The Story of Electronics (2010)

The Story of Electronics, releasing Tuesday, NOVEMBER 9, employs the Story of Stuff style to explore the high-tech revolution's collateral damage—25 million tons of e-waste and counting, poisoned workers and a public left holding the bill. Host Annie Leonard takes viewers from the mines and factories where our gadgets begin to the horrific backyard recycling shops in China where many end up. The film concludes with a call for a green 'race to the top' where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products that are fully and easily recyclable.

Our production partner on the electronics film is the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which promotes green design and responsible recycling in the electronics industry.

And, for all you fact checkers out there,
http://www.storyofstuff.org/2011/02/13/story-of-electronics/

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• story of electronics
• electronics takeback coalition
• e-waste
• coltan
• electronics
• ewaste
• electronics takeback
• EPR
• producer takeback
• e-steward
• etbc
• SOS
• HR 6252

[kaleidomagic]

YES! I want a universal charger! They don't need to make all the different plugs to charge something with 9 volts. OK, if it is a 5 volt charge fine, but not an different charger for each 5 volt device!!!!!!

[BlueStrikeP]

@rourin this comment speaks loads about how much you understand design.

as a designer, let me assure you, this would do everything but what you said.

[Charlesperalo]

Alright this women tries to get these videos shown in the classroom including my own classroom. So I'm a 17 year old senior in high school who has a startup that was just accepted into a tech incubator in Manhattan. We raised 60k in capital and have an office. This is due to the tech world she insults. My town is a poor upstate New York dump and communicating on smart phones and macs was how I got here. Her world would have kept me locked up.

[Charlesperalo]

@kaleidomagic Well look I'm sorry, but we don't need a government saying what kind of charger we should have. Also phones do work differently and it's a matter of branding, new technologies and more.

[MrJasonekos]

only ignorant people who don't know how to fix and handle technology throw out alot of their "new stuff" after a couple of months. Oh and I love how she just loosely throws around the word "toxic" as if everything made with the chemicals is toxic... plus she never specifies in what quantities because the concentration is what makes something dangerous or not, in addition to the fact toxins and poisons have to actually enter the body -- its not like i rip open my laptop and eat the battery acid.

[deathlogic1]

@kaleidomagic you can blame patent laws and the government to regulates that ............

[Coeurebene1]

My PC is 7 years old, I just changed the graphics card last year and can still use the latest video games. Electronic design is not that bad, and you also have to see that the technology changes really fast.

The problem is more on the producers side (toxicity, bad recycling) and on the consumer side (do you REALLY need that new fancy cell phone ?).

[ALOWGAMING]

I agree :) :):)

[ebokenWokademobiler]

Well performed. Read a fiction novel on the topic: "Wokade mobiler". If your Swedish is up to it.

:-) /Carl

[eviltechnology]

@Cameronallanowens you missed it to. look at it this way. you buy a new car for 20.000$, you drive it for a while and something broke. you go to the repair shop and they want to charge you for the repair 25.000$. how can changing one part of the machine be more expensive then whole new machine?

[phr0gpheatherz]

If indeed processor speed doubles every 18 months, your designed to last computer

in just 4.5 years will be only 1% as fast as the new stuff. maybe people can deal with that, but in a system where the new web-pages require the power & processing speed of state of the art, a behind the times machine would simply NOT have access to the state-of-the-art web sites. oops ... oh well ... now what?

[cgmp84]

This video doesn't take in account that people are throwing away perfectly usable stuff all the time. Also modularity is already in most electronic gadgets, you can repair anything if you want (and if you are ready to shell out some money), but people prefer to buy a new computer rather than repair an old one.