The Sad Story Behind our Favorite Devices

LIBSYN BULLETS

Ted Smith of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT.co) explains what consumers can do to call the electronics industry to account to lessen the human and environmental costs of producing our favorite devices and operating our favorite online social networks. • Silicon Valley contains the largest concentration of EPA Superfund clean-up sites of toxic contaminants in the nation (29 sites) • Why the electronics industry is far from being clean or green • Your mobile phone contains 60 different metals, many of them toxic • Making one computer chip requires 630 times its weight in fossil fuel and chemicals • Mining accounts for much environmental damage (Animus River toxic sludge from gold mine) • Exporting device assembly to other countries has pushed the cost in human health and life to communities without the ability to protect themselves or their environment • You can read and endorse the Challenge to the Global Electronics Industry bit.ly/challengehightech • Consumer purchasing power is another tool to help right these wrongs • [insert episode link]