Outsourcing for Sustainable Development?

While the devastation wrought by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf cannot be understated, the truth is environmental destruction - especially in habitable regions - on this scale is the exception in the United States, not the norm. While few would argue that the US is currently on a path of Sustainable Development, many would argue that strict domestic environmental legislation, makes creating the sort of heavy pollution for which countries such as China regularly garner negative attention all but impossible. The truth, however, is grayer. The US hasn't gotten significantly greener since the wave of environmental legislation of the 1970's, but rather we've simply taken our dirtiest, most polluting industries abroad - even ones that purport to be green.

Take for example electronic waste. Our increasing dependence on, and rapid consumption of a seemingly endless stream of portable mp3 players, digital televisions, computers and cell phones, - according to JD Power and Associates most of us hold onto our cell phones for a mere 17.7 months - has also created an equally endless stream of waste. Yet these devices which we treat as disposable are a durable mix of chemicalized plastics and heavy metals that are not only toxic, but also nominally valuable.

Enter the booming business of electronics recycling. Recycling certainly sounds green.

And yet, because most electronics are not designed with disassembly in mind, and because labor overseas is often cheaper than in the states, the process of electronic recycling is often environmentally toxic. In Guiyu, the electronic waste capital of China, which is home to some 5500 electronics recycling businesses the industry has destroyed the ground water fouling it with lead and other heavy metals. Children in the region are often racked with lead poisoning, it has one of the highest rates has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world and an elevated rate of miscarriages.

And yet, eighty percent of the electronics they disassemble come not from China but rather from overseas, including from the United States. One might argue that if the disassembly had to occur domestically, companies would rapidly find it behooved them to find alternatives to the toxic stew of flame retardants and conductors they currently use. But with the cost being born by those who are least in position to complain, the pressure to come up with environmentally benign solutions is less pressing.

Dumping our e-waste on developing nations is not the only indirect effect of our consumption. We are increasingly turning to Canada to supply us with, not only natural gas, but also oil. And yet, the oils wrested from the tar sands of British Columbia are some of the foulest sources of oil on the planet. For every four barrels ground out of the earth the equivalent of a fifth barrel worth of oil is burned in the attempt. According to Circle of Blue, the US EPA says that greenhouse gas emissions from tars sands mining to finished gasoline and diesel are 82 percent higher than from conventional sources of oil. The process also destroys the regions forests - the way to get at the tar sands is to chop down the forests and mine it, while also polluting the region's rivers and streams. A 1,661-mile, 7 billion dollar pipeline designed to link Alberta, Canada to the gulf cost, if built is likely to do little to improve the environmental situation. And like in China those who are suffering the most from our consumption are those with the least power - mining for the Alberta Tar sands disproportionately negatively affects Canada's indigenous population.

As global warming has shown, pollution does not honor national borders. That we can continue to foul the planet - though perhaps not our immediate nest- by virtue of our consumption is an issue that we must tackle head on if we ever which to embrace truly sustainable development. We cannot allow people anywhere to suffer the repercussions of our consumption.