Cell Phone Pollution
It was only a matter of time before we started hearing about this, I suppose. (Yes, I know: it’s another salon.com link. I’ll stop soon I promise.)
Study: Discarded cellphones harmful
By H. Josef Hebert, Salon.com
(AP) –A new kind of cell phone pollution – and this one is silent.
Within three years, Americans will discard about 130 million cellular telephones a year, and that means 65,000 tons of trash, including toxic metals and other health hazards, a study says.
“Because these devices are so small, their environmental impacts might appear to be minimal,” says Bette Fishbein, a researcher at Inform, an environmental research organization, who wrote the report.But, she says, the growth in cell phone use has been so rapid and enormous “that the environmental and public health impacts of the waste they create are a significant concern.”
The article goes on to mention toxins such as arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc which are known to be responsible for cancer and neurological diseases. Oh, joy.
It also reports that Australia has initiated a cell phone recycling programme, and that the EU is considering manufacturers to bear the cost of dealing with electronic product waste (can’t you just see the industry lobbyists gearing up for this one?).
Perhaps a more rational approach would be for the cost to be jointly borne by both manufacturers and consumers (if not consumers alone). Until we really understand the true cost of our purchases, it strikes me that we’ll never really pay attention to these crucial issues.
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2002.05.08 (Wed) • 17:37
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