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Flint michigan water crisis essay
Flint michigan water crisis essay
A speech on electronic waste
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E-waste is affecting our environment due to the amount of technology we throw away daily, such as the chemicals from these devices gets into the air we breathe. When we look at the topic about environmental justice, we can see how this is shown by events like the Flint Water Crisis. Which is a concurrent event in Flint, Michigan that has affected many due to there being no clean drinking water because of lead poisoning from pipes. Another example is how there are not that many local fresh food markets in America and other world countries which have kept people away from the healthy food causing the rate of obesity to skyrocket. Although these are only a few situations of environmental crisis, I would like to get into how our phones could be
The water crisis in Flint Michigan began as early as was as April of 2014. The crisis is concerning a small town called Flint, located at the bottom right of michigan were the majority of the population is African American. The issue began when the town 's water supply witch in past use to come from the detroit river water supply was switched over to the Flint river water supply. People soon began to complain about the taste, smell, and color of the tap water, and of symptoms such as hair loss and rashes from bathing in the water. Even though there were many signs that the water was indeed contaminated, such as when a General Motors plant in Flint stopped using municipal water in October of 2014, claiming that it corroded car parts, the government officials stated that the water was not a threat to the public 's health and safety. However it was later revealed that the water was in fact unhealthy, and contained too much lead. The issue was brought to the eyes of the public when Lee Anne Walters, a Flint resident. This mother of four had seen her family suffer from various alarming symptoms, including abdominal pains, hair loss, and rashes; she also has a son who showed signs of developmental problems. She decided to switch her family to bottled water, and the symptoms abated. Finally, in February of 2015, she demanded that the city test the tap water. A federal investigation was launched and the results came back shocking. The water was extremely toxic containing 400 parts per billion of lead. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, but the maximum allowed by law is 15 parts per billion. Virginia Tech professor and engineer Marc Edwards, an expert on municipal w...
The Flint water crisis would be one of the most critical things today in michigan. It’s critical for young children not to get lead exposure they should be screened from the lead and lead levels in children's bodies as well. (National Center for Healthy Housing) The water needs to be treated with which it will increase the corrosiveness and potentially further erode any lead piping. (Duke) The People in Flint are a facing with not be able to drink water, and shower. All of these things that happened are critical factors of what is happening in the Flint water crisis today. (Reveal)
In the article entitled, “Our Cell Phones Ourselves”, Christine Rosen describes how cell phones have changed the way we communicate. Rosen tells the readers the main purpose for cell phone use in the past, versus present day. Her purpose is to make society aware of how cell phones have influenced our lives in order to inspire change as to how we view our cell phones. Rosen directs her writing to everyone in the present day by describing the negative results of cell phone use and how it impacts our lives and those around us. Without a doubt, cell phones are going to be a part of our world, but it is the responsibility of every cell phone owner to exercise self control and understand that a cell phone is nothing more than a device.
Even though electronic waste contributes one percent of waste as discussed earlier, it poses a significant threat to the environment. “RCRA does not, however, cover electronic waste except CRTs, nor does it regulate electronic devices donated for educational or charitable reuse.” The RCRA should implement rules to govern e-waste because e-waste not only affects lives in the United States, It affects everyone globally. E-waste typically finds its ways out of the United States and ends up in developing countries like
The e-waste trade is an exploitative industry in which electronics, circuit boards, old TV’s and desktops that are of no more value, get dumped into third world countries such as Ghana, Vietnam, Malaysia, Pakistan, Hong Kong, and many others. The people of these third world countries than burn the electronics in order to collect the remains and scraps of copper and iron that can be sold for money. The smell and burning smolder of plastic from the computers and old TV’s are incredibly toxic, slowly killing the children, women, and men that burn these e-waste remains in order to create a living for themselves. Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Emile Durkheim all have theories that can be applied and related to this trade of e-waste. Adam Smith’s theory
The article “Our E-Waste Problem Is Ridiculous, and Gadget Makers Aren’t Helping” by Christina Bonnington explains that our landfills are being filled with unused electronics of yesteryear. In 2011, there were 41.5 million tons of electronic wastes in landfills. In 2016, they projected the number to go up to 93.5 million tons. Specifically, our old products are in landfills now such as, HP computers, computer towers, cell phones, and batteries. The reason for all the waste is the human race is buying the newest electronics and not disposing of their unused and unwanted electronics properly. Also, not all of the unused electronics are recyclable. E-waste has a huge negative effect while in landfills because electronics breakdown and they breakdown
Capitalism in its purest form is all about maximizing profit at whatever the cost to the workers, economy or environment. In this light capitalism can be viewed as a double-edged sword, in which a company in a capitalistic economy will avoid extra cost at any chance possible even if that means the illegal disposal of harmful secondhand electronics avoiding all the rules and regulations that would make disposal cost extra called E-Waste, to impoverished countries such as China and Ghana. But this in turn hurts the very people that make the system work, which is the second contradiction of capitalism; with the improper disposal of waste that in turns make the workers sick, they then work less or potentially die, but a workers death in underdeveloped countries will have less of an affect on the economy “Because wage structures are lowest in less developed countries, pollution would mean fewer losses in earnings due to morbidity and mortality” (Robbins et al. 2010, 97). And the prime example of the damage that E-waste is causing is in Guiyu, China where irreversible damage has been done to the entire community because of failure to properly dispose of electronics by countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia has led to a surplus of harmful obsolete electronics that have flooded underdeveloped countries all in the name of saving money and avoiding the regulations set about by the U.S. government.
On this day, the FBI begin investigation into the Flint Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan; but what was the Flint Water Crisis? What started it? Does it still affect us today? These questions are still being asked, but some people may have the answer.
Daily consumers are confronted with advertising campaigns trying to lure their slightly used electronic devices into retirement by being swayed into upgrading to the most recent model. A 2007 study conduct in the United States revealed “500 million used cell phones that are stockpiled in closets and drawers will eventually end up in landfills as electronic waste (E-Waste).” As E-Waste continues to spread across the globe it is growing faster than leaves can grow on trees and it is posing a threat to human health and the environment (E-Cycle).” Consumers recycling cell phones to reuse materials is environmentally and socially beneficial in reducing E-Waste.
The e-waste brings money but also brings problems to the developing countries. In the documentary “Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia”, the environment of a village named Guiyu in China was seen severely contaminated and people living in that village faced with deadly health problems. Workers in Guiyu do not have any skills and equipment to handle and process the e-waste. They simply use their hands to take out the copper and silicon, dilute the mercury and scrap down the lead. Displayer, wires and electronic parts were discarded everywhere and waited for burning. They can’t breathe the air, drink the water and the blood of children is laced with death. When asked why they choose to work in such a condition, the workers answered that they have no choice and they either live with poverty or they live with poison. In another report “iPhone Made in China” truth found among workers who suffer from disease in a bad working condition is quite surprising. They said they had lung infections and their
The Flint Water Crisis started in 2014 when officials decided to use water from the Flint River while building a pipeline that would supply water at a later time. This decision was not based on what was best for the residents in Flint, Michigan, but about saving money for a city that was in a financial turmoil. Immediately after the switch from Lake Huron in Detroit to the Flint River, residents started having complaints of smell and taste. It was later discovered that the new water source was delivering high levels of lead in the drinking water. Which eventually led to “President Obama declaring it a federal state of emergency in January 2016” (Durando, 2016).
The effects of technology on society will always be a double edged sword. The debate is a never ending one, in which both sides have valid and compelling arguments. The Industrial Revolution reduced manual labor in the long run, but had negative consequences such as child labor and sweatshop conditions. Nuclear Power reduces the cost of producing energy, but raises serious environmental issues like pollution and radiation. In this day in age refusing to assimilate to at least some form of modern living is simply not an option. One invention causing controversy today that has yet to cease being alter, modified, and “improved” since its debut is the ever present cell phone.
In old batteries, there is a toxic lead that is causing health problems for the Taiwan people who are disposing these batteries (Gay, 12). Space is becoming a landfill from the excess of space flights and the radioactive supplies from nuclear reactors, which could come to our atmosphere and explode (Gay, 13). When businesses run out of space to dump their toxic trash they go to poor nations because they do not have strict safety regulations (Gay, 31). The landfills on Earth are not the only place trash is getting put. The ocean is being trashed with plastic bags, soda can holders, and large fishnets, which are harming dolphins, turtles, sea lions, and others (Gay, 69). Military bases in the U.S have more hazardous waste and are responsible for contamination in soil and waters (Gay, 83). There are other hazards happening because we are throwing away so much stuff that companies have to remake all of those products. Incinerators are places where waste is burned to ashes and if we recycle these can go away. Incinerators cause sulfur dioxide, carbon m...
E-waste also known as electronic waste describes discarded electronic devices. There are various ways of managing e waste. E waste poses a lot of danger to the environment. E-Waste accounts for 40 percent of the lead and 75 percent of the heavy metals found in land fills, this may lead to the water being contaminated
“Our E-Waste Problem is Ridiculous and Gadget Makers Aren’t Helping” written by Christina Bonnington focus on what dangerous and damaging affects e-waste has on the environment caused by gadget makers. Accordingly over forty million tons of the electronic devices, where a great fraction of the waste ending up in the landfills. For this reason, many of the chemicals in the electronics eventually seeps in the water supply. Although, it is not assume instantly as horrific, numerous chemicals in these devices are hazardous such as mercy, lead, and arsenic. This means the toxic chemicals are putting people and the landscape in danger. Meanwhile, damaged batteries that are in the electronics could cause an explosion, putting worker at risk whom remove