Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Source: Author's own collection
Disassembly is associated with the release of lead,
mercury and chlorinated dioxins, which are again
dangerous to human health and the environment
(
Ghana Business News
, 2009). The reasons for this
international toxic exchange are predominantly
economic: the treatment of toxic waste in Africa
costs approximately $40 per tonne, compared to
$2000 per tonne in more economically developed
countries (Koné, 2010). When it comes to the
global environmental relations of cities, this trade
in e-waste is particularly telling. It is, of course,
products such as computers and mobile phones
that provide the high-tech infrastructures upon
which the service industries of post-industrial
cities depend. Their low-cost disposal in less
economically developed countries is emblematic
of how effective modern cities have become at
redistributing their unwanted products down-
stream and downwind.
The environmental Kuznets' Curve provides
us with a helpful context in and through which
to consider the changing nature of urban-
environment relations. Some have been critical of
the environmental Kuznets' Curve because of the
ways in which it suggests a positive relationship
exists between urban economic development and
environmental protection (at least in the long
term). Others have questioned the extent to which
the curve can be applied to the rapidly paced
forms of urban development that are now being
experienced in less economically developed
countries (where rapid increases in environmental
degradation may outpace the ability of govern-
ments and technology to combat them) (see
Marcotullio, 2007). When the environmental
Kuznets' Curve is combined with an appreciation
of the increasingly globalized nature of urban-
environment relations it becomes possible to see
