wastelands

today’s AP story about the falseness of e-waste recycling is a little late, nevertheless it points out the important fact the electronics can’t really be recycled (much like other products), rather they’re burned and hacked apart to salvage what little precious metals they contain. the most important point of the article is that recycling of electronics – and everything in general – is about distance. the map above shows the probable paths of electronics waste: back to the developing countries where we manufacture and pollute. while it’s noble to return the materials to them, it points to the real motivation behind recycling: to eliminate waste from our lives by sending it so far away that we can almost never hear about it again.