Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Final Version


As the development of modern technologies, more and more semi-conductor based high tech products are being used in our daily life. Usually, the semi-conductor industry was called “Clean Industry”, because the products must be made in a professional clean house. However, most of these products are thrown after their life circle. Toxins in these trashes are normally lead, mercury, chromium, arsenide, and indium. As chemistry research showed, these elements are considered to be unhealthy for human. A Certain amount of these elements will cause serious diseases. This is the dark secret of the “Clean Industry”.

A computer may spend its working days in a comfortable office or in a computer lab. But the work behind most PCs is done in China. And most PC factories locate in the Pearl River Delta of Southern China. Unfortunately, this region has also become dumping ground for high tech trashes. In some cities of the region, cheap labors from country side are paid to open and sort the parts of different products like TVs, monitors, and keyboards. They burn cables to get copper. Air is polluted by burning plastic shield of the cables. They put the circuit boards and chips in acid to get gold. Then they will dump the acid into a nearby river. Soil and water are polluted by metal toxins.

Now it is the time for us to face the problem and stop this crisis in Southern China.
(Well, metal pollution is always a problem in this world. It remembers me a song:
No-one can destroy the metal
The metal will strike you down with a vicious blow
We are the vanquished foes of the metal
We tried to win for why we do not know
)

6 comments:

Ken Yeo said...

What an Insight! Very interesting article...

liu lihui said...

True, we always expect to improve our life by using high tech products. However, these activities eventually result in pollutions, which threatens our future. To live a sustainalbe life is actually the way to live a better life.

Brad Blackstone said...

Is this still a first draft?

Brad Blackstone said...

We will look at this "final" draft in class. Thanks for your hard work, Guo Cheng! I appreciate your insights!

liu lihui said...

please add me and arron on your msn! quick~!!!!!

Aaron Zhao (EG1471) said...

People are "lazy", that's why they invented cars. High-tech products brought convenience but also brought pollutions...