Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Ted Smith, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, 760 N. First Street, San Jose, CA 95112, 408-287-6707, tsmith@svtc.org

Many people are still surprised to learn that environmental degradation and occupational health hazards are significant parts of high-tech manufacturing. Although most consumers are eager to enjoy their latest electronic gadgets, few relate the declining prices of these and other electronic technologies to the labor of Third World women, who are paid pennies a day. Fewer still realize that these amazingly powerful devices harm the workers who produce them and pollute the surrounding communities' air and water. Consumers are also unaware that their old, obsolete goods add to the mountains of toxic electronic junk piling up around the world, and are likewise clueless about the fact that most electronics gadgets are assembled under working conditions as dangerous as those in the early industrial era in Europe and the United States. The reason for this widespread ignorance is that the health and ecological footprints of the global electronics industry remain largely hidden from view. Electronics manufacturing has contaminated its workers as well as the air, land, and water of communities wherever these firms are located and wherever their wastes accumulate. Just as harmful are the endemic social inequalities and economic stratification that these firms promote, as many production workers – mostly young women -- live in large, densely packed dormitories and other substandard, crowded forms of housing. A growing global movement of environmental and occupational health professionals, labor and consumer activists, and many others are joining together to address these Issues and to promote a more sustainable electronics industry.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn about learn about the state and extent of health studies in the electronics industry.
• Participants will learn about learn about the challenges to doing health studies in electronics industry.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation