Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
scope of the pollution produced, which hits the local workers and commu-
nities the hardest. h e environmental destructiveness that comes from
manufacturing is especially intensive in high-tech (as opposed to tradi-
tional) manufacturing. Traditional manufacturing is dirty in its own way,
but diff erent in type and health impact. h e air pollution in Shenzhen has
roots in manufacturing, coal power plants, auto emissions, and chemicals
released into the air from production processes. In 2003, Shenzhen had 131
days of smog in the year as coal power plants were not equipped to remove
smaller particles such as sulfur dioxide (which merge with H
2
O particles in
the atmosphere and create black acid rain). h is pollution is so strong that it
burns through car paint and hurts human skin. Factory pollution and the
population increases have transformed the water to a highly polluted water-
scape, as the economy has transformed from one based largely on freshwater
fi shing to a highly industrialized one.
h e scale, speed and scope of China's boom have been well-documented
by journalists, researchers, and artists. h e Canadian Edward Burtynsky
photographs quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, the h ree Gorges
Dam, and Shanghai's urban destruction and renewal. h e documentary fi lm
Manufactured Landscapes
follows Burtynsky to China as he photographs its
manufacturing and industrial revolution. h e fi lm opens with a ten-minute
single shot of an immense factory fl oor more than a kilometer long. Burtyn-
sky's photographs of the recycling yards capture epically high mounds of
electronic waste scoured by women and children in search of materials for
reuse and resale.
Much of U.S. “e-waste” (monitors and cell phones, for example) is sent to
China, where this waste leaks lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, and
polyvinyl chlorides. h ese are known to have negative health eff ects, from
brain damage to kidney disease to mutations and cancers. Activist groups
like the Basel Action Network and Greenpeace, along with mainstream
environmental organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council,
