Salon’s How the World Works blog writes about Michael Zhao’s eDump documentary:
A lifetime of blog posts decrying the environmental toll of high-tech industrial production does not begin to approach the impact of Michael Zhao‘s 20-minute documentary on the processing of e-waste in Guiyu, China. The images are extraordinary and unforgettable. The land, air, and water of Guiyu, a town in Guangdong province that imports a million tons of e-waste a year, are polluted beyond redemption. There are points where Zhao has to stop filming because he cannot physically stand the fumes — the air “permeated with the smell of baked plastics and burnt circuitry.”
Responsibility for the debacle that is Guiyu rests on many Chinese shoulders, from local officials in China who profit off a toxic disaster zone to the central government officials powerless to enforce their own environmental decrees. But the United States cannot escape its own share of shame. [Full text]
