As website Spoon University notes, only a fraction of the parts saved from the disassembled devices gets reused. It's what happens to the other parts that's causing a problem.
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The skeletons and other pieces of the tech that the workers take apart (usually without any mouth or hand protection) usually end up just in big piles on the streets, or in waterways. Guiyu is now no longer functioning as an e-waste town, but it definitely isn’t the rice production hub that it was until the 2000’s. They’re now having water shipped in from 30k away, and extremely high levels of cadmium have been found in rice up to 400 kilometers away.
That’s where the big issue comes in. Not only is rice a major business for China, but it’s also many people’s main food group. People aren’t going to stop eating or farming rice because its often the main employment option, and it’s not just around Guiyu. High levels of arsenic, cadmium, and lead, have been found in rice all over China. All of these metals, when consumed, can have extremely detrimental health effects, and when I asked one of my professors in China what people were doing with the rice, he said, “In the South, they’re shipping it to the North. In the North, they’re shipping it to the South.”
According to the Beijing Environmental department, about 60% of Chinas waterways are “unfit for human contact”. Who here has seen a picture of the huge-ass bogs that rice grow in? Yeah, rice grows in big pools of water. Yikes. This contamination is not only due to e-waste, but the rapid industrialization in China and mining industries.
Wow!
We hadn't heard about this, but it's certainly scary. If it's this bad now, just think what could happen in 10, 15 or even 20 years! We'll be following this issue closely and hoping the problem doesn't get any worse.
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Article Source: Spoon University
I buy GRACE RICE !
Rice in our stores need to be marked with country of origion