The last two chapters of Pellow present some startling problems as well as good possibilities of justice to occur. The presentation in Chapter 6 on E-waste was very interesting because it was the first time I have ever heard of the problems with electronic dumping and deconstruction. The information in this chapter along with a 60 minutes presentation showed in another class on the problem of electronic dumping have really made me reconsider my use of electronics. I have had the same phone for about 2 years now, but before that I went through about 7 in the previous 2 years because I was constantly dropping or losing phones. Up until now I was proud of myself for not getting a new phone because it meant I didn’t have to spend more money. Now however I realize just how convenient our society has become and how costly that convenience is to the rest of the world. It is incredibly easy for someone to break, lose, or just replace an electronic device and it is relatively inexpensive. Just last February I bought my first laptop and was very excited for the change from a desktop. It removed all the previous limits my desktop created and has proven to be the best buy for a while now. I can take my work anywhere on campus and even home whenever I choose. Also, I don’t have to worry about fighting people for time on the computer or have to remember the small flash drives which hold my work, and can take games along with me to entertain me be it between classes or just when I am bored at home or at school.
What I didn’t realize was that my cool new laptop contains some of the most toxic chemicals known to man and has been made off the backs of children and underpriviledged people across the globe. Also, if I ever decide to get a new laptop I have to deal with the knowledge that my old laptop could be shipped across the globe to China or some other Indonesian country where it will contribute to the poisoning of some small community.
Pellow does provide some hope for the world of global environmental justice in the attempt to frame the issues as human rights violations. These have proven the best ways to motivate people into action and have historically proven very successful at creating great amounts of change in otherwise stubborn societies. By bringing the humanity of the problems into the light, TSMOs and human rights activists are showing that it is people who are being effected by our own convenient lifestyles. It is people who are suffering at my expense. Before it was always, someone else who had to deal with problems, now it is a face. Now it is a community that I have both seen and heard from. Now there is a log in my conscience that will twinge every time I consider getting the hottest phone, game system, or computer.
