’s left, just burn the plastic casings and then retrieve the metal skeletons that remain. But in addition to precious metals, the process also unleashes some of the most toxic and harmful chemicals known to man.

"Lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, polyvinyl chlorides. All of these materials have known toxicological effects that range from brain damage to kidney disease to mutations, cancers," Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and authority on waste management at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explained.

The consequences of these activities have manifested themselves in Guiyu. Not only are the workers of Guiyu’s toxic illegal recycling yards exposed to these chemicals, but also the town itself. According to the piece, the town’s water supply is too contaminated to drink from and fresh water must be trucked in daily. But even that has a limited preventative effect, as 70 percent of the town’s children have been found to have too much lead in their blood stream.

American companies are forbidden from exporting e-waste abroad and even in China, these activities are illegal under the Basel Treaty, an agreement that was supposed to stop rich countries from dumping their waste in poorer countries. But as the town of Guiyu exemplifies, the enforcement of international law is many times limited and much of the e-waste that ends up in Guiyu, comes right from our own dumpsters. The piece profiles so-called “ethical recyclers” like Executive Recycling of Englewood, Colorado that hold e waste recycling drives in towns all across America promising an eco-friendly demise to last season’s hot electronics. What’s more, some of these recyclers even charge a disposal fee for their services and then wash their hands of the waste as it’s loaded on the next boat to Hong Kong to the Island of Misfit Toys.

So as the holidays approach, you too may be thinking about that new iPhone G3 you hope to get this year. But before you run off to the Apple store and fork over $300 plus for that new gadget, take a minute to pay homage to your current cell phone. It deserves a proper burial, far from the Island of Misfit Toys in Guiyu. For a list of approved e-waste recyclers, visit: http://www.e-stewards.org/