- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Island Press (31 May 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1559635541
- ISBN-13: 978-1559635547
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 17 x 2.7 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,545,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
High Tech Trash
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Product Description
Review
"Grossman manages to create a coherent, informative and scary narrative out of the births and deaths of electronics from TVs and cell phones to computer monitors and iPods."
--Randy Dotinga"Wired" (06/22/2006)
--Randy Dotinga"Wired" (06/22/2006)
Product Description
The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But, as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a host of other often harmful ingredients. "High Tech Trash" is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in our landfills. But, the problem goes far beyond American shores, most tragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "recycled" - picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics. As Grossman notes, "This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story." The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But, in the United States, many have yet to recognize the persistent human health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If "Silent Spring" brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, "High Tech Trash" could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.
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6 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
An environmentalist with a sense of optimism
1 Jan 2007
Format:Hardcover
An eye opening account of just how much raw material it takes to make your favorite electronic gizmos and what can be done to reduce their environmental footprint. Normally books like this come off as scathing polemics; however, Grossman does an excellent job of explaining why things are the way they are, what recycling methods are working, and what can be done better. Perhaps the saddest fact of the entire book is just how recyclable modern electronic could be, and how little of them is actually recycled.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Comprehensive research-oriented account of electronic waste
9 Aug 2009
Format:Paperback
I recommend this book to anyone interested in an objective, complete account of the electronic circle: raw materials, manufacturing, and waste. Elizabeth Grossman follows the trail from the mining and semiconductor companies to the third world countries where our discarded laptops and iPods end up. Although the title and first chapter have a grim tone, the book does offer a lot of hope.
High Tech Trash makes a good companion piece to Elizabeth Royte's book,Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. Royte takes a much more personal approach to waste, writing very vivid descriptions of personalities and environments she encounters along the way. Grossman's work is more scientific and removed from the personal, attempting to fill every cranny with statistics and quotes. Although they are not exactly the same book, both cover common ground with differing styles that result in a complete picture of the US waste stream.
This makes High Tech Trash relevant to those who want to purely conduct research. I not only found out the exact chemical makeup of most motherboards but also their effects on the environment and human health. The author does a good job keeping her own personal feelings on a leash - a hard task to do when you swim through these kind of waters. Unlike the corporate demonizing that takes place in Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, High Tech Trash explores everyone's failures (governmental, social, corporate) to an exhaustive degree. This is the kind of book that will give you plenty to think about, a lot of anger over our current e-waste situation, but also plenty of ways to use that energy to improve our system and make things better.
High Tech Trash makes a good companion piece to Elizabeth Royte's book,Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. Royte takes a much more personal approach to waste, writing very vivid descriptions of personalities and environments she encounters along the way. Grossman's work is more scientific and removed from the personal, attempting to fill every cranny with statistics and quotes. Although they are not exactly the same book, both cover common ground with differing styles that result in a complete picture of the US waste stream.
This makes High Tech Trash relevant to those who want to purely conduct research. I not only found out the exact chemical makeup of most motherboards but also their effects on the environment and human health. The author does a good job keeping her own personal feelings on a leash - a hard task to do when you swim through these kind of waters. Unlike the corporate demonizing that takes place in Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, High Tech Trash explores everyone's failures (governmental, social, corporate) to an exhaustive degree. This is the kind of book that will give you plenty to think about, a lot of anger over our current e-waste situation, but also plenty of ways to use that energy to improve our system and make things better.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
One of my top ten (new list) for saving the planet
29 July 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Fairly quickly into this book I was comparing it to Silent Spring and to Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy.
This is a brilliant elegant work. If you agree with its premises it is a fast read, ending with an appendix on how to recycle electronic waste, and a truly superb bibliography. This is a serious book, a PhD level accomplishment, and totally objective and meritorious.
I am particularly impressed that Apple accepts its computer back for recycling in Japan, something we need to demand here. Indeed, if Apple and CISCO (for its routers and hubs) were to commit to total recycling, what is called for in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming and described in more detail in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things I for one would immediately switch my business and my office to iPhone, MacIntoch, and Open Office from Sun (on verge of being fully implementable within Apple's operating system).
Other books on my top ten:
Where to find 4 billion new customers: expanding the world's marketplace; Smart companies looking for new growth opportunities should consider broadening ... consultant.: An article from: The Futurist (Forthcoming as a book, see my keynote to Gnomedex, "Open Everything"
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System
Diet for a Small Planet
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
This is a brilliant elegant work. If you agree with its premises it is a fast read, ending with an appendix on how to recycle electronic waste, and a truly superb bibliography. This is a serious book, a PhD level accomplishment, and totally objective and meritorious.
I am particularly impressed that Apple accepts its computer back for recycling in Japan, something we need to demand here. Indeed, if Apple and CISCO (for its routers and hubs) were to commit to total recycling, what is called for in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming and described in more detail in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things I for one would immediately switch my business and my office to iPhone, MacIntoch, and Open Office from Sun (on verge of being fully implementable within Apple's operating system).
Other books on my top ten:
Where to find 4 billion new customers: expanding the world's marketplace; Smart companies looking for new growth opportunities should consider broadening ... consultant.: An article from: The Futurist (Forthcoming as a book, see my keynote to Gnomedex, "Open Everything"
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System
Diet for a Small Planet
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
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